When I emerged from the ladies’ room a few minutes later, Jason was loitering around just outside. There was no sign of Kwan.
“Where’d he go?” I asked, glancing around.
“Who, you mean that dude Kwan?” Jason nodded toward the French doors a little way away. “He went outside.”
“Outside?”
“Yeah. Something about having a smoke.” Jason pursed his lips and took an imaginary toke. “And I don’t think he’s into cigarettes, if you know what I mean.”
I was surprised and a little disappointed. My mind immediately flashed to Andy and his crazy cannabis habit back in high school. What was it with me being attracted to guys who liked to get high?
Still, I reminded myself, just because Kwan might have a smoke once in a while, that didn’t mean he was as into it as Andy had been back then. I would just have to get to know him better and see what was what.
Just then Kwan himself appeared in the doorway. “Hey,” he greeted me and Jason with a smile. “Nice gardens. Those big red roses just outside smell great.”
“Really?” I said with what I hoped was a cool, playful smirk. “Great enough to cover a certain—you know—smell?” I mimed a toke, just as Jason had a moment earlier.
“Huh?” Kwan blinked at me.
“It’s okay.” I shrugged. “I’m not going to, like, narc you out to my sister or anything. I know this wedding is probably kind of a drag if you don’t know anyone—I don’t blame you for wanting to take the edge off, you know?” I took another imaginary drag and winked at him.
He scowled. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“Accusing? No!” I said quickly. He looked kind of insulted. “Like I said, it’s no big deal. I mean, I’m not into that stuff myself, but I know lots of people who get stoned once in a—”
“Stoned?” he exclaimed, interrupting me. “Are you kidding? I don’t touch that stuff!”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Sorry, I was just joking around.”
“Who do you think I am, anyway?” he cried, his face darkening with anger. “I’m a serious athlete, you know—I don’t do anything that might jeopardize my fitness or my focus, not to mention my horse. I mean, I want to make it to the Olympics someday!”
“I’m sorry,” I said when he paused for breath. Out of the corner of my eye I saw that Jason was smirking, and I realized I’d been had. When would I ever learn? “Kwan, really, I didn’t mean . . .”
But it was too late. He was already stalking off without a backward glance.
I rounded on Jason. “Gee, thanks a lot!” I cried. “Thanks to you, he’ll probably never speak to me again, now that I practically accused him of sneaking out to get high!”
“Oops!” Jason said mildly. “Guess your sense of humor is a little off tonight.” He shrugged and glanced after Kwan. “And obviously that poor guy doesn’t have one at all.”
He shoved both hands into his pants pockets, then turned and wandered off toward the bar. Feeling red-hot anger flushing my cheeks, I stomped after him.
“Hey!” I yelled, more furious with him than I’d ever been. I grabbed his arm, digging my fingers into his flesh through his jacket sleeve. “What’s your problem, anyway?”
He yanked his arm away and turned to face me. “What’s my problem? You’re the one who’s yelling.” He glanced at the people around us. “How about keeping your voice down?”
“How about not telling me what to do, you immature jerk?” I clenched my fists at my side, not caring who was listening. “You make me crazy, you know that, Jason? I mean, every time I start thinking that maybe, just maybe there might be a nice guy in there behind that smirk somewhere, you go and do something like this.”
“Easy . . . ,” he murmured, glancing around again.
So he was embarrassed? Good!
“How can you be such a jerk?” I exclaimed. “First you make fun of me for wanting a nice date for this wedding, and now this. I always figured you were just kidding around all those times you’d tease me or whatever. But now? Well, now I’m starting to think you’re just a mean person.”
By now, people nearby were definitely staring, but I didn’t care. Jason had embarrassed me enough times—let him get a taste of his own medicine for once!
His smirk was totally gone by now. “Look, let’s take this outside,” he mumbled. He grabbed my hand and yanked me toward the nearest door. I tried to drag my heels, but ended up stumbling over them instead. Stupid three-inch pumps . . .
A moment later we were out in the garden, standing on the little cobblestone walk that looped around through the roses. We were beneath the arbor that framed the French doors. Big, poufy dark-red blossoms drooped overhead, releasing their musky scent into the breezy evening air.
But I hardly noticed any of that. I was still totally focused on hating Jason.
“Fine,” I said. “I guess you don’t want witnesses when I tell you exactly what I think of you, huh? No wonder—if I was a huge jerkwad like you, I wouldn’t want anyone to know it either.”
“Look, Ava,” he said. “I was just kidding around. You know me, I—”
“Yes, unfortunately, I do know you,” I broke in, ready to let him have it. I’d been holding it in for six months, but enough was enough. “I know you’re obnoxious, and self-centered, and vain, and probably care more about your stupid hair than you do about anyone, and—”
“You know what?” he interrupted. In the moonlight I could see that he was starting to look kind of annoyed.
“What?” I asked.
He just glared at me for a second. I glared right back at him.
Then he grabbed me by both shoulders—and kissed me!
Nineteen
I was so surprised that it was a moment or two before I realized that I was just standing there kissing him back. Whoa! What was up with that?
My brain finally kicked back into gear and ordered my body to push him away and slap him across the face. Somehow, though, my body didn’t seem to be obeying. In fact, it was totally rebelling. My eyes were fluttering shut. My arms were creeping up around his neck. My lips remained locked on his. And what was that? Could it be my heart . . . letting out a thumpity-thump?
That finally startled me out of my fog. This was all wrong. I yanked myself loose of his embrace.
“Hey!” I blurted out.
Then I just stared at him for a moment, wondering what exactly had just happened. He stared back at me. His face looked kind of red in the moonlight, and his hair, formerly perfect as usual, was a bit tousled. Somehow, both of those things made him look even cuter than normal.
He was the first to speak. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he said.
“Wha-huh?” I replied. I was definitely having trouble taking all this in. “I, uh, you—what?”
He didn’t seem to notice I was babbling like an idiot. “I thought you were cute the first time we met,” he said. “More than cute, actually. But I was with Teresa then, so I just ignored those feelings.”
I stared at him. By the way he was looking back at me, I could tell he expected me to say something now. But my brain seemed to be stuck in neutral.
He shrugged and went on. “Anyway, I figured it wasn’t meant to be, you know? But then these past couple of weeks, spending so much time with you, I realized that what I was feeling might be too important to ignore, no matter how—you know, complicated it might be.” He reached over and took one of my hands in both of his. “I only hope you’ll give me a chance . . .”
My head was spinning, and for once I was completely speechless. Staring down at my hand lying limply in his, I tried to figure out what exactly was going on here. Was this another of his weird jokes, like the thing with Kwan?
One look at his face gave me the answer: No way. There was no trace of the Smirk. Only sincerity shining out from his eyes. Could this earnest, adorable guy—who just happened to be an amazing kisser, by the way—really be the same obnoxiou
s Jason I’d loathed for so long?
Or had I really loathed him? Sure, I’d always complained about all his teasing, his little jokes and stupid nicknames. But at the same time, was it possible that I’d enjoyed the attention, even just a teensy little bit? Was I really that junior high?
“Um . . .” I had no idea what to say. I didn’t even have any idea how to feel. All this time I’d been dismissing Jason as just another Boring Bob type. But now that I thought about it—really thought about it—I wasn’t sure that was fair. Maybe Jason didn’t have an overwhelming single passion like Lance and his cars, Rocco and his sports, Oliver and his music—whatever. But unlike Bob, who got the sweats if he had to go anywhere more exotic than the mailbox, Jason did seem willing to go out and do things. Lots of things, actually. Like going to see Oliver’s band, or that comedy troupe. Going to the beach on impulse all by himself. A last-minute trip through the city on a search for olives and cheesesteaks. Or even taking me to this wedding with pretty much no notice.
I blinked, suddenly realizing that all that made Jason kind of an adventurous, open-minded, impulsive person. Sort of like . . . me.
I realized he was watching me carefully. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
“Just that we have a lot in common,” I managed to choke out. “Or more than I thought we did, anyway.”
He smiled. Squeezing my hand more tightly, he pulled me toward him. Before I quite knew what was happening, we were kissing again.
This time I didn’t bother to fight it. Melting into his embrace, I closed my eyes and just let myself enjoy it. Maybe it was the moonlight, the scent of the roses surrounding us, or the aftereffects of the romantic wedding ceremony, but the moment felt so right that I couldn’t help wondering if this was where fate had been leading me all along. All this time I’d been searching for something, for some one . . . but maybe the one I was looking for had been right under my nose the whole time. After all, hadn’t we ended up here together on this big day, thanks mostly to luck, along with the generosity of . . .
Teresa! Suddenly my happy mood came crashing down around me. I shoved Jason away and jumped back, horrified by what I was doing.
“Wait, we can’t do this!” I cried.
“Huh?”
“No,” I mumbled, wiping my mouth as if hoping to erase the feel of his lips on mine. “This is all so, so wrong . . .” How could I betray my best friend for a guy—any guy? How was I ever going to make this up to her?
He was still staring at me, looking confused. “Ava?” he murmured, reaching for my hand.
I yanked it away before he could grab it. “No,” I said again, near tears as the significance of what I’d just done really hit me. “We can’t—I can’t do this to Teresa.”
Saying her name out loud put me over the edge. I dissolved into tears as I whirled away and raced off, hardly hearing him calling out my name.
It just wasn’t fair. None of it. Suddenly the happiest day of my sister’s life had become the most miserable and pathetic day of my own.
Twenty
“Hey, Ava! Where’s the fire?”
Boring Bob’s boringly jovial voice broke into my misery. I had stumbled, half blinded by tears, into the building and down some random hall. Somehow, I’d ended up in the little room set aside for the bride and groom to get away for a moment and catch their breath. Seeing that Bob and Camille were sitting very close together on the tasteful beige sofa, I suspected I’d interrupted something, but I wasn’t about to worry about that. They had a whole lifetime ahead of them to grope each other.
Besides, at that particular moment my mind was such a complete whirlwind that I didn’t have any room to spare for guilt about the interruption. All of my guilt and anxiety was occupied with one question: How was I going to break this to Teresa?
A few other emotions were tumbling around in there too. For instance, anger—how could Jason do this to me, not to mention Teresa, who had barely left town five seconds ago? There was also some misery—how unfair was it that the perfect guy for me happened to hook up with my best friend first? And finally, a touch of lust—would it really be so wrong to make out with him again?
I knew the answer to that last one. Yes. It would be wrong. No matter how right it had felt to kiss him, it could never happen again.
Camille got up, smoothed out the rumpled skirt of her dress, and peered at me. “Hey, what’s wrong with you? You look weird.”
I tried to smile, to say something casual and walk out with my dignity intact. But it was no use. I couldn’t hide what I was feeling. Not this time.
“I just did something really, really stupid,” I blurted out. “I just—I just kissed Jason.”
Camille looked confused. “Jason? You mean as in your date Jason?”
Normally a stupid question like that would have earned a snarky response from me—something along the lines of No, Jason Alexander. Duh. But at the moment I didn’t have the energy.
“Yeah,” I said, sinking onto the edge of a handy chair. “He was really being annoying, so I was yelling at him, and we went outside, and then poof! We were kissing.” I sighed. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. Teresa is never going to forgive me, and I don’t blame her!”
Camille and Bob traded a slightly confused glance. “Um, well, maybe she’ll understand,” Camille said.
“Right,” Bob added. “You were just caught up in the moment, that’s all. No big deal. Teresa seems like a reasonable person—she’ll be okay once you explain.”
“Yeah.” Camille smiled at him. “Bob’s right. Teresa is really down to earth. Besides, you guys have been friends forever. She won’t let this come between you.”
I could tell they were trying to help. They were so giddy in their own happiness right now that to them it probably seemed that no problem was insurmountable. But everything they said was only making me feel worse.
“Thanks, guys.” I stood up and took a deep breath, trying to compose myself long enough to make my escape. Then maybe I could go find a nice, private corner to cry in for a while. “I guess I’ll leave you to—”
“Ava!” It was Jason. He stood in the doorway, looking upset. “We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said, not meeting his eye. “Nothing either of us can say will make this horrible nightmare go away—not unless you’ve figured out how to turn back time so it never happened. And if you could do that, you know, you’d probably be, like, off accepting the Nobel Prize or something and not here at some wedding cheating on your girlfriend with her best—”
“Shut up!” he yelled, interrupting my rambling monologue. He grimaced as I stared at him in surprise. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. But man, can you get rolling sometimes!”
Behind me I heard Camille giggle. Then she cleared her throat and went silent again.
Jason was staring at me intensely. “I didn’t cheat on anybody,” he said. “Teresa and I broke up the night before she left.”
“What?” I was barely aware of Camille and Bob tiptoeing past us out of the room. I was totally focused on Jason, trying to figure out the punch line here. “What do you mean, you broke up? No, you didn’t—she would have told me.”
“She didn’t tell you?” He shrugged. “Well, it’s true. In fact, when it happened, both of us admitted that we should’ve done it months ago. We were never really anything more than friends with benefits anyway.”
“Really?” In a way what he was saying made sense. It would certainly explain that weird vibe I’d gotten from Teresa the morning she left.
But I couldn’t help feeling wary. Could I really trust Jason on something like this?
“Really,” he said. “The spark just wasn’t there between me and Teresa. Not like, um . . .”
His voice trailed off as he reached out and took my hand. I shivered as I felt it—the spark.
I bit my lip, gazing into his eyes and seeing the same spark reflected there. Maybe that was what I needed t
o trust—that feeling. The spark. The thumpity-thump.
I just hoped I wasn’t making a huge mistake.
Camille and Bob had left the door ajar, and through it came the faint sound of the vocalist announcing the final song. The Wedding of the Century was almost over.
A second later I heard the band striking up the opening bars. It was “Last Dance,” the old Donna Summer tune. Leave it to cheesy Camille to choose that as the final song at her wedding!
Jason cleared his throat. “So,” he said, sounding uncharacteristically uncertain, “should we—that is, do you want to dance? You know—with me?”
I hesitated. This still felt strange. What would Teresa say if she could see us right now? Would it hurt her the way seeing Lance and his new girlfriend together had hurt me?
No way, I thought. Teresa isn’t me. Jason isn’t Lance. And I’m certainly no Charlene!
The last thought made me smile a little. Jason was watching my face carefully.
“Well?” he asked. “Don’t leave me hanging, Ava.”
I squeezed his hand. I wished I could talk to Teresa about this right now. It felt totally weird, and I knew it would keep feeling that way until we spoke. But in the meantime it was the middle of the night in Germany, and I could almost hear her voice in my head laughing and telling me to go for it.
“Yes,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I’d love to dance.”
It felt weirdly right as he took me in his arms out on the dance floor. By the time we got out there the slow part of the song was almost over. But even when the band swung into the up-tempo disco part, Jason and I kept right on slow-dancing in the middle of the floor. I was still a little nervous about what Teresa would say. But I tried to put it out of my mind for now.
Jason hugged me a little closer, bending down to sing into my ear along with the song. “Last dance,” he sang softly. “SquarePants. Last dance . . .”
I laughed, wondering why I’d ever found his jokes so irritating. I wasn’t sure.
But I was pretty sure about one thing. This wouldn’t be our last dance together—not by a long shot.
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