Hothouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

he brought home thirty-five hundred little swatches of quilts and slippers and whiffs of baklava and bitter home-perm hair junk that made up the lives and deaths he crashed through with some regularity.
    And I think, That was the hero stuff. I know, that was the hero stuff.
    â€œNice work,” Adrian says, his chin on my left shoulder as I dry a tall textured avocado-green glass. “You are the kind of guest who is always a joy. Thanks for coming.”
    â€œThanks for having me. And now, you are brooming everyone out, correct?”
    â€œLargely correct,” he says.
    We turn from the sink, head out of the empty kitchen toward the living room, Adrian snapping off the light behind us. The majority of people are gone, a handful of stragglers, straggling, waiting for me, apparently, which I particularly appreciate.
    â€œWhere is DJ?” I ask. Normally, I would not have asked. I am not my brother’s keeper, as I am barely my own, but there was an unsettling feeling about him to me, this evening, and I just want to see him all right.
    â€œHe’s all right,” Adrian says, snapping off that light as well and shepherding us out through the screened porch. “He said he would rather not go home. Asked if he could borrow the house.”
    I double-take, then figure why not. Home will be there tomorrow.
    â€œIs that within the rules?”
    â€œNot technically. But I’m not saying no to him, and you know, neither are my parents.”
    As we stand on the patio now, DJ’s voice floats down over us.
    â€œAnother fringe benefit,” he says.
    We turn to look up at him, and Melanie, leaning over the porch railing, with beers. “Thanks, Dad,” he says, holding up his beer in the direction of the wide ocean.
    It’s getting hard to distinguish between surf sounds and people gasping.
    â€œKeep a low profile,” Adrian advises the couple as he leaves them with his house.
    â€œHow low should I go?” DJ asks, his beaming grin and outstretched beer making him a pervy little Statue of Liberty.
    â€œJust get in the house,” Adrian snaps, and Melanie pulls the lad inside.
    As a bunch of friends walk up the beach, the high tide now snappling in one ear, I’m thinking that getting the girl is generally considered to be the high-water mark of a young man’s evening. There are, though, even finer, and rarer happenings, and one of them is when you recognize a moment when you have a breathtakingly great friend. When Adrian bumps up close and speaks to me over the crunch of tiny defenseless seashells, I have exactly one of those moments.
    â€œThat’s kind of shit, man,” he says. “Now you got no father and no date.”
    You have to be a breathtakingly great friend to say something like that.
    I continue looking straight ahead, the baby whitecaps flickering at my left peripheral, the luminous white sand doing similar off to the right. The girls, Jane and Lexa, let out gasp-squeals of horror and the guys, Burgess, Philby, and Cameron, make uh-oh noises down deep in their throats. Adrian, though, knows just how to proceed.
    Nudge. He prods me at the back of my shoulder. Then again, a little harder, then again until I lurch forward, and burst out laughing.
    â€œShe was not my date, jackass,” I say.
    He bear-hugs me from behind and lets me drag him along the sand as everybody exhales, laughs, and contributes to the discussion of what a slime Adrian is.
    â€œI’m sure you will do better tomorrow, Russ,” Cameron adds, “when girls see your imprints in the sand.”
    I look at my feet as I walk, seeing Adrian’s feet together dragging a deep trough between my footprints.
    â€œFine,” I say. “I’ll take all the help I can get. With you all marrying up at a worrying rate, I’m going to wind up having to take my mother to the prom.”
    â€œToo late,” Adrian says. “Your mom already asked me to take her.