Same House, Different Me
I barely finished knocking before the door swung open. Dylan blocked the entry, already grinning, already somehow in on the joke of my arrival. He looked exactly the same: hair sun-bleached on top, faded tank top, shorts that made a point of showing his knees, the same awkwardly perfect tan lines. His face was so familiar I didn’t register it at first, the way you never really see the color of your own room.
“Is that all you brought?” he asked, looking at my backpack.
I set my bag on the tiled entry and let him close the gap for a hug. His arms were wirier than I remembered, but the hold felt the same: the briefest squeeze, then a half-step back to take inventory. “Should I have packed more? Are there evening gowns required for dinner?” I asked.
“Not unless you’re planning to upstage my mom,” Dylan said. “And for the record, you used to travel with, like, three bags just for a two-day meet.”
I rolled my eyes. “Because I never knew if you’d bring clothes or just mooch off mine. Which, let me see,” I gave him a once-over, “that’s definitely my shirt.”
He didn’t bother checking. “You left it here. It’s mine now by Arizona law.” Dylan stepped aside and swept his arm like a matador. “Come on. Mom will lose it if she finds out you’re standing outside in this heat.”
The foyer was even colder than the outside, a shock of filtered air after the August sun. I took in the old family photos, the cluttered runner, the shoe rack with exactly three pairs of shoes, one pair I recognized as Grant’s, but didn’t dwell on it. Dylan kept up a commentary as he led me in.
“You want water, Gatorade, or a La Croix? Dad’s obsessed with the coconut kind now. It’s psychotic.”
I shook my head. “Just water’s fine.” We’d barely crossed the living room when Dylan swerved into the kitchen, grabbed two glasses, and filled them with ice cubes before adding the water, exactly the way I’d always liked it. The kind of detail that would’ve meant nothing to someone else, but that Dylan, even after a year apart, remembered and executed without ceremony.
He slid one across the counter. “Sit. Rehydrate. You look good, by the way.” His eyes scanned my face, hair, arms, everywhere but my eyes. “Like, LA fits you. Is that the college athlete diet, or just the gay diet?”
I snorted. “It’s called the journalism major stress diet. And maybe some lap swimming.”
He was already snacking from a bag of chips, hand deep in the bag as if I might steal them. “I would’ve guessed you’d lose weight, not come back ripped.”
I shrugged, feeling a sudden urge to flex even though that was never my thing. “I had to keep up with the frat boys. My brand is ‘subtly intimidating.’”
“Ah yes, classic Caleb: low-key Adonis.” Dylan made a show of sighing, then actually looked at me for a second, more sincerely this time. “I’m glad you came, man.”
I felt something shift, maybe the air pressure from the A/C or just the realization that I’d missed him more than I’d admitted. “Me too.”
We let a long silence settle. It wasn’t awkward, exactly, but charged with things we both remembered and a few we’d probably never say out loud. I sipped my water, watched condensation bead on the glass, and tried to process how the kitchen felt both exactly as I’d left it and somehow irrevocably changed. Dylan’s mom had swapped out the bar stools for newer ones, but the counter still had that cigarette burn from when his uncle tried to light a birthday candle with a Zippo.
“So,” Dylan said, “what’s the most LA thing you’ve done so far?”
I thought about it. “I interviewed a drag queen in full rhinestones for the campus TV station.”
He whistled. “Nice. What’d you wear?”
“Not enough, apparently. My co-anchor said I looked like a high school PE teacher in comparison.”
Dylan grinned. “Hot.”
I laughed, and he joined me, and for a second I forgot we were in the middle of suburbia, that we weren’t sixteen and planning how to sneak beer from the outdoor fridge. Dylan poured the last of the chips into his mouth, wiped his hands on the hem of my—his—shirt, and finally made eye contact.
“You’re not nervous, are you?” he asked, softer now.
“Why would I be nervous?” I replied, a little too quick.
He shrugged. “You haven’t been back for a while. I didn’t know if it would be weird.”
“It’s not,” I said. “At least, not any weirder than usual.”
That satisfied him. He put our glasses in the sink and gestured toward the sliding door. “Let’s go outside. I want to see if you still know how to cannonball.”
I grinned. “Is that a challenge?”
“Only if you’re not scared of making a scene.”
He led the way, but I paused just long enough to notice the way the hall mirror reflected us side by side: Dylan with his mess of tan limbs, me with my swimmer’s build and perpetual summer skin, looking more like brothers than some actual brothers I knew. For a second, I wondered if Grant would recognize me, if he’d still see the kid who used to try and beat him at pushups in the backyard, or if I’d be someone else now.
The patio door slid open with a screech, and the scent of chlorine and desert flowers hit me at once. The pool glittered, refracting the late-afternoon light onto the water-stained concrete. Dylan had already peeled off his shirt and was halfway to the diving board before he called over his shoulder:
“You coming, or did California make you soft?”
I dropped my bag on the patio table, took off my shoes, and followed, feeling the rush of anticipation, like that first moment on the blocks, just before the starting gun. Dylan waited, arms folded, trying to look intimidating and failing completely.
“Loser goes first,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow. “You mean winner, right? No sense in letting you set the bar.”
We were already moving, orbiting each other with the ease of old teammates, finding a rhythm that felt like no time had passed at all. Dylan executed a decent cannonball, soaking the back wall. I climbed up, measured the distance, and launched myself: tucked in tight, water exploding up to the coping. He splashed me as soon as I surfaced.
“Still got it,” he said, grinning.
We drifted in the deep end, arms on the ledge, breathing hard and letting the sun bake our shoulders. For a minute we didn’t talk; there was just the sound of water and the occasional call of a mourning dove from a neighbor’s yard.
Dylan broke the silence, eyes fixed on a spot behind my head. “Grant’s around. He’s here for the weekend, too.”
“Oh?” I tried to sound casual, but the name put a weird, unexpected flutter in my stomach.
“Yeah. He’s been doing construction shit in San Diego, so he’s huge now. Like, can’t-fit-through-doorways huge.”
I snorted. “He was already a beast. Tell me he’s not still doing those CrossFit things.”
“Every day. You two should arm wrestle for old time’s sake.” Dylan’s expression was sly, but not unkind.
I flicked water at him. “I’d win, obviously.”
“Obviously,” he repeated, but his voice had a new tone, something teasing, but almost respectful.
We climbed out, dripping onto the hot stone. I reached for a towel, but Dylan beat me to it, tossing one across my face. He stood there, towel around his shoulders, looking at me like he was memorizing something. I didn’t know what to say, so I just held the towel and waited for him to speak.
“I missed this,” he said finally. “Us. You know?”
I nodded, feeling the truth of it, and the sudden, sharp ache of nostalgia for something I hadn’t realized I’d lost. “Me too.”
He punched my arm, lighter than he could have, and smiled. “Come inside. I’ll text Grant to let him know you’re here.”
We left the pool behind, trailing wet footprints through the yard, and I tried not to think about how much I wanted to see what “huge” actually looked like.
