Next of Kin (Next #1)

by Hannah Bonam-Young

“Mine was fantastic, thanks for asking. I had this amazing dream…maybe you could translate it for me?” Warren’s smugness is radiating off him, and whether I choose to look at him or not, I can see it. He wants to get under my skin and into my bed, apparently. “Imagine it. This woman and I were kissing, right? And it was incredible, like damn near perfect, but then—”

“We can both say we won’t kiss again, fine. I can be as pious as the next guy. But that won’t change the way you look at me. It certainly won’t change how I look at you. We’ll definitely be doing it again at some point—probably a lot more than kissing too. So, as far as I see it, we can either fight it—feel this tension grow and grow until we can’t control ourselves like horny teenagers—or we can call it.”

“January fifteenth…. I get to take you on a date,” Warren says. I roll my eyes, but he doesn’t let up. I pause. He’d plan a date four months in advance? A date with me? He didn’t even want to be my friend five weeks ago.

What did I agree to? Calvin is nice, sure. He is definitely cute. But I don’t feel tension pulling in my belly when I look at him. I don’t feel edible.

“Look, it was a good kiss—no denying that…but you’re probably right. It would be a disaster, me and you.” Wait, I didn’t say that. “We wouldn’t work. I’d mess it up for Luke and Willow—then what? Scrubs is a much safer choice.”

He picks up the plate of now cold pancakes and places them on the kitchen counter. He’d only set two plates at the table. Did he make breakfast just for us? Not the usual breakfast either. Was this…more than pancakes? I follow him to the kitchen.

“So January fifteenth…” There’s a question there, but I don’t ask it fully. “Consider it canceled.” That was fast. My first date was four months away; now, not at all. I don’t attempt to mask the disappointment that settles into my eyes and threatens tears.

“Someday, Warren, I’m going to tell you who you are.”

At least they’re in sync. Warren and I break eye contact to look at our hands—which, at some point, had begun reaching for each other.

My eyes fixate on his hand. The same hand that last night picked me up and lifted me to the spot it rests on now. I lower the bottle without looking away from his thumb, which now rubs against the front of the sink. I remember the feel of it on my tongue and swallow. When did my breaths become shallow?

Warren’s hand tightens around the sink, the veins and muscles of his hand shifting. He knows what he’s doing, I’m sure of it. I think of how it felt to cover his hand with mine, like tiny fireworks in my blood vessels. My eyes trace the vein protruding from his wrist up to the elbow where his T-shirt sleeve rests.

He looks down at me with slightly parted lips and bedroom eyes. I suck in a breath as I prepare for whatever Warren is about to say. “Chloe….” Warren says my name like a prayer.

“A moment? Oh, no, not at all, no!” The lady doth protest too much. “Okay. I’d rather know now than later. I’ve had roommates before who linked up. It can get kinda intense when you’re under one roof.”

I may have blown my chances with Calvin. I don’t blame him at all. If I’d walked in on him having an exchange like ours in the kitchen, I’d probably not have been courteous enough to sit through an entire movie or make small talk. I’d have just left. Plus, for as lovely as Calvin is, that kiss did absolutely nothing for me. Maybe, once the dust settles, we can be friends.

My mom had lost her ever-loving mind when I told her about Willow. She told me all the ways I would fail, in literal bullet point format, if I attempted next-of-kin care. The top of her list was my finances. So I’m certainly not going to be honest and tell her that TeamUp was the only way to have Willow here. I know she means well—they both do.

Then I was plunged into a family who valued the opposite of most of those things and whom I was desperate to impress. They tamed me. I heard my mother say that to her friends once as they sat around our dining table. “We’ve tamed her.” Like I was a dog they’d gotten from the pound. The other adults laughed in response, not knowing I was on the other side of the door.

“Whatever you want to do, I’ll do it. I’ll follow your rules, Chloe. I don’t want to mess this up for anyone. Though…” His bravado returns ever so slightly. “I could definitely try the same argument I used on Luke to convince him it was a good idea…if you’d like.” Don’t beg with your eyes, Chloe.

“So, that argument?” I can’t help it; I desperately want to know. He pauses, giving me a once-over. It’s as if he’s understanding for the first time that I’m interested in him, like that hasn’t been entirely obvious. A crooked smile forms, and his eyes fixate on my lips for a second too long. He shakes himself out of it before speaking.

“I told him that you made it impossible to stay away. That everything about you is pulling me in.” He shakes his head, a smile of disbelief spreading across his lips. “I may have referred to you as a whirlpool…as cheesy as that may be.”

“I could resist, try to swim out, try to avoid it—but it would be easier to float. And, for the first time, I’m not scared to.” Warren’s blue eyes look up, swirling with mixed emotion. Hopeful yet weary. “I’ve had a lot of people come and go in my life—most of those I was supposed to trust failed me.” His eyes close and hold a moment before he opens them. “I’d be an idiot to let myself get hurt. So I make judgments. I put people into boxes. I let my anger get the best of me and push them away. But you keep showing up. You seem to understand.”

“I really like you, Warren. I do. Probably a lot more than I’d care to admit.” I smile, but his face remains neutral, like he’s waiting on my every word. “I just wonder if for now, with everything hanging in the balance, we just try being friends. I know you said you didn’t want to be my friend, and let me tell you, that was quite a swoonworthy line…oddly enough. But, I can’t gamble Willow.”

“I’m not saying no to…us. I really want to say yes. But I think we need to wait until we both feel secure that anything more between us would be a safe bet.” As the time since Warren last spoke grows longer, so do my insecurities. I try to push them back down, but they absorb me further with every attempt.

“About us not fitting, not working….” My voice trails off. Warren looks up at me from under his brow. “I don’t know why I said those things, Chloe. I’m sorry.” A muscle in Warren’s neck ticks. “It was stupid. I say stupid things when I’m mad or…jealous.”

“My roommates, from university, didn’t even know I was adopted. How messed up is that? I never once had to share that part of myself with people, because I could avoid the shit my birth mom put me through. I could run away from it.”

“But we still landed in the same place. Not through any choices we made. That sucks, equally, for both of us.” He reaches out to me with an open palm and I give him my hand. “You never have to do that with me. Show me the messy parts, okay? God knows, I’ve shown you mine.” He winces.

I look down at our hands, intertwined and resting between us. Have I ever fit anywhere quite so easily? “We can be friends…for now,” Warren says as he pulls his hand away. My foolish heart wants it back.

“But you let me know when you’re ready for the real thing.” He leans in, close enough for me to feel his breath against my cheek. “I’m patient when I need to be, dove.”

“I may or may not have had a Poison Ivy poster on my wall that got taken away at our last foster home together.” Warren does his best to look indifferent as he speaks, but fails. I grin but push my lips together in an attempt not to tease. Is he blushing? Warren embarrassed? I never thought I’d see the day. “So I should probably retire the costume then.” I raise my eyebrows at Luke as he covers a laugh.

Since the flirting ban, we have operated like a well-oiled machine. Though personally, I feel like the little engine chanting “I think I can” as it struggles up the hill every day.

Even while we remain safely platonic, I can’t help but consider what will happen when, or if, we both agree it’s safe to go on that date. I don’t give a lot of thought to the date itself, if I’m being honest.

About ten days ago, I started noticing little additions to his car. In the backseat, he installed the car seat’s base so we don’t have to use the safety belt each time. A few days after that, a mirror that attaches to the headrest and points down at her appeared. Then, the newest addition, an emergency kit in the trunk. Filled with items that would tide us over until he could get to me in the event of a flat tire or some other issue. Each one filled up a tiny space in my heart. Little gestures that made me feel seen, and more importantly, made me realize that Willow doesn’t only have me in her corner.

“Chlo, you’re so strong.” She pulls away, one hand remaining clasped on my arm. “I wish you had told us about how you grew up. Honestly, I was always kind of intimidated by how perfect you are—knowing this sorta makes me love you more.”

Mama. No one has called me that before. That’s what I am, right? Sort of? I mean, I’m her sister, of course, but—the title of mom feels so much more fitting. Another thing to talk through with Odette, I suppose.

Emily compared it to telling new friends that she’s transgender. No one is owed your history, but there is trust in telling, she had said. She called it an authentic exchange. I liked that.

Something about the combination of Warren looking up at me with concern, the gesture of making me tea, the early-morning quiet, the condensation on the windows blocking the view from outside—it all makes me feel safe to let my emotions run free.

As Warren talks, I put my tea down on the side table and go to my knees on the floor in front of him. I shuffle closer until my arms are wrapped around his shoulders and my forehead is pressed into the side of his neck. He took the day off work for us. Warren places his mug behind him, then wraps both arms around my waist. I twist, and with a small look of permission, sit across his lap. I curl myself into him. I cry. He holds.

“No one is going to take her from you, Chloe…” Warren’s voice is stern. “I’d love to see them try.”

“Is this okay?” He shuffles his lap and holds me to him with one arm curling around my lower back, the other across my stomach, both meeting in a firm clasp at my hip. “Perfect,” I mumble. Like a weighted blanket for my soul.

I told them about the day Connie didn’t show at the bus, the day she got custody back and we got ice cream, the day she hadn’t taken me to school one too many times without checking in, the day she ran out of chances. I bared my soul to them. It felt ugly but real. I hated it during, but afterward I felt a million weights lift off me. An authentic exchange.

Show me your messy, Warren had said, and I was starting to believe he truly meant it. This morning confirmed it, once and for all.

“I’m so glad you’re here.” I uncurl myself from his neck and sit up in his lap, reaching to place my palm on the stubble that surrounds his sharp jaw. I rub my thumb across the hollow of his cheekbone. “Thank you,” I say, looking into his eyes.

“Chloe, we already live together.” His tone is amused, but his face remains focused. “I know, just—it feels different. What about…” “I think if we can both agree that no matter what, we stick it out here until Luke graduates, then we’d be okay.” Please stay after that too.

“I want to keep all of you,” Warren says, blue eyes pinning me to where I sit. He rubs both thumbs over my own. “I want to keep all of you too.” I smile softly.

He jerks back, eyes narrowing. “No way, Chloe. I wouldn’t do that. I’m not going anywhere.” Does he know how long I have wanted to hear someone say that to me? To feel in my bones that they mean it?

Warren stands and offers a hand to me. I put my hand in his, and he pulls me into him. Our eyes meet, and I long to kiss him. To feel his firm but gentle lips on mine. But there is something uneasy stirring in him that gives me pause.

“But you want to stay too?” I have to be sure. Warren takes his right hand off the steering wheel and places it on my knee. I put my hand on top and follow the hills and valleys of his knuckles with my fingers. “I want a lot of things, Chloe. But…that’s a conversation for another day.”

“When I was in high school, I played drums. A buddy and I started a band. We did local gigs mostly, one festival as an opener for this guy who was scouted at the same bar we used to frequent. We had to have fake IDs to play. Anyway, they’re not called Leaps and Bounds anymore—they left the name when they left for a European tour.”

“The drum solo on the fourth song…that’s you?” He licks his lips and his brow is furrowed as he turns to face me, stopped at a red light. “You listened to it that much?” “Yes. That song’s my favorite. The drums especially. Warren…you’re incredible.”

Warren pushes the stroller to the entrance, and as we get inside, he reaches for my hand. I’m not sure if it’s for my comfort or if it just felt right. It does feel right. I could get used to this, the feeling of not trudging through appointments, difficult days, or fears alone. That thought pulls me out of my body, enough to feel the burden ease as I look down at my hand wrapped in his.

He plays with Willow’s hands as I hold her body flush against my front. He is the happiest I have ever seen him, twinkling eyes and broad smile. Because of Willow. Dr. O’Leary should come back to check my heart—it’s certainly beating too fast. My mind fixates on a very different type of PDA.