He ties the strings and turns away.
I reach for the asparagus, determined to work and not stare at him, but it’s impossible.
His sleeves are rolled up, and he’s wearing his own apron, looking more like an executive chef than a teenager. With each practiced slice and casual dash of salt or drizzle of vinegar, he looks more and more like he belongs here.
“Let me guess,” I say, after I’m done trimming the asparagus. “Your grandpa also doesn’t know you love cooking?”
His knife slips, and he narrowly misses slicing into his fingers. “What?”
“You. This,” I say, waving my hand around. “The fact that you come here to cook at night, when they’re closed, instead of doing it at home. He doesn’t know, does he?”
“Oh.”
“Plus, most guys pick shop class or leadership as an elective. You picked cooking.”
“Maybe I was just hoping to impress my future girlfriend,” he says, flashing me a cocky smile. But I see through it. The longer I know Malik, the more I realize that the person he presents and the face he puts on are not who he really is. “By cooking her a five-star dinner at one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city.”
I turn to him, leaning a hip against the counter. “Or maybe you’re afraid to be yourself.”
He slides the knife out of the way, reaching for a pan and drizzling it with oil. “I’m being myself now, aren’t I?”
“But you hide your talents and interests from your own grandfather?”
“I’m not hiding,” he says. “But it’s not like I can walk in here and cook like this when the restaurant is open. I’d be in the way.”
“I just mean . . . I don’t think your grandfather is trying to be judgmental. I just don’t think he knows you. You grew up two states away. Maybe if you trusted him to accept you, really showed him who you are now, he’d learn to trust you. Realize you’re not that boy who crashes cars in the Hollywood Hills anymore, you know?”
He stares at the pan. “Yeah. I know. I’m getting that, with your help. But it doesn’t happen overnight, okay?”
“I wonder what it’s like,” I say as he finally moves again, sliding the pan over a little so it’s centered on the blue flame.
He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand. “What?”
“Assuming the worst all the time. Being so afraid to be yourself.”
He sighs deeply. “Look, I know you have a point. I know he sees me as who I used to be, and I need to change that,” he says, turning away to go to the fridge.
I lean my hip against the counter. “Next time you’re at his place, let him see a new side of you. Cook him lunch. Not a sandwich. Something . . . impressive.”
He closes the fridge, meeting my eyes. “Fine. I’ll do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The next morning, I pull up at Alex’s house, gliding to a stop behind Rena’s sporty red coupe. I put the car in park and stare for a long minute, trying to focus.
It’s impossible. I barely slept last night, in spite of the fact that I should’ve been exhausted by the time I slipped into bed at two a.m., full of the most delicious food in the history of the universe.
I can’t stop thinking about how close we’re getting. How he’s showing me more and more of himself, and it’s wrong to keep doing this, to keep lying.
I’m not just lying to him. I’m lying to myself. This feels like more than a fling. This feels . . . important.
Grabbing the paper handles of two craft-shop bags, I lock my crappy car and cross the lawn. Last night, Malik dropped me off on the porch, and I had to slip inside and wait until I heard his car pull away before I could jog across the street to my own car and go home.
Thank god Alex’s parents weren’t awake. That would’ve been awkward.
At the door, I head in without waiting for an answer to my halfhearted knock. I’ve been hanging out here so long, I hardly need to get permission. But these days, the only time I’m over here is when I’m pretending the house is mine.
I blink, the full impact of that hitting me. Alex barely ever invites me over anymore. I’m only here today because I suggested it, wanting to fill Alex in on all the gory details of my date. Also, I’m hoping she can convince me I am not a terrible person for what I’m doing.
And, of course, Rena is here. Ugh.
Rena’s and Alex’s raucous laughter trickles downstairs to greet me, and I take the steps two by two. The last one creaks under my feet, and the laughter dies off abruptly. By the time I get to her room, I feel like I’m party crashing or something, because they’re silent, both looking at me as I step into the doorway.
“Um, hey,” I say dumbly. “I, uh, brought the beads.”
“Cool,” Alex says brightly, jumping up off her bed. She glances back at Rena, but I can’t see her expression. I swallow, ignoring the hollow feeling at the base of my throat.
The feeling that says when I suggested we get together, she agreed out of obligation.
“I was telling Rena about how you do that cool thing with interweaving the beads, and I thought you could show us how to do it.”
That can’t be what they were talking about, because my methods are in no way hilarious and entertaining.
“Um, yeah, sure,” I say, walking to her desk and setting the shopping bags down. I arrange the little plastic bags in a line, the big chunky beads on one end and the sparkly colored beads on the other. “Um, I got us each a blown-glass one too, with our initials,” I say, grabbing the A and the R and holding them out.
“Oh,” Rena says, lighting up. “I just got the best idea.” She plucks one of the little bags out of my hand. “I’ll do yours, and you do mine, okay?” Rena says, tossing the R bead over to Alex, who grabs and misses.
“Done,” she says, scooping the bag off the floor.
My lips part, and I want to point out that there’s no one for me to trade with, but I resist, snapping my mouth shut again.
I’m being stupid. Overly sensitive. They’re probably just oblivious to how left out I always feel.
Or maybe they’re just being jerks.
I grab a bundle of stretchy cord, unwinding it. “Hold your wrist out,” I say, motioning to Rena, who obediently complies. I measure out a length of thread, then snip it off. “You too.”
After they both have the right length of cord, I open my plastic case and dump the beads I purchased today into the available empty slots. Then I turn around and demonstrate the new trick Alex was talking about, how I can double-back periodically on the thread, creating a bracelet that looks more like it belongs in a jewelry store and less like it was made by a child.
The room falls silent as we slide on the first few beads, and then Alex reaches over and flips on the radio.
An old Fergie song hums through the speakers.
“Oh my god, I love this song!” Rena tosses her barely started bracelet aside and jumps up onto Alex’s bed, belting out about how she’s glamorous.
I glance over at Alex, expecting her to roll her eyes or at least tell Rena to get off her bed, but she’s already jumping up beside her. And when the Ludacris part comes in, she does a surprisingly intense lip-syncing version that sends Rena off into hysterics.
I feel like a voyeur. Like I’m on the outside looking in, completely separate from them.
This was stupid. I never should’ve come over. I knew something was off with my friendship with Alex, and it’s clear now that whatever connection she has with Rena has caused her to completely replace me as her best friend.
I stare at them for a few bars of the song, wondering when Alex loosened up like this. I was always the offbeat one, the one who didn’t mind being silly. Alex’s mom used to scold me for doing stuff like jumping out of the closet at Alex and making her scream.
I turn back to my bracelet and focus, really hard, on finding the perfect beads. The song transitions, switching to a soft-rock one I don’t recognize, and Rena and Alex burst into laughter.
&nbs
p; Startled, I glance up, and Rena’s falling against Alex, laughing so hard, she apparently can’t hold up her own body.
“Oh my god, do you remember—”
“That weird guy at the gas station—”
“And he was all—”
“You really do have eyes like the stars,” they say simultaneously, and then laugh harder, until Alex flops down on her own bed, and I’m pretty sure she’s about to die of asphyxiation. Meanwhile, Rena is clutching her sides, doubled over.
Alex finally sees me staring and sits up, her chest heaving as she struggles to regain her breath. “Sorry, we heard this song at a gas station a few weeks ago, and this totally skeevy guy was hitting on Rena,” she says.
“Oh,” I say, failing to laugh. This is . . . awkward.
“I guess it’s one of those you-had-to-be-there kind of things,” Rena adds. “But trust me, it was hilarious. He had the world’s dumbest mustache.”
“I see,” I say, even though I don’t. Even though I want to know why I wasn’t there, why Alex didn’t tell me this supposedly super-hilarious story before now.
But I know the answer to that question.
Alex has left me behind.
An hour later, I’m ready to leave. It’s too draining, pretending I don’t notice that I’m sitting a foot too far away to be really part of things. Pretend I can’t see as clear as day that while Alex might be my best friend, I’m no longer hers.
The longer I sit here, the more it hurts. One more minute and my heart is going to shatter into a million pieces.
I abruptly pick up my phone, as if a text came in even though it didn’t. Even though my phone isn’t even on silent. “Oh, shoot. I forgot I told my mom I’d help her out tonight,” I lie.
“Aw, really?” Alex asks. “I thought maybe we could go watch that new J-Law movie.”
“You remembered?” I ask, the oddest sense of relief overcoming me. So she hasn’t totally forgotten about me. It was the last one we agreed to watch. A theater trailer that we’d picked out together.
“Of course,” she says, like I am being silly. “Tradition?”
“It’s super-good,” Rena agrees. “You’ll love it. We both freaked out at the end.”
I pause, and the relief fizzles, hollowing me out. “Wait, you’ve already seen it?”
“Yeah, but we can totally go see it again,” Alex says. She’s not very apologetic. It’s like she doesn’t even get it. “It’s honestly that good.”
“Oh. Um, no, that’s okay,” I say, standing, turning away so she can’t see that she’s hurt me. “I really do have to go help my mom.”
I snap the cases shut and shove them into the paper bags, and then I turn toward the door, still avoiding her gaze. “Have fun though, guys. See you around.”
I don’t wait for their responses before I rush out the door, blinking back the tears.
Alex and I are still friends, but we’re not best friends.
And in a few more weeks, there’s going to be a full state between us, and maybe the first part won’t even be true anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I’m on a mission.
If Malik is going to show me who he really is, then it’s time he sees how I live. And date. The idea of it kind of freaks me out—this date is the closest thing to real I’ve shown him. But I can’t help it.
And so, barely a week after he took me here, I’m taking him back. I’m gripping his hand, dragging him toward Pike Place. Today, he’s going to see it the way everyone else sees it: crowded and raucous and pulsing with life.
“Where are you taking me, exactly?”
“On a real date,” I say, dragging him through the crowd packing the sidewalk.
“We’ve been on dates,” he says, struggling to keep up with me, turning his shoulders sideways to slip past a huge guy in a ball cap. “Were those not real enough for you?” He drags me to a stop when I step onto the uneven brick road. Ahead, the iconic neon sign greets us, mounted high over the building. There are fruit stands lining the street, and a slow march of cars fights its way through the narrow, alleylike road.
The building itself looks simple, sprawling in both directions and open where it faces the street. But it’s deceptively large, an eclectic labyrinth of levels and twisting halls, each floor filled with windup-toy stores and record shops and antiques and fresh fruit.
“Wait, are we going back to Pike Place Market?”
“Yes.”
He furrows his brow. “How is it a real date if you take me here, but not if I take you?”
“Those dates were about who you are. It’s my turn to show you who I am.”
“Oh,” he says as we stop next to a huge bronze pig statue.
“This is where we start,” I say, digging into my pocket and handing him a five-dollar bill and a quarter.
“And . . . what am I doing with these?” he asks.
“We’re going to walk through the market. Every time we come to a turn or a staircase, we flip the coin to decide which way to go.”
He holds up the bill. “That explains the quarter, but the five dollars?”
I pull out a scrap of paper and hand it over.
He reads aloud, “ ‘Something sweet, something from the sea, something colorful, something to hang on a wall, and something to wear.’ ” He furrows his brow and looks up at me. “What’s this?”
“The first person to buy items that hit all five of those points wins.”
He furrows his brow. “But you only gave me five dollars.”
“Hmm,” I say, playfully punching him in the shoulder. “I guess you’ll have to be creative. Or a good bargainer.”
“I’m supposed to cover the whole list with five dollars?”
“Yep.”
By the look on his face, it’s pretty clear he’s never had a budget before, and it’s all I can do to hold in my laughter.
“Okaaaaay, then,” he says, the challenge setting in. “And when I succeed, what do I win?”
I grin widely. “That’s for me to know and for you to find out. Just trust me . . . you don’t want to be the loser.”
He bites his lower lip. “Um, okay.”
“But you can’t cheat. Once one of us buys an item from a booth, that booth is officially off-limits—for both of us. So if I find an item from the list, you can’t just copy me and buy the same thing. You have to go somewhere new.”
I see the look in his eyes and I know he’s in. Intrigue. Curiosity. Excitement. “Okay. Deal. Let’s do it.”
“Okay, then. Flip the coin. Heads we go right; tails we go left.”
Malik tosses the coin into the air, then catches it and flips it over on the top of his hand. “Left.”
We walk under the roofline of the market and swing left, passing where tourists watch men throw fish. There’s a huge crowd of people, cell phones held up to snap pictures of the fish the moment it flies through the air, so I can’t quite see the booth . . . only the giant bays of ice and seafood.
Malik pauses, surveying a flower stall, his eyes roaming the prices.
They’re five to ten dollars per bouquet. A moment later, he shrugs and moves away from the stall.
Instead of following, I walk to the woman stooped over in front of the booth, trimming the bottom of a bouquet before dropping it back into the bucket of water.
“Hey, is there any way I could get just three stems? Baby’s breath or something would be fine.”
The woman glances up, then around her stall, and points at a black plastic vase of pink carnations. “Would those work?”
“For a dollar, they would.”
A second later, she’s handing me three stems and I’m pocketing the four dollars of change.
“Something colorful?” Malik says.
“Give me a second.” I start with the longest stem, twisting it around the second longest before I pull in the other and curl it around to create a loop.
I plop it on top of my head and grin at Malik. “Something colo
rful and something to wear.”
“I think I may have underestimated you,” he says, studying me with an appraising expression.
“I think perhaps you’re right. And you’re going to regret that.”
We continue past the stall, but Malik abruptly doubles back to the seafood one we’d passed at the entrance. I follow.
A moment later, he has purchased precisely one oyster. “Something from the sea,” he says, holding it up. “I don’t suppose I could argue that it could go on the wall?”
I snicker. “No.”
We head down the aisle again until a stairwell appears beside us.
“Heads we go straight, tails we go down the steps.”
Malik tosses the coin again, and we find ourselves descending farther into the market, to where the floors creek and the ceilings are a bit lower.
A few steps into the hall, Malik grabs my hand, tugging me into a photo booth. I raise a brow at him but don’t comment as he feeds three dollars into the booth.
That means he’ll only have one dollar left.
He puts his arm around me and we lean in, cheek-to-cheek, as the first flash goes off. For the second, he turns, kissing my temple as I stare at the camera.
“Funny face,” I say, sticking my tongue out to the side and widening my eyes as much as possible. Malik is thrown for a second and is halfway to a funny face when the flash goes off. I laugh so hard, I can’t pose for the next one before the fourth and final flash hits.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never done a funny face in a photo booth,” I say.
“Um, I’ve totally done funny faces in a photo booth?”
I roll my eyes and slide out of the booth. “Wow, you really grew up in your own little bubble, huh?”
We stand outside the booth, waiting for the strip to slide out. “I guess you could say that.”
The photo drops into the slot, and he holds it up.
“Something to hang on the wall?”
He nods. “Plus, you’re in the picture, so . . .”
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