At turns hilarious and gut-wrenching, this is a tremendously fun slow burn

her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too,
felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.
Hours may have passed before I heard a throat clear behind us, saw Dad appear. His frame blocked out
the sun, casting a cool shadow over where we lay.
I registered only once he was there that I had slowly shifted so I was lying with my head on Elliot’s
stomach, in our secluded stretch of sand. I pushed to sit up, awkwardly.
“What are you guys doing?”
“Nothing,” we said in unison.
I could hear immediately how guilty our joined answer made us sound.
“Really?” Dad asked.
“Really,” I answered, but he wasn’t looking at me anymore. He and Elliot were having some kind of male

---

Windtalker exchange that included prolonged eye contact, throat clearing, and probably some mysterious
form of direct communication between their Y chromosomes.
“We were just reading,” Elliot said finally, his voice shifting deeper midway through the sentence. I’m not
sure if this sign of his impending manliness was reassuring or damning as far as my dad was concerned.
“Seriously, Dad,” I said.
His eyes flickered to mine.
“Okay.” Finally he seemed to relax and squatted down next to me. “What are you reading?”
“A Wrinkle in Time.”
“Again?”
“It’s so good.”
He smiled at me, reaching out to swipe his thumb along my cheek. “Hungry?”
“Sure.”
Dad nodded and stood, making his way toward where Mr. Nick was busy building a fire.
A few seconds passed before it seemed like Elliot was able to exhale.
“Seriously. I think his palms are the size of my entire face.”
I imagined Dad’s hand gripping Elliot’s entire face, and for some reason the image was so comical it
made me laugh out a sharp cackle.
“What?” Elliot asked.
“Just, that image is funny.”
“Not if you’re me and he’s looking at you like he has a shovel with your name on it.”
“Oh, please.” I gaped at him.
“Trust me, Macy. I know dads and daughters.”
“Speaking of my dad,” I said, adjusting my head on his stomach to be more comfortable, “guess what I
found last week?”
“What?”
“He has dirty magazines. A lot of them.”
Elliot didn’t respond, but I definitely felt him shift beneath me.
“They’re in a basket on the top shelf in the far corner of his closet at the cabin. Behind the nativity
scene.” This last part felt somehow very important.
“That was oddly specific.” His voice vibrated along the back of my head, and goose bumps spread across
my arms.
“Well, that’s an oddly specific place to put something like that. Don’t you think?”
“Why were you in his closet?” he asked.
“That’s not the point, Elliot.”
“It’s precisely the point, Mace.”
“How?”
He placed a bookmark between the pages and sat up to face me, forcing me to sit up, too.
“He’s a man. A single man.” Elliot used the tip of his index finger to push his glasses up and held my
gaze sternly. “His bedroom is his fortress of solitude – his closet is his vault. You might as well have been
looking in his nightstand drawer or under his mattress.” My eyes widened. “What were you expecting to
find on the top shelf in the far corner of his closet behind the nativity scene?”
“Photo albums? Cherished mementos of a lost youth? Winter sweaters? Things of a parental nature?” I
paused, giving him a guilty smile. “My Christmas presents?”
Shaking his head, he turned back to his book. “Snooping will always end badly, Mace. Always.”
I considered this. Dad didn’t date much… well, ever, that I could think of, spending most of his time at
work or with me. I’d never given a moment of thought to this sort of thing where he was concerned. I found
the bent corner in my copy of A Wrinkle in Time and settled back onto the patch of grass behind me. “It’s
just… gross. That’s all.”
Elliot laughed: a loud, abrupt snort, followed by a shake of his head.
Glaring at him, I asked, “Did you just shake your head at me?”
“I did.” He used a finger to hold his place in the book. “Why is it gross? The fact that your dad has the
magazines or that he uses them to —”
Reflexively, I covered my ears. “Nope. Nope. I swear if you finish that sentence I will kick you in the
balls, Elliot Petropoulos. Not everyone does that.”
Elliot didn’t answer, just picked up his book and continued reading.
“Do they?” I asked weakly.
He turned his head to look at me. “Yes. They do.”
I was silent for a moment while I digested that. “So… you do that, too?”
The flush crawling up his neck betrayed his embarrassment, but after a few seconds, he nodded.
“A lot?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘a lot.’ I’m a fifteen-year-old guy with an awesome
imagination. That should pretty much answer your question.”
I felt like we’d discovered a new hallway door leading into a new room, which contained a new