“I met your dad in college,” Mom says with a spark in her eyes. “We were friends at first, but we didn’t waste time. I’m sure glad for that.”
Her bringing up Dad makes me want to cry.
“Evan and Garrett aren’t Dad,” I say. “And they have girlfriends who they’re with at this very moment.”
Mom practically snorts at this. “Remember that I teach at your school, honey. I know these girls, and they don’t hold a candle to you.”
“Please don’t start.” It’s weird enough actually having had my mom for a teacher, let alone having to listen to her discuss why her other students, Lexi and Beth, aren’t good enough for Evan and Garrett, though she gets no argument from me about Lexi.
“You’re the most beautiful girl in this town,” Mom says, “and I’m sure you could persuade the boys to take a break from Lexi and Beth for one night.”
“Would you please stop? And it’s not like you’re biased or anything.”
“I am biased, but I’d say the same thing even if you weren’t my daughter.”
“Sure you would.” I throw myself back against the couch.
“So?” She looks at me expectantly and will keep on like this all night if I don’t agree to at least attempt to get them over here. Most parents would be trying to keep boys away from their teenage daughters, but my mom is actively trying to get Evan and Garrett closer to me.
“Fine…” I roll my eyes. “I’ll see what they’re doing, but they’re probably still hanging out with those girls you seem to think aren’t worthy.”
“I didn’t say they weren’t worthy,” she says. “I just think you’re more worthy.”
I whip my phone out and text Evan.
Me: Come over to my place to hang out?
“There, I texted him,” I say, expecting that he’s tongue deep in a make-out session with Lexi, if not something more that I don’t even want to think about.
“Good. Now go make some popcorn. You guys can watch a movie.”
“He’s probably busy—”
My phone chirps, and I look down.
Evan: Sounds a lot more exciting than arguing with Lexi all night. I’ll be there!
Looking over my shoulder, Mom smiles. “See? Those boys will always come running.”
“Whatever, Mom.”
Me: Gonna invite Garrett, so friends x2 if he’s free.
Mom is up and off the couch, running the water in the kitchen.
Evan: Oh. So this won’t be the night you and I finally confess our love for each other?
I’m glad my mom isn’t next to me because I feel myself blushing, even though I know he’s totally joking.
Or is he?
That almost kiss and determination to make it to Minnie’s tonight still has me thinking. But Evan can be a harmless flirt and is quite confusingly devoted to Lexi. I’m probably just over thinking the entire evening.
Me: Haha. You’re a silly boy.
Evan: Am I? I’ll see you in 10.
I text Garrett next, and he calls me right back. I get the gist he’s trying to extricate himself from Beth’s babysitting gig as he talks to me from the relative privacy of Mrs. Parks’ bathroom. He thinks he can be here in half an hour if he promises to make it up to Beth tomorrow.
“They’re both coming.” I join Mom in the kitchen and start drying dishes from the rack.
“Oh good. Now, aren’t you glad I told you to invite them over?”
I am, but this doesn’t stop me from saying, “It’s like you want me to have sex with my two best friends.” That might be a brazen thing to say to some parents, but Mom doesn’t get jumpy about many things, the word “sex” included.
“I’m certainly not telling you to have sex with them. I’m telling you to explore the possibilities before you all start separate lives and to remind you not to put all of your eggs in the Mike Barnes basket.” She opens the cupboard, pulls out a jar full of popcorn kernels and sets it down next to me.
After I’ve put the last of the dry plates away, I take the jar and measure out the kernels and plug the air popper in while I continue to ignore her comments about my dead-end relationship with Mike, which are nothing new. Mom tells me there should be passion in a relationship, and I always tell her I’ll just wait to find it in college.
“I got a couple pizzas on sale the other day,” she says after several minutes of silence, digging through the freezer. “Stick those in the oven. You’ve got to feed growing boys.”
“You really are a dork, Mom.”
“That’s why you love me, right?” She gives me a hug and a kiss before running upstairs to save Kate who is screaming bloody murder.
I pop popcorn, pour out drinks and wait for The Boys to arrive.
Before we started pairing off into romantic couplings, it was always just me, Evan and Garrett. I’d never had a single guy friend before moving to Basin Lake, and then I had two. I got used to hanging out with them at school and playing tetherball and wall-ball at recess. The Boys, as Mom and I still sometimes refer to them, would always walk me home from Roosevelt Elementary, even if it meant they’d have to walk right back and catch the late bus to their more rural houses.
That first summer in Basin Lake, I gave up playing with Barbie dolls so I could explore the creek behind Grandma’s house with them as well as the big empty barn at Garrett’s or run around the edges of the desert together. They seemed like things that maybe my dad would have done with me had he been alive and healthy. So, even if I didn’t fully embrace chasing down a snake, catching it by the tail and trying not to scream before I let it go, I did it because it made me feel closer to Dad somehow.
With each passing year, our friendship grew, and our trio was a fixture at my house or at Garrett’s but rarely at Evan’s. The one he shared with his mom, stepdad and siblings was usually off limits because his hotel manager mom and urgent care physician stepdad were always working and strictly forbade friends over while they weren’t there. And his dad, who ran the local bank, wasn’t around his place much either. When he got a promotion and moved across the country to Charlotte, North Carolina, I couldn’t really tell if Evan missed him. It wasn’t something he liked to talk about.
Garrett and Evan liked to remind me I was the first to “break the circle” of our bond when I started dating Mike. I hadn’t meant to get a serious boyfriend in the eighth grade, but it had happened nonetheless. It started with the “girls ask boys” dance, and I didn’t ask Evan for fear he’d say no, a response he didn’t give to Lexi DeNero who swooped in when I was too chicken to. Eventually, I asked Garrett who proceeded to break his arm in a horse riding accident, leaving me to go solo.
My hair was dyed black in the eighth grade, and I’d mastered my makeup technique with online tutorials to compliment the raven color, which included a vibrant red lipstick and black eyeliner. I’d curled my hair and borrowed one of Grandma’s vintage blue dresses. I was going for a 1930s Hollywood look, though Grandma reminded me the dress was in fact from the late 1960s.
“You think I was even alive in the 1930s?” I’d remembered her saying and then laughing.
With Evan being a bit aloof at the dance and Britt Morgan calling me a slut, I was actually considering calling Mom to pick me up early when Mike walked up.
“I love your hair!” he’d said like he wasn’t just messing with me. “And your dress too.”
There was a sincerity to him that put me at ease, and then he asked me to dance. And even though he was one of the most conservative looking boys at school, he was still cute and one of Evan’s soccer friends, so I said yes. By the end of the night, we were holding hands and kissing the way thirteen-year-olds kiss, clumsy and sloppy, my red lipstick all over his face.
Evan seemed angry with me the next day at school, asking me why I was kissing Mike.
“Because he has nice lips,” I’d said, hoping to make him jealous, even if I wasn’t sure what I was hoping to accomplish with that.
“Oh.” He’d bunch
ed his lips together and scratched at the side of his head. “So, you guys are like going out?”
“Yep,” I’d said, sort of proud I could say that since he and Lexi were so obviously together, at least in my own mind.
Evan didn’t say anything to that. He just walked away, leaving me to wonder. And then Mike told everyone that would listen that I was his girlfriend, taking me home to meet his parents and his older brother and sister who were in high school at the time. He was devoted to me with a force that was a bit overwhelming for a thirteen-year-old girl.
How times had changed.
I’d never stopped wondering about Evan’s reaction to Mike and I being together. There were plenty of times I’d thought about breaking up with Mike and telling Evan that I liked him, like really liked him. But after Lexi and he didn’t pan out—in the eighth grade at least—Evan moved right along to a string of semi-serious girlfriends, and he was never single long enough for me to awkwardly break up with Mike and then get up the nerve to express my true feelings.
What those girls saw in Evan was probably similar to what I saw, at least on the outside. A tall, broad shouldered, seriously hot guy who had played soccer with unmatched enthusiasm until the program ended for anyone beyond eighth grade. He never loved football as much, as far as I could tell, but even after he’d gotten kicked off the team, he remained upbeat, entertaining and prone to being the life of any party. But more importantly, at least for me, was the fact that I’d felt Evan always made an effort to be there for me, and I for him. It wasn’t until he started dating Lexi again at the beginning of the summer that I really felt the strain on our friendship.
And of course Mike had changed too. He was still sweet, occasionally still doting, but he didn’t even come close to making my heart do somersaults the way Evan still could. When I hear Evan’s car driving up just now, I feel that same somersault in my heart, but now I’m wondering if we could have worked, if only given the chance.
EVAN
Paige’s text is like a life preserver being thrown out to me as Lexi continues to cry and tell me how much I’ve ruined her life. I’m close to telling her to fuck off, telling her that yes, I’d been immature and had made mistakes with us, but that I’m tired of being her whipping boy.
“It’s my mom,” I say after I’ve texted Paige back to tell her I’d be happy to come over.
“Your mom doesn’t give a shit about you or where you’re at,” Lexi says, snapping out of her tears and looking at me with suspicion.
“Wow, thanks,” I say. “But I still need to go.”
“Look, I didn’t mean—”
“I’ll let myself out,” I say, making sure I offer her a smile that says I’m not mad or upset or anything before I slip out her door and out of her house and hope she doesn’t come running after me.
Back in my car and on the road, I’m not especially happy that Paige invited Garrett too. I mean, the guy’s my best friend, sure, but the times I get to hang out with Paige on my own are practically nil these days. And even though I didn’t exactly expect a serious response from her when I mentioned us finally professing our love for one another, I can’t help but feel a flick of hurt when she calls me a silly boy.
I’m at her house in no time, and she opens the door up wide for me.
“Hey,” she says, looking naturally beautiful in a light blouse, shorts and fuzzy socks. She grabs my arm and pulls me in, to keep from freezing I guess.
“Hey yourself,” I say and give her a tight hug. “I haven’t been here in forever.” I release her and close the door behind us.
“That’s because Lexi thinks I’m a corrupting influence in your life.”
“You? Corrupting? Hardly.” I smirk and pull off my stocking cap and run my hand through my messy hair. “What?” I ask, her gaze sort of frozen on my face.
“Oh, nothing,” she says and smiles, her serene expression interrupted by a shriek from above our heads.
“You keeping wild animals up there?” I ask, glancing at the ceiling.
“It’s just Kate,” she says, rolling her eyes. “They’re all watching a horror movie upstairs. Mom said to say hi by the way.”
“Hi back,” I say to the ceiling.
“You know Lexi blames me for everything that doesn’t go right in your relationship.” She takes my coat and hangs it up for me. “And I’m guessing she doesn’t know you’re here—how did you manage to escape by the way? Did you have to drug her or something?”
“No, she just yelled at me and started crying again about me going to North Carolina and being the worst boyfriend in the world.” It’s not far from the truth, and I plop down on the couch, exhausted by Lexi and her emotional beat downs.
“She’s toxic,” Paige says.
“Yeah, well, she seems to think the same about you… not that she’s right in any way, but she’s convinced you’ve talked me out of letting her go to North Carolina with me.”
“I didn’t realize that was even an option,” she says with an unreadable expression.
“It wasn’t,” I say. “But in her mind, she sees us there together, and you’re likely the reason it can’t happen. I care about the girl, but man, she doesn’t make it easy sometimes.”
“I think you more than care about her if you keep putting up with her shit. I mean, I don’t even love Mike, and—”
She stops herself cold, but I feel the jolt of her words.
She doesn’t love Mike.
I’m not surprised, but I still feel a flood of relief at the confirmation.
She waves a dismissive hand at herself. “Well, you know, I don’t even know if Garrett loves Beth. It’s all so confusing.” Then she looks at me, like I’m supposed to tell her exactly what it is I feel about Lexi. There was a physical attraction and a sense of possibilities in the beginning, but now all I feel with Lexi is that I’m doing penance.
“Garrett and Beth are confusing,” I say, not sure I want to open the floodgates on my relationship with Lexi. I don’t need Paige thinking any less of me.
“Yeah, well… don’t let Lexi guilt you into anything,” she says, not ready to let it go.
Her bare legs are touching the denim of my jeans, and I really just want to reach out and feel her skin.
“If she needs someone to blame, then let it be me,” she continues, oblivious to my attraction for her and the fact that I’m driven a little insane whenever she’s this close to me and we’re alone. “I don’t really care—you know my feelings on her.”
“That I do.” I smile at her, straighten up and put my arm around her. I’ve been putting my arms around her since we were ten years old, so she won’t bat any eyelash at the gesture, even if I’d like her to.
“So, you aren’t actually going to take her with you, right?” She seems to need confirmation. Paige has never liked Lexi, and I’m sure she’d love nothing more than to never hear her name again.
“No worries,” I say. “It’s not going to happen, so I’m trying to compromise and try the long distance thing and at least be there for her if she needs me… you know, so she doesn’t get a voodoo doll of me and start jabbing it with pins.”
She tilts her head away from me, and her neck elongates, and all I want to do is bend my head down and drag my lips along her porcelain skin.
“Are you seriously crazy, Evan?” she says. “My mom has already told me how brutal college is going to be, so you really want to have to worry about doing the long distance thing with Lexi on top of everything else?”
She’s in no mood to be kissed and would probably slap me if I tried. So, I pull my arm away from her and put my hands up in surrender. “Damn, Paige, I didn’t realize you’d be so worried about my life in North Carolina.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” She sighs. “Evan, do you think I don’t care what happens to you or something?”
That makes me go silent. Yeah, there are times I think she doesn’t really care what I do or where I go. I’m not even sure she’s all that enthused about
me wanting to fly home for games at WSU when she’s the main reason I’d be doing it. “I don’t know…” I shrug. “Things have been weird for a while now.”
She shakes her head, then scoots toward the arm of the couch, bringing her stocking feet up onto the cushions and eyeing me. “You’re telling me things have been weird? Evan, you’ve pretty much lived and breathed Lexi for the last six months. I can’t remember the last time we’ve hung out on our own—I mean, I can kind of guarantee she’ll be texting you in about an hour and wondering where you are.”
Damn.
She’s absolutely right, but how can I possibly tell her why I “live and breathe Lexi” without exposing the fact that I’d been an immature asshole? So, what I say is, “You’re right. But Lexi kind of needs me I guess. You don’t understand because you and Garrett—”
“Me and Garrett what?”
“You guys are going to the same school,” I say.
“Like you couldn’t have gone there?” She looks at me like I’m mental. “Evan, I’m pretty sure it’s cheaper than that private college in North Carolina. You’re the one who’s abandoning us.”
I sigh and rub at my eyes and let out a tired breath. Me going to school in North Carolina is yet another thing Paige doesn’t know the real reason for. If she did, it would be one more thing to take me down a peg or two in her eyes. At least Garrett and Mike have their shit together. That’s something I can’t really compete with.
“It’s complicated,” is all I say. “My whole life is like that.”
“None of us have easy lives,” she reminds me, and it makes me feel like a dick because she lost her dad when she was just ten, and I know she still hurts over it. “And I get that maybe you want to be closer to your bio dad and work things out with him,” she adds, “but if there’s something else… something you need to get off your chest, even if it’s about Lexi, then maybe I can help?”
“I wish I could go backwards,” I say and wrap my still cold hands around her stocking feet, but she doesn’t flinch or try to pull them away. “I wish I could do a lot of things differently.”
Between the Boys (The Basin Lake Series Book 1) Page 4