Want Me. Jo Leigh

seen each other since college. All those games to catch up on.”

      “At least he was funny.”

      “Humor’s on the top of my list, too,” Shannon said. “Along with shared values. And kindness.”

      “Don’t forget great in the sack,” Ariel said, still craning her neck to gaze at Nate.

      “I can’t help you with that one.”

      “You’ve never …?”

      “No. Nothing remotely like that.”

      “Pity.”

      “Not really. He left when I was thirteen.”

      “God, it’s broiling in here. Can’t they open some windows?”

      “I don’t think it’ll help. There’s a hundred and fifty drunk people dancing like fools.”

      Ariel grinned at her. “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? I want my wedding to be just like this. Friendly, open. Plenty of booze and good food. If I ever have a wedding.”

      “That’s what the trading cards are for.” Shannon thought about how Rebecca Thorpe and Jake Donnelly were living together now. Part-time in Brooklyn and part-time in the Upper East Side. Shannon had the feeling they’d end up married. They were wildly in love.

      “You, too, huh?”

      Shannon must have let her envy show. “Yes, I would very much like to be married. So far my dates have been fun. But no magic.”

      Ariel shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder if magic is too much to hope for.”

      “Of course it’s not,” Shannon said. “A little bit of magic is in every good love story. I’m sure of it.”

      THE BROWNSTONE WAS A RELIC of a New York long gone. All three stories in the row house belonged to the Fitzgerald family, and since the third grade it had been more a home to Nate than his own.

      At noon, the taxi pulled away, leaving him with his suitcase and duffel bag. The traditional wedding hangover lingered, but even so, approaching the red door on 3rd Avenue in Gramercy Park made him feel like a kid. The last time he’d been there had been pre-NYU. Before Danny went to study graphic design in Boston.

      He banged on the knocker, the one Mr. Fitz had replaced after the Baseball Incident. Nate liked this one better. It was in the shape of a shillelagh, and it was loud.

      Mrs. Fitz opened the door and, yeah, he was ten again, or fourteen, or eight, and all the years in between and around because she looked the same to him. Her hair was mostly gray now, but for a pale woman who seemingly had more freckles than skin, he saw remarkably few signs of the passing years. Then there was her frown. She wore it most of the time, and it put some people off. But he knew better. That was Danny’s mom, worrying about her brood. She’d always said life in her house was most frightening when it got quiet, and she’d been right.

      “Get a move on, Nathan—” and there was a hint of a brogue even though she’d been born and raised in New York “—you’re letting in all the flies.”

      He dragged his rolled case and duffel bag across the threshold into the entry hall, then put the duffel on the big wooden bench, almost expecting his snow boots to be underneath on the boot mat. “It’s good to be home,” he said.

      When he turned to smile at Mrs. Fitz, she was smiling right back, a rare and wonderful sight. “As long as we live here, boyo.”

      He wanted to throw his arms around her neck, it was so terrific to see her again. She’d been a major part of his life, and he didn’t think of her often enough. But as big as their hearts were, the Fitzgeralds weren’t hug-gers. Except for Shannon apparently.

      “I imagine you’ll be wanting lunch. You should eat first because Myles and Alice are still in his old room. Everyone slept in after the party, the drunken hooligans.”

      “Who you calling a hooligan?”

      It was Danny, coming down the stairs, looking like a madman with his hair sticking out all over the place, unshaven, wearing some god-awful zombie T-shirt.

      “Ah, I see why,” Danny said. “We’re in for it now.”

      “You two can set the dining room table.” Mrs. Fitz headed toward her kitchen, but she made sure they heard. “My God, there’s nine of us. You’ll need to bring in chairs.”

      “So the whole crew stayed over?”

      “To be fair,” Danny said, scratching his belly as if he was alone in his bedroom, “Shannon and Brady live here. But Tim and me and the married ones, we had to stay. Nobody was taking a train at three in the morning.”

      Nate slipped off his coat and hung it on one of the wooden pegs that lined the entry hall. “Whatever happened to Gayle?”

      Danny’s brow furrowed. “Boston Gayle?”

      Nate nodded.

      “She kicked me out while I was in my boxers. Thought I’d slept with her best friend. Truth was, I had, but we didn’t do anything but sleep. Completely innocent.

      Gayle didn’t care, though.” He started walking to the kitchen, now scratching his jean-covered butt. “She called me an evil bastard who had no class.”

      “Go figure.” Nate trailed after his buddy, and everywhere his gaze rested he found another piece of his past. He’d fallen against the edge of the massive wooden dining room table, running when there’d been a very strict rule against it. In his defense, Myles had been chasing him, and Myles was six years older and mean.

      Nate walked through the kitchen to the pantry door and swung it open. Ignoring the massive amounts of stores Mrs. Fitz kept on hand, enough to feed an army, instead he checked out the marks on the height chart etched on the wall. There was his name, alongside Tim and Myles and Brady and Danny. No Shannon, though. He hadn’t remembered that. Still didn’t know why.

      “Please tell me there’s coffee made.”

      Nate knew it was Shannon behind him, but her voice was as grown-up as the woman herself. Despite his complete and total awareness that she was no longer a child, his memories were in flux. He peeked out from the pantry to see her in her belted robe, her hair hanging over her right shoulder.

      It shouldn’t have been real, that color, but it was. They’d gone to Coney Island or out to the seashore, and no one ever got lost because all they had to do was look for that firecracker hair in the crowd.

      Of course, she’d always gotten sunburned, even after Mrs. Fitz slathered her with goop. Nothing could protect that white skin, not umbrellas, not T-shirts, not the awful zinc on her nose.

      “Oh.” Her hand went to her hair, then just as quickly lowered. “You’re here.”

      He came out of the pantry. “Just arrived. Currently on table-setting duty.”

      “My mother’s a slave driver.”

      “I heard that, missy. You’d best get your coffee and get dressed. We have a houseful to feed.”

      Shannon turned to her mom standing by the stove. “There isn’t one person in this house who isn’t capable of fixing their own lunch. Not one.” She had her hands on her hips, and Nate was taken aback again that she’d developed so many curves. It didn’t seem possible. But then, he’d done some changing, too.

      “You know your brothers. Left to their own devices, they’ll eat nothing but garbage.”

      “Then that’s what they deserve. Garbage.” She turned back to Nate. “Don’t bother asking who buys the candy and chips and cookies and cake and every horrible, calorie- and fat-laden food in New York.”

      “I wouldn’t think of it.”

      “Then you learned something hanging around here all those years.”