My neck warmed with a blush. I hadn’t actually told Jo that Aiden and I were sleeping together, but of course it wasn’t hard for her to guess. “Aiden’s okay with it?” I asked, hating how that sounded but still needing to check. I hoped Jo had made clear to him that this was all her doing, not mine. Things had gone back to normal after our first fight, or whatever that was at the lake on Monday—he’d been tender and attentive, and hadn’t mentioned marriage or my parents or my hymen again—but I was still feeling cautious, like I had something to prove, and I didn’t want to risk giving him any reason to be mad. It would be one thing if I could have told him about the change of plans myself, but Jo could be an uncouth messenger.
“Aiden will be fine. If he had a problem with you hanging with your very bestest friends, what kind of boyfriend would he be?” Jo said. Great, so it was going to be that kind of day with her. Of course Jo had no clue that real relationships involve compromise.
“Be nice,” Eric said. “It’s her birthday.”
“Sorry,” she allowed. I wondered how much they’d discussed us and what exactly they had said.
“So how come he doesn’t ever hang out with us?” Eric asked, as if it would be normal for Aiden to catch rides in the Wildebeest or sit around in their kitchen eating scones. Eric’s girlfriends were almost never included in that stuff, and all of them were still in high school, not older like Aiden.
“Jo hates him.” That wasn’t entirely fair, but if Jo could be flippant about it, so could I.
“I don’t hate him! I barely know him. I hate that I never see you anymore.”
Maybe it was the blindfold or the plain honesty in Jo’s voice, or the way I’d always felt safe and loved inside this car, but the sadness that flooded the back of my throat, pushing hard against my eyeballs and catching me by surprise, drowned all the fight in me. I suddenly needed her to be able to see in Aiden what I did, to understand how it felt to be loved by someone the way he loved me. “He’s a good person,” I said, but of course the words were inadequate. I wished I could beam the feelings straight into her brain instead.
Her hands returned to my shoulders and squeezed. “I don’t think he’s a bad person, Betts. I’m just not sure he’s a great person for you.”
Jabs of defensiveness pricked at my spine but I breathed in and tried to match Jo’s calm. It was bizarre, having this conversation in a moving car with a cloth over my eyes, Jo’s words floating behind me, Eric silent and steady by my side. But the surreality also made it safer to ask, “In what way?”
She paused. “Do you really want to know?”
“No,” I admitted. An eternity ticked past. “Okay, yes. Just tell me.”
“He seems kind of . . .” I waited while Jo chose her words. “Don’t hate me, but: needy. In a way that makes him kind of controlling. And a little possessive.”
I stared into the darkness of the blindfold and saw the coffee cup exploding against the tree trunk and the flash of his anger, sudden and startling and directed at me. No. I shook my head. “It’s not like that. I promise.” Jo didn’t react but I could feel her not believing me. “If anything, I’m the needy one.”
“I hope I’m wrong,” she said. “I really do. And I’m wildly jealous of every second he gets to spend with you, and therefore totally biased. But also, I miss you. I miss my best friend.”
“You see me almost every day.”
“You know what I mean.” Her voice was so sad and serious, I almost couldn’t take it.
I did know what she meant, though. And in that moment, I missed her too. I missed how we used to be.
Maybe Aiden would be willing to try again, to go out with us someplace fun and low-key and in neutral territory. Then she’d see that he was sweet and good, and good for me, and understand why I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone besides her. Maybe I didn’t have to keep my two worlds separate.
Eric shifted in his seat, unclicking his seat belt and mine, and I realized the music had stopped and the car wasn’t moving—we must have parked. Before I could do anything, Jo lunged to take my hand. “Listen. You are this weird, wonderful, flawed, perfect, beautiful, ridiculous, uptight, amazing human being, and I am not going to allow time or distance or anyone with or without a penis to stop you from being in my life forever. Okay?”
I rolled my eyes even though she couldn’t see them. That was perfectly Jo: over-the-top dramatic. “Okay,” I said.
“Good.”
Eric cleared his throat. “Well, on that note . . .” He pulled off my blindfold and I blinked at the sudden brightness. “Surprise!”
Twenty-Seven
I LAUGHED. AFTER ALL THAT FUSS, WE’D ENDED UP AT Bob’s Diner, half a mile down the road from where we’d started.
Jo bounced out of the car. “Did we fool you?”
“Yes. Very clever.”
She and Eric beamed twin smiles, as proud as the ones in the photo of them with a giant sandcastle they built when they were four. “We had lots of ideas of other places to take you, but we decided that classic is best,” he said.
“Besides, this is our place,” Jo added.
I hooked my arms through theirs. “It is.”
The scent of griddle grease and deep-fried everything assaulted our nostrils as we pushed through the front door and headed for our usual booth. I slid in across from Eric and hitched over for Jo, who plopped down beside me. “Hunnnngryyyy,” she moaned, leaning into me. The woman Eric had dubbed the White Waitress approached (lots of the servers at Bob’s were white, but this one was almost translucent), and Jo sat up and waved away the plastic menus. “We’ll take three chocolate milkshakes and three orders of fries, please.” She turned to me. “Our treat, of course.”
“Well, thanks.” Unlike Jo, who loved her own birthday, I usually found the yearly attention a little embarrassing. But this was exactly the right level of fuss.
I unwrapped the silverware bundle the White Waitress had dropped in front of me and polished my spoon with the paper napkin, while Eric described the horrific eating habits of some of the kids he’d coached at youth soccer camp last summer, and Jo started a round of Would You Rather: The Disgusting Things to Eat Edition. A feeling of pure contentment spread through me. Before I had met Aiden, this was hands-down my favorite place in the world to be: together with Jo and Eric, anywhere. The past few weeks of senior-year weirdness, I’d worried things had already changed irreparably. The relief that they had not was almost euphoric.
“Enjoy,” the waitress said, walking away from the feast she’d delivered. Jo produced a candle out of nowhere and stuck it into my fries.
Eric flicked a lighter into the wick and met my eyes over the flame. “Happy birthday, Betts.”
I closed my eyes, and a wish formed behind my lids—that wherever our separate paths might take us, we would always find a way to return to this kind of togetherness—then opened them, leaned forward, and blew.
A wisp of smoke coiled upward and Jo cheered like I had blown out two hundred candles instead of one. I salted my fries, dragged one through the milkshake, and popped it into my mouth. Perfection.
“Sooooooo. Did you hear about Sydney and Benji?” Jo paused, eyebrows raised, to make sure she had our full attention. “They broke up this morning.”
I had not heard that, but I had seen Benji hitting on Bekah Parsons outside my English class, so I guessed this explained that. “He dumped her a week before the formal? What a dick.”
“No, she broke up with him.”
I grabbed another fry. “Oh. Carry on, then.”
“Wait,” Eric said, “how is that fine? Guys can be heartbroken too, you know.”
“It’s fine because now she’s free to go to the formal with me,” Jo said.
Eric tipped his head to one side. “With you?” I watched as he processed that. “Oh. Huh.” He nodded like it all made sense, which of course, fundamentally, it did. “Cool.” Jo’s expression shifted from challenging to pleased, and I wanted to hug him fo
r having reacted exactly perfectly. “So it’s a date-date?” he asked.
“I hope so.”
“You already asked her?” I said.
“Not yet, but I’ve been laying the groundwork. Wooing her by baking, like you suggested.”
Eric’s face betrayed the same mix of caution and protectiveness I was feeling too. He spoke gently. “I don’t know if she’s into . . . I mean, do you know if she’s ever kissed a girl?”
“No.” Jo was unfazed. “But neither have I.” Eric and I looked at each other and he gave the slightest shrug. Jo pulled a big sip through her straw and leaned back against the booth. “Look, guys, calm down. Sydney probably isn’t bi or gay or pansexual or whatever, but so what? I’m not asking her to marry me; it’s just a stupid high school dance. If she says no, she says no. So you can stop teaming up with your Oh dear, poor Jo glances. I’ve got this. But thank you. Your joint concern is truly heartwarming. A-plus.”
I scooped up a spoonful of milkshake and wondered if Aiden had tried to reach me. I knew there’d be no retrieving my phone from Jo’s grasp, but I really, really hoped he was okay with this. It could ruin our whole evening if he didn’t believe I hadn’t known what Jo was planning. “So I guess this means you’re ditching me.”
Guilt flashed across her face. “Is that okay?” I was surprised to discover I was almost disappointed, though not disappointed enough to get in the way of Jo’s plan.
“You’re not taking Aiden?” Eric asked. I shook my head. “So let’s all go together. As a group. Us three and Lexa and Syd, once she says yes.”
“Cool,” Jo agreed.
I hesitated. “Lexa won’t mind?” I was pretty certain Lexa would mind. The group date might make Aiden feel better about my going, though. And I had to admit, it did sound like fun.
He shrugged and stole a fry from the edge of my plate. “I’ll ask but I’m sure she’ll be cool with it.” I nudged the fries a few inches in his direction. He had already polished off his own.
Jo stood. “I gotta whiz. Don’t even think about touching my food, Eric.”
“Like I’d want your cooties,” he said.
“We used to share lollipops when we were little,” she called over her shoulder, and Eric stuck out his tongue like he always did whenever Jo brought up this “fact.”
He dipped three of my fries in Jo’s milkshake and we shared a grin as we chewed. He leaned forward. “I know Jo’s been giving you shit about Aiden, but I wanted to say, I’m glad for you.”
I swallowed. “You are?”
“Yeah. If you’re happy and he’s good to you, that’s great. You deserve that.”
“Thanks.” It was strange of Eric to say it, but surprisingly nice to hear.
“She’ll come around. She’s always wary of my girlfriends at first too.”
That was an understatement. “I’ve noticed.”
The right side of his mouth quirked up in the almost-grin I always thought of as Eric’s secret weapon—made all the more effective because of his obliviousness to its power. I’d seen everyone from teachers to toddlers to, especially, teenage girls fold helplessly before it. I liked to imagine myself among the immune but of course I was no exception. “Senior year is weird, isn’t it?” he mused. “I’m gonna miss you next year.”
“You are?” I said for the second time, too aware I was sounding like I had a three-word vocabulary.
He looked surprised. “Yeah, of course. We both are.”
Oh. “Same. I’m going to miss you guys too,” I said, meaning it. Eric would be playing soccer and studying electrical and computer engineering at Cornell, which was less than two hours’ drive from Geneseo, but of course we wouldn’t be getting together without Jo.
Something shifted in his face and he looked at me so intently, I almost looked away. “Bee, I—”
He stopped, and in the corner of my vision, Jo reappeared, wiping her hands on her skirt. I guessed the bathroom was out of paper towels again. We watched in silence as she approached. “Sorry, guys, I should have said, you’re allowed to talk to each other while I’m gone as long as you don’t say anything too interesting,” she said.
Eric rolled his eyes. “Now she tells us.”
Jo slid back into the booth. “When’s the last time you peed here?” she asked me.
I tried to remember. “No idea. Maybe February?”
“So you haven’t seen the new mirror above the sink.”
“Nope.”
“Well. It’s basically angled to ensure that you have to watch yourself go. This might be TMI, but it turns out my pee face is amazing.”
I shook my head. “TM is exactly the level of I we want from you, always.”
Jo snuggled against me. “I love you.”
I cuddled back. “I love you too.”
Twenty-Eight
I BARELY HAD A CHANCE TO KNOCK ON THE DOOR before Aiden pulled it open. “You’re late,” he said.
I hustled inside as though being quick now could make up for it, and saw the microwave clock glowing 6:08. Shit. “Sorry. Jo took away my phone and—”
He cut me off with a kiss. “It’s okay. Happy birthday.” I relaxed. Of course he wasn’t mad about eight minutes. Jo’s silly accusations had made me unfairly paranoid. He tugged off my jacket and stepped aside, and I took in the scene before me. Picnic blanket. Tea lights. Takeout containers. A single red rose in a jar. The taut trepidation in my chest gave way to happy flutters.
“This looks amazing.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” I was still kind of stuffed from the milkshake and fries, plus the brown-sugar cupcakes with salted caramel frosting Jo had brought out after, but I knew that wasn’t the answer Aiden wanted to hear. He’d planned this whole romantic dinner for us. The least I could do was eat it.
“Kendra made me promise I would give you this right away.” He held out a yellow construction-paper card that said HOPPY BIRTHDAY BEE in green marker across the front, surrounded by squiggles and colorful whirls. I opened it and an origami frog fell into my palm. There was a pretty good drawing of a tree frog inside, with Love, Kendra P.S. Happy birthday too underneath. I looked up, amused. Aiden’s grin was full of pride.
“Please tell her I love it,” I said.
He kissed my nose. “I will.”
We sat on the blanket and I snapped apart my chopsticks while Aiden opened the containers of sesame chicken, fried rice, and vegetable lo mein—my favorites. Shadows and warmth from the flickering candles danced across his skin as he told me about a customer who’d caused a scene at the garage, and a hunch he’d had about an alternator bearing, which solved a problem that had been baffling his boss. His face was beautiful and animated, and I felt a shimmer of luck as I watched him talk. We’d been together almost two months but it was still sometimes hard to believe this boy was really mine. This—being in love, being with him—more than anything else about turning eighteen, made me feel truly, officially adult.
Aiden frowned. “You don’t like it.”
His displeasure snapped me out of my own head. I had only been half listening. “Don’t like what?”
“The food. You’re barely eating it.”
“Oh.” I shoved the tangle of noodles that had been lingering on my chopsticks into my mouth and chewed. “No, it’s delicious. I was just focusing on what you were saying, and wondering if I’d even be able to pick an alternator out of a lineup.”
The tension dropped from his shoulders. “You’d figure it out. I’m always bragging to the guys about how smart you are.”
“You are?” I loved knowing he talked about me like that at work.
“Yeah. My little brainiac.” He gave me a sticky sesame kiss. I chased it down with another mouthful of noodles. “Tell me about your day,” he said.
“Mmph.” I wiped the sauce from my chin and launched into it, from breakfast with my parents and the bow on Rufus’s collar to the balloons in my locker and my kidnapping on the school steps. When I
got to post-diner cupcakes in the Wildebeest, and Eric’s and my cheeks smeared with frosting due to a sneak attack from Jo right when we were laughing too hard to retaliate, Aiden’s face shifted, betraying his indifference. “I guess you had to be there,” I said.
He tipped back his water glass. I stared at the pattern on the picnic blanket. I was boring him.
“I wish you had been. Maybe we could all hang out together sometime soon. You’ve barely met Eric and you didn’t see the best side of Jo. You guys started on the wrong foot, I think.”
He sighed. “I’m not really interested in hanging out with your friends.”
His tone said I should drop it but I didn’t. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “I just don’t see what they have to do with you and me.”
“They’re important to me. You’re important to me. I want them to get to know you.” I hated how high my voice sounded when I got defensive. I hated spending my birthday dinner being defensive.
“Fine. You want us to spend our time together eating french fries and talking about homework and flipping through yearbooks with your high school friends? If that’s really what’s most important to you, I guess we can do that.”
I looked down at my chopsticks. “That’s not what I meant.”
Aiden took the plate from my hands, set it on the blanket, and pulled me toward him. “C’mere.” He kissed me and the bad feelings started to sink away, or at least swim less close to the surface. “I made you something.”
“You did? What is it?”
The kisses moved down my neck. “Are you sure you want it?” he said, voice suggestive. He squeezed my hip.
I pushed him away. His innuendo was making me feel cheap. “Yes, please.”
“Close your eyes.”
I did as I was told. He held my hand, warm in his, and after a few seconds of rustling, slid something cool and solid onto my ring finger. “Is that—” I opened my eyes. A thin band of hammered silver glinted in the candlelight.
“Happy birthday.”
I gaped at it. “You made this?”
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