As I leave, I vow to find a way to add an Ins and Outs of Tinder class to the activity list, no matter what my boss says.
23
Oliver
After a post-run shower, I head to Midtown and pace outside the jewelry store, practicing what to say to Summer.
The words roll off my tongue easily.
I’m sorry I was a dick earlier.
I’m sorry I took off like the jackhole the internet sometimes thinks I am.
Boom.
That shouldn’t be too hard.
I can handle all of that, no problem.
Except something nags at me as I wait on the street, while early evening crowds march past, heads bent, checking their phones on the way to their destinations.
Because I can picture myself asking Phoebe what to say to Summer.
And for the first time in a while, I can hear her crisp voice in my head, chiding me. That’s only half an apology, Ollie. Apologize all the way.
An image of my older sister giving me a sharp stare, telling me to apologize properly, takes shape before my eyes.
It’s the strangest thing to see and hear her so clearly, especially when I was listening for her the other night and heard nothing.
My God, how can the sharpness of her voice still be so clear after all this time?
Maybe because she’s right, you daft idiot.
I laugh out loud, because I hear that in her voice, crystal clear. And it makes me happier than I ever thought I would be to still recall her voice in these moments.
“What’s so funny?”
I jerk around. Summer’s here, head tilted, eyes curious, lips so damn pretty.
My heart pounds a little faster.
“I was just thinking of something funny Phoebe would say.” Then I’m smiling because I can share that with Summer. I don’t think I’ve ever been with a woman to whom I could admit how much I long sometimes to hear my sister’s voice.
After thirteen years, I shouldn’t still be so affected by her passing. And yet, every now and then, I am.
I don’t need to explain to Summer why I sometimes drift off, why I obsess over last meals, why I don’t mind one bit if she calls me Ollie.
Why I even like it when she does.
Because it’s a promise we made to Phoebe long ago.
Summer’s smile starts small then spreads as she steps closer. “Tell me what she would say. And then I have something to tell you.”
“Ladies first.”
She stands firm. “No. You.”
“Fine.”
I know what to say. I have to do this the right way. Because this friendship matters too much to give her half an apology.
I draw a fueling breath then begin. “I’m sorry I left so quickly this morning at the diner.” That’s easy to get out—what comes next is harder.
But then maybe not as hard as I anticipated, because the huge knot of anxiety comes undone when I continue with the cold, stark truth. “I left because I didn’t think I could stop kissing you if I stayed, and I care about you too deeply to jeopardize our friendship. Even though kissing you was absolutely fantastic and definitely not at all chaste. So I hope you’ll forgive me for being a dick.”
I try to read her reaction, try to find the secret to Summer in her brown eyes, but all I see is surprise.
Or more like shock.
Because her irises go wider than the moon, and she blinks several times, like she’s trying to make sense of my words.
For a second or two, her lips seem to twitch like she has a secret. But if she does, she’s keeping it in, because she schools her expression before she parts her lips to speak.
A ringing bell from the store interrupts us. A large man with a thick beard and a helpful grin pops out of the shop. “We’re closing in ten minutes. Just wanted to see if you needed something before we shut for the evening.”
“Yes. We do,” I say, and then we head inside, quickly finding a cubic zirconia that looks mostly real, and once we leave, she returns to the conversation.
“There’s nothing to forgive. We’re all good. And I appreciate you saying that. It means a lot to me.”
“It does?”
“It does. I care so much about our friendship too. I truly do. And I don’t want to jeopardize it either.”
I sigh in relief. “Well, that’s good. That’s great. Being on the same page and all.” But I’m still eager to know what was on her mind earlier. “What were you going to tell me before we went in there?”
She smiles as she looks at her fake ring. “Just what I said, for the most part. That I love being friends with you.” She lifts a hand like she’s going to set it on my arm, but she doesn’t. She lowers it and keeps her arms at her sides. “But also that it’s probably for the best if we don’t pretend to kiss again . . . because I liked it too. A lot.”
Oh.
Well.
That’s an interesting twist. “You did?”
She gives me a what can you do shrug. “I did.” She smiles a little impishly then taps my skull. “But don’t let that go to your head too much. I don’t want your ego to grow any larger.”
“No, I wouldn’t want it to outpace other large parts of my body.” Joking is easier than addressing what she’s just told me.
But I stew on it anyway as we walk to Madison Square Garden to catch Fitz’s game. Along the way, I’m extremely grateful for the noise of Manhattan, for the sardine-packed streets stuffed with tourists and locals, and for the smells of garbage, the scent of buses fuming, the din of phone calls, of cabs honking, of cars stopping.
It keeps my focus on the immediate rather than this brand-new information that’s complicating matters even more.
She liked it too.
A lot.
When we go inside the Garden, it feels like I’m entering a safe zone.
There is no way I will be tempted to kiss her here.
Not a chance.
Especially when we grab nachos and beer. The nachos here are covered in jalapeños, and who would want a jalapeño kiss?
Not this guy.
Not at all.
Not even with Summer.
Then I take a bite of the nachos, and they are spicier than I remembered.
Who am I kidding? I bet she’d taste fiery.
That’s the trouble.
24
Oliver
But a deal is a deal.
That’s what we have. A deal to appear engaged. A deal to look the part.
So we do our best at the game, shouting and cheering and, also, talking.
Like we’ve done for the last seventeen years.
Every year. Every day.
And I can forget the jalapeño desire. I can forget how good she tasted, how fantastic she smells. I can do what I’ve always done—be her friend.
“Have you given any more thought to your gym time frame while you save the rest of the money?”
“No. But my mom texted me again. She offered me the money a second time, but . . .”
“But you’re not going to take it, I trust?”
“It just doesn’t feel right to me.”
“I suppose.” I take another drink of my beer as the good guys chase the puck on the ice and Summer shouts her encouragement.
At the next lull, she picks up the discussion as if we’d only hit pause.
“You get why I turn her down though, right?” she asks earnestly. “I want to do this myself. I already pretty much get off scot-free in the rent department, living with my grandma. I don’t want to be beholden to anyone else.”
“But your mom would give you the money. So would you truly be beholden?”
She reaches for the nachos, scoops one up, and chews. “No, but what if I was? She always talked about how she gave up her job to help support my dad’s business. So what if it became this thing that would hang over us?”
I nod, taking a tortilla chip and eating it as New York attacks the net. But New York misses the shot, and the collecti
ve shoulders in the rink slump.
“Your mom’s happy though, don’t you think? At least, she always seemed that way when we were younger.”
“Did she?”
“Happier than my parents. But that’s not hard.”
She sighs, sets a hand on my shoulder, and squeezes. “True. Understandable, but true.”
“It was so much better to be at your house, you know?”
She nods. “I do know, and I also know it’s not simply because I made amazing popcorn.”
I arch a skeptical brow. “‘Made’? More like bought.”
“Hey! I made it. Most of the time,” she says sheepishly.
“And all of the time it was better to be there than with my parents fighting constantly over insurance and treatments, and on and on.” Ironic that they moved to America for jobs with supposedly better health benefits but wound up arguing with insurance for hours every day, it seemed.
Summer winces. “I sound like I’m complaining about my mom wanting to support me. I’m a dick, huh?”
I laugh, loop an arm around her shoulders, and draw her near. “Only a little.”
“I’m a little dick. Even better.”
I laugh, knowing I’d miss these moments if I lost her to a stupid decision like giving in to lust. “All I’m saying is you’re remembering it a certain way. You remember her being resentful, but I remember her being happy.”
“And I remember your parents trying really hard every second to keep it together, and you remember them fighting,” she says softly.
I mull that over as I drink my beer. She has a point, but also maybe not. “But isn’t it our recollections, more than the reality, that informs our outlook?”
“Possibly. But what if our recollections are wrong?”
“Speaking of wrong, sometimes I worry that Logan is too caught up in what went wrong with his marriage. On wanting to beat that guy who cheated with his wife,” I say.
“I think that too. But I’ve said it to him, and he doesn’t seem ready to hear it.”
“Maybe we only hear things when we’re ready.” My attention swings back to the ice, where Fitz slams the puck, sending it to the forward, who lobs it straight into the net. Setting my beer down, I thrust my arms in the air, cheering.
Summer’s up in no time, punching the sky, hooting and hollering.
The Jumbotron pans the crowd, capturing a raucous audience cheering. When it swings to us, the words “Best Kiss Ever?” blast across the screen.
And in seconds, the whole section is pointing at us.
Summer blinks, her face flushing pink.
She looks at me. I look at her. We look at the screen.
And the words “America’s Best Boyfriend” flash across it.
I don’t know if one of us goes first, or if we both just realize we have to.
I cup her cheek. She slides a hand around my waist. And we kiss not only for the camera, but for the entire arena. Twenty thousand fans cheer us on as I seal my lips to hers, kissing Summer for the fourth time.
And for the fourth time, tearing myself away from her seems impossible because I don’t want to stop kissing her.
Only this time, it’s because I know she likes it.
Judging from the way she slides closer, from how she skims her hands up my shirt, from the way she murmurs, we both like it more than we should.
In fact, when we finally break the kiss, our section is seated, play has resumed, and the Jumbotron screen is showing the game again.
I have no idea how long we were kissing.
Only that I didn’t want it to end.
And I know, too, that we’re going to have to sort out what the hell is going on—sooner rather than later.
When the game ends, her phone trills loudly, and after she answers it and listens, she shrieks in excitement.
25
Summer
Things I never expected to happen in Madison Square Garden.
Getting a phone call from a dating site.
Getting a phone call from a dating site asking me to be part of a feature.
Getting a phone call from a dating site asking me to be part of a feature that the magazine is willing to pay me for.
It would cover the rest of the financing I need for the gym, I mentally figure when the woman on the other end of the line tells me how much I’ll receive if I can deliver a bang-up piece.
“So, would you want to do it?” she asks.
Oliver is watching me with expectant big eyes, gesturing for me to hurry up and tell him what it is.
I cover the phone. “The Dating Pool asked me to do a profile on Top Five Best Dates in New York. They want us to go on them,” I whisper. “Do you say yes?”
“Yes.”
At Gin Joint with Fitz, we toast.
“To another win,” I offer.
Fitz clinks his glass to mine. “To the best fake engagement ever.”
Oliver taps his glass too. “To the money for Summer to fund her dream.”
Then we drink and chat, and this moment almost seems too good to be true.
Like this is a fragile bubble of happy news, great friends, and possibilities. Stella even texts that she’s nearby after a baking class and comes to join in.
She flops down next to us, giving Fitz a kiss on the cheek, then Oliver, then a hug for me. She’s a toucher, and always has been.
“Henry’s at a conference, so I’m all by my lonesome,” she announces, then orders a gin cocktail. “I debated going home and bingeing Schitt’s Creek, but I decided I like you guys better.”
“How lucky for us,” Oliver deadpans. “We’re better than TV.”
“Dude, have you seen Schitt’s Creek?” Fitz asks. “That’s one helluva compliment.”
I nod savagely. “That’s a compliment of the highest order.” I point to my friends, sweeping a circle around them. “Trust me, if it’s between you guys and that show, I’m picking the show.”
“You’re not wrong,” Fitz says.
“You’re definitely not wrong,” Stella adds, then returns to the topic of The Dating Pool phone call. “So, what’s the first step in being this poster child of adorable couples?”
“They want us to do very New York photo-shoot things. Eat cupcakes, stroll through the park, all that jazz,” I tell her, and the four of us discuss date options as we work our way through a round of drinks.
“Just make sure to look pretty for the cameras when you snap all the shots,” Stella says.
“Don’t I always?” Oliver asks, adopting an Instagram-ready duck face.
“Yes, you’re so lovely,” Fitz says. He drifts off in thought for a moment, staring at the ceiling, then returns to Oliver and me. “I was just thinking though—what happens when this ends?”
Oliver nearly spits out his drink. “What do you mean?”
Fitz laughs, then his mirth subsides. He peers at us like we’re a science experiment as he strokes his beard. “You’ve thought about that, right? You have to have a game plan?”
Oliver gulps. “Sure . . .”
But the word goes on forever, and Stella shakes her head and laughs. “You guys need a plan.”
“An exit strategy,” Fitz adds.
“My cousin Christian said the same thing,” Oliver adds.
They’re totally right, and I cycle through the options. “I guess I figured interest would die down after a while, and we’d quietly say we were better off as friends.” It’s not a far-fetched idea, though a plan based on what other people do is risky. “Sort of like those dating reality shows. They never stay together, and no one really cares after their season is over, right?”
“True,” Oliver says. “They just move on to the next thing. We can do that, no problem. Just move on, and no one will think twice about it.”
“Or—” Stella holds up a finger. “Just tell everyone Oliver is terrible in bed.”
“Ouch,” Fitz declares. “Way to wound a man.”
“Yes, exactly,” Oliver says,
recoiling. “Spreading such spurious lies.”
Stella shrugs, and I cringe a little, knowing where this is going. “I’m just saying there’s no way you can be great in bed. It goes against the Third Law. You’re too cute.”
I stare hot coals at her. I don’t want Oliver to know that Stella and I have discussed this, or that I’ve even thought about how this law might apply to him.
Fitz arches a brow in a check out my smolder way. “Hate to break it to you, ladies, but I’m even hotter than Oliver, and I’m pretty much a god in bed. And that’s my law—be awesome in the sheets all the time.”
Stella pats his leg. “Sweetie, I have no doubt you’re a prize in the sheets. But Stella’s Law focuses on a different type of plumbing.”
“Oh, well. See if Oliver can handle the pipes, then,” Fitz says as a fit guy walks by, giving the hockey star a lingering gaze with his piercing green eyes. “Speaking of, I have to go practice some laws.”
He leaves, and Oliver looks at Stella and me expectantly. “So, ladies, tell me all about this law of plumbing.”
I scowl at Stella. She offers an it was inevitable smile.
Oliver cocks his head and prompts again, “So, you have a law about how I’m bad in bed?”
I slam a hand on Stella’s thigh, squeezing it to make her stop. “No one said you were bad in bed, right, Stella?”
Oliver points at the accuser. “She did. Did you not just hear her with that vicious character assassination? And I thought my cousin was bad. But, Stella,” he says, clutching his heart, “you are cruel and hurtful.”
Stella simply shrugs. “That may be true, but the evidence suggests you’d be terrible in the sheets.”
“How?”
Her brow knits. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?”
Oliver grabs his phone and turns it to selfie mode. He smiles at the screen. “Yes. And I have nothing stuck between my teeth, so what is it?”
“You’re too pretty,” she says matter-of-factly, then lifts her glass and takes a drink.
“Too pretty for what?”
Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend Page 13