Inheritance

said, feeling like a kindergartner in comparison to Riley.

“Hi,” Riley said, and then turned back to David. “So are you okay? I was so worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” David said.

Reese sipped her drink and studied Riley surreptitiously as she flirted with David. Riley, objectively, was gorgeous. That dress and those shoes might look trashy on someone else, but on her they looked sophisticated. Though most of the girls were dressed more casually than Riley, she seemed quite comfortable in her outfit. She had the demeanor of someone who knew when people were looking at her, and she enjoyed it. Watching her leaning into David’s space, though, Reese didn’t think that Riley looked like his type. She was too polished. Too fake. David seemed a little uncomfortable with her, responding to her with one- or two-word answers.

By the time David extricated himself from the conversation with Riley, Reese had drunk half her cup of punch and the kitchen was beginning to seem a bit blurry. When he grabbed Reese’s free hand to pull her with him out of the kitchen, Reese saw Riley giving her a sharp, almost jealous glance. A burst of irritation went through her, and she wasn’t sure if it was her emotion or David’s. He led her through the back door and onto a broad deck, where clumps of people were gathered together talking and laughing. She welcomed the cool night air on her warm face. She asked David, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Riley gets to me sometimes.”

“Why?” She felt an emotion pass through him like a thin wire: resistance. “You don’t have to tell me,” she said quickly.

He shook his head. “It’s okay. She’s just hard to deal with when she gets like that. Pushy.” He drew her toward the edge of the deck, where they leaned against the railing. “It’s a nice night,” he said, changing the subject.

“Yeah.” The fog that had blanketed Chinatown was absent here, a benefit of San Francisco’s many microclimates. “How does Eric get away with this big of a party?” Reese asked, looking around.

“His parents are in Korea on a business trip. I don’t think they care, honestly. He gets away with a lot of things.”

A guy Reese recognized from the soccer team came over to talk to David, and though he greeted her also, she didn’t have much to contribute to the conversation. She continued to drink her punch as a steady stream of people came out onto the deck, several of them veering over to say hi to David. Some of them tried to talk to Reese, but she was bad at small talk; she always had been. Besides, David had slung his arm around her shoulders, probably in an effort to make her feel included—or to show that they were together—but all it did was make her feel him: his body, once so foreign to her but now increasingly familiar; the beat of his heart; a sense of anticipation rising between them. We don’t have to stay for long, he had said. The punch made her pleasantly woozy, and she had to lean into David so that she didn’t wobble on her feet. Her hand snaked around his waist, her fingers sliding over his hip. Heat flared inside him, and she felt a bit breathless. She finished her punch and carefully set the cup on the railing. The world seemed to tilt, and she grabbed at David.

“David,” she said. David.

His hand tightened on her shoulder.

I feel weird.

He pulled away briefly, and the air rushed between them, cool and refreshing. The noise of the party seemed to crescendo and she had to back away from the sound. “I’m sorry, I think I need to go someplace quieter,” she said.

She saw concern on his face. “Okay.” He apologized to his friends and said, “Let’s go for a walk.”

She linked her arm with his and they walked down the steps off the deck. The property was long and rectangular, and solar-powered lanterns marked the edges of a path that curved down the length of the yard. At the far end she stopped to look back. Eric’s house was lit up like magic.

“Hey,” David said, brushing a lock of her hair away from her face. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, sorry. I think that punch must have been really strong.” Her head felt fuzzy.

“Do you need some water?”

“Maybe later.” She looked up at him. His eyes reflected the lights from the house, but most of his face was in shadow. She reached up to cup her hand around his cheek; his skin was warm. He covered her hand with his, turning her palm so that he could kiss it. It was so gentle, like a moment in a storybook. She wanted to cry.

“Are you sad?” he asked softly.

“No.” Everything inside her felt thick and heavy, all her emotions concentrated into a dense, sweet syrup. She pulled his head down to kiss him, and the moment his mouth touched hers she was overcome. All she wanted to do was kiss him. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing his body against hers. She had never imagined that kissing could be like this. Like being in his body at the same time she was in hers. She knew what he was going to do as he did it. His hands slid down her back, pulling up the fabric of her shirt. His fingers touched her skin, sending a shock through her body. He pushed her backward and she banged into something—a wall—and for a breathless second he parted from her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

There was a door behind her. He reached around her and turned the knob. “Privacy,” he said, and led her inside.

They were in a shed. He closed the door, but a small window near the ceiling let in light from the party at the other end of the yard. Flowerpots and buckets were stacked on the floor, and a wooden workbench was built up against the back wall. David lifted her onto the workbench, and as his hands tightened around her waist and her feet left the ground, she whispered again, “What are you doing?” But she knew the answer.

His hands were on the warm skin of her thighs, pushing up the fabric of her skirt, and he pressed his body between her legs as he kissed her. For the first time in her life, she understood why girls wore skirts. The muddled haze in her head had changed. It was focused now on only one thing: on drawing David closer to her, on touching him. All her senses were amplified, as if the volume in her body had been turned all the way up, and she could hear nothing but the pounding of their hearts in unison. His mouth was on her neck, making her shiver. Her hands were on his back, sliding up beneath his shirt, over the curve of muscle around his spine, over his shoulder blades. The touch of her hands on his skin was like stoking a bonfire. She could feel him roaring, his body surrounding her. He kissed her again and again, hungrily, and she only wanted to drag him closer. In this space, with him, she could completely lose herself. She didn’t need to exist anymore; she was merely a vessel for their connection.

Dimly, somewhere inside her, a warning bell rang. This was nothing she was ready for. It felt incredible; she was more alive than she had ever been; but who was she? She had forgotten her name. His fingers were unbuttoning her shirt, and she wanted him to do it—she yearned for him to do it—but part of her pushed back. A small, distant voice.

The last time she had been in this situation, something had gone horribly wrong.

Amber, pulling off her shirt as if she were plucking the petals from a flower. The softness of her skin, her mouth.

Abruptly, David stopped what he was doing. “Reese,” he said, his voice thick and dark.

She remembered herself. Her eyes blinked open, and in the dim interior of the shed she saw him breathing heavily, inches from her, his hands still on her shirt. Her hands were still on his back, and she felt the confusion inside him. The sudden, unexpected questions.

She pulled her hands away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered in horror. He had seen her memory of Amber too. “It just happened. I don’t know why.”

He stepped back. They weren’t touching anymore. “Are you still in love with her?”

There was a rushing sound in her head, as if she were holding a conch shell to her ear. “No,” she said sharply. “I was never in love with her.” But even as she said the words she could hear the lie in them. “I mean, I don’t think I was,” she amended, and guilt burned through her. He moved farther away, backing into a pile of ceramic pots that thunked together. She slid off the workbench, and as her feet touched the ground in her new boots, the whole world spun. She grabbed the edge of the table. She was drunk; that had to be it. That one drink—what was in it? “I didn’t mean to think of her,” she said, her voice breaking. “I swear, it was like some glitch in my brain.”

He didn’t answer for a minute, and she was terrified that she had screwed this up without even meaning to.