One Big Mistake: a friends to lovers rom-com

by Whitney Barbetti

I glanced sideways down the hall, where Adam’s locker was. People milled about, but he wasn’t there yet. “Okay,” I told her, already feeling a nip of anxiety at the thought of riding with Keane—and potentially Adam too.

  “I gotta head to class,” Tori said, tugging one of my braids gently. “See you at lunch. Subway?”

  I nodded, smiling at her, and waited until she was out of sight before pulling the note out again. The hallway was clearing as people rushed to their next classes, but I could take my time. My parents hadn’t originally gone for having a break in my schedule until they realized that I would have more time to dedicate specifically to my studies. Plus, since it was a period in the middle of the morning, it wasn’t like I could sleep in or leave school early.

  I fingered the corners of the sticky note, debating if I wanted to do this. There was nothing about the note that said, WRITTEN BY HOLLIS VINKE, but I felt the nerves all the same. It wasn’t like he even knew I existed, much less my specific handwriting.

  The hallway was empty, save for a few stragglers whose backpacks were being filled and emptied. I thought of Adam’s face, the shine that had gone out in his eyes upon being ridiculed. There’d been no question that he’d put his heart into that speech, that he’d spoken about something he’d actually believed. He was a musician—just another one of the band geeks in the eyes of every ‘popular’ clique in school, but that speech had shown passion. I had been too cowardly to say anything in class, and though the note was anonymous, I hoped it’d mean something to him.

  So I slipped down the hallway, keeping my eyes on the textbook in my hands, and paused just outside his locker. After a look in both directions, I pushed it in the crack of his locker and hurried to the library.

  “You’re not wearing that,” Tori said when I showed up to her house on Saturday. “Are you?”

  I looked down at my black jeans and blue tank. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Well, since you’re such a smarty pants, I’ll just say that if I were to grade your outfit, it’d get a solid B.”

  “B for blue?”

  “B for boring. Come on, Hols. I’ll give you something out of my closet.”

  To some, Tori was no pushover. I liked to think of her as an indomitable force. She was confident, poised when need be, and she faced fear like it didn’t exist. Basically, she was the opposite of me.

  “Here,” she said, shoving a slip of olive-colored lace at me.

  “This looks like lingerie,” I said, holding it up in two fingers. It was a tank top, made of some kind of satiny fabric, with matching lace around the low neckline. The straps were two strips of barely-there fabric.

  “Put it on, tuck the front into your jeans. It’ll look great with your tan.”

  I looked at her doubtfully and she crossed her arms over her chest, giving me an impatient look.

  “I mean, if you want to wear your boring old tank top, that’s cool.”

  I eyed the tank top I was wearing, noting that while it was clean and wrinkle-free, it lacked anything to make it even a little bit exciting. The lace-trimmed tank top, on the other hand, was far outside of my comfort zone. And wasn’t that what I was going for, anyway? I had slipped a note all but inviting Adam to look for me at the party that night—which was so far out of my comfort zone that it was practically in another dimension. Probably the same dimension where I wore clothes like Tori’s.

  “Can you help me with my hair?” I asked her as I swapped tanks. My everyday ponytail, while sleek, made me look more like a mom than a senior in high school.

  “That was my next suggestion.” Tori’s eyes gleamed as she led me into her bathroom.

  Thirty minutes later, Keane texted Tori that he had arrived. I felt sweat break out immediately along my hairline, and when Tori snagged my hand to tug me along with her, I nearly slipped from her grasp from the sweat that prickled my palms.

  I mean, maybe I was overreacting. Maybe Adam wouldn’t even be riding with Keane. Maybe I had more time to acquire a bit more courage.

  But that hope was shot down as soon as we stepped outside, seeing Adam in the passenger seat of the ride. And, judging by the flat look in his eyes as he observed us, he wasn’t exactly thrilled we were joining him.

  When the passenger door opened and Adam stepped out, I could only stare as he came to standing. He was a solid six inches taller than me, wearing all black and a scowl that was more than a little intimidating. “Hey, Tori!” Keane called enthusiastically as he leaned over and patted the now-empty front passenger seat. “Hey, Hollis. You okay to sit in the back with Adam?”

  I eyed Adam, who was eyeing me.

  “Su-sure.” I sounded anything but sure. Adam was standing in front of the backseat door eyeing me for a minute, as Tori climbed up front where Keane was. I heard them giggle, but my focus was on Adam. He didn’t look me up and down, but the look he gave me directly in the eyes told me he didn’t like me. Which meant bringing up that note was probably ill-advised.

  He was tall and lanky. Maybe a little on the thin side, but he had a presence that was commanding regardless. His tanned arms had little blips of tattoo ink, but his arms crossed over his chest like he was hiding them from my perusal. He had a broad, sharp jawline and a mouth that belonged to someone in a magazine spread. His dark eyes and dark, straight eyebrows only added to that effect. His entire look could be defined as: musician, dark and brooding.

  And those eyes. They looked at me like he knew me. Which unsettled me, because we’d barely spoken a handful of words in the last ten years of going to schools in the same town. But as he held my gaze, I realized it was the first time we’d ever made meaningful eye contact. And this was how he was looking at me.

  I tried not to let my uneasiness with him show, but the way he looked at me was making my neck heat, and pretty soon that heat would climb into my face and I would resemble a tomato.

  “Adam, stop being a dick,” Keane said and Adam stepped aside, gesturing for me to get into the backseat. But why was he being a dick? Why did he so clearly not like me?

  A voice in my head told me he’d figured out I was the author of the note and took it as me mocking him. I had to tamp down on that runaway anxiety train before I blurted out that it had been a sincere and genuine gesture. Adam slid into the car beside me so I was sitting directly behind Keane.

  “Have you been to Seth’s parents’ house?” Keane asked, looking in the rear-view mirror at me.

  “Uh, no,” I said. I didn’t get out much.

  “It’s cool, right on the lake. We’re going to take the boat out.”

  “Oh?” I asked, fanning my face. It wasn’t hot outside. But being in such close proximity with Adam was making it feel like a sauna. “Can you turn on the air conditioning?” I asked, and felt three pairs of eyes look at me. Which, naturally, did nothing to lessen the anxiety I was experiencing.

  Be cool, I told myself repeatedly. This is fine. “It’s warm in here,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” Adam said flatly. He was wearing scuffed black boots, black jeans, and a tight black tee. On his lap was a light jacket, black like the rest of his ensemble. And he was still staring at me. I summoned whatever dregs of courage I had and faced him.

  “You don’t have hair.” I nodded to his buzzed head and then felt the cool blast of A/C toss my hair in front of my face. He couldn’t argue with that.

  He turned away first, eyes firmly focused outside the window as Keane took off toward Amber Lake. Keane and Tori were talking quietly—well, too quiet for me to hear over the roar of the stereo—which left me alone to stare outside the window on my side of the car. Not for the first time, I wondered why I thought I could go to the party and be someone other than who I was.

  “Is that true?” Tori asked, turning in her seat so she faced us, not realizing we couldn’t hear what she and Keane had been saying.

  “Is what true?” Adam asked.

  “The note?” Tori asked.

  So, Adam knew it was from me.<
br />
  My stomach sank and no level of air conditioning could fix the sweat that was surely dampening my hairline. He told Keane?

  “Yeah,” Adam said, and turned to Keane. “Why do you have to tell everyone everything, man?”

  “I hardly think I am everyone, Adam,” Tori said. She turned to me, her eyes lit up. “Adam has a secret admirer.”

  I let go of a breath as discreetly as possible. He didn’t know. I was safe. Thank God, because whatever illusion I had that tonight would be the night I would reveal my secret crush on him was most certainly squashed the moment he first glared at me. “Oh?” was all I managed.

  “It’s nothing,” Adam said, waving it off. It was clear he didn’t want to talk about it, and I wondered if I did the wrong thing by giving it to him. I rubbed my sweaty palms on the knees of my jeans as Tori plowed on.

  “Who do you think it is?”

  Adam turned so slowly to face her and the contempt on his face would be obvious even if she wasn’t wearing her contact lenses. “If I knew, it wouldn’t be secret, would it?”

  But Tori wasn’t intimidated. “Well, what did it say? We can do a process of elimination.”

  Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. While Tori didn’t know I was the author of the note, she knew I was in that class with him. If Adam gave the context of the note, if he told her it had to be someone from that class, she would know. She knew I had a crush on him. Her eyes swung to me, questioning. I shook my head as casually as possible. I couldn’t tell her it was me. No way.

  “He won’t say what it said,” Keane butted in. “Just that there was a cartoon on it.”

  That seemed to satisfy Tori because she gave me an imperceptible nod—one that said, Oh, it wasn’t you.

  Like I said before, drawing was not a strong suit of mine. “Ah,” she said aloud. “Who’s an artist?”

  “Beats me,” Keane said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Adam said curtly. “Can we not talk about it?” He gave Keane a pointed look. And that line effectively muted the rest of the car ride to the party.

  “Beer?” Tori asked as she pulled me through throngs of bodies half-heartedly dancing to music that could be barely heard above their voices.

  I scrunched up my nose and shook my head. “Wine coolers?”

  She shrugged and pulled me further into the kitchen, to the large double-wide fridge at the end of the room. She knew her way around the house, even as it was crowded with the population of our senior class. I guess when you were a frequent guest at parties like this one, you got pretty familiar with the layout.

  It was my first time at a high school party, my first time at the home of a boy when I wasn’t in the company of my parents. Despite being surrounded by people who were in my daily classes, I only knew maybe a handful of people at the party.

  Tori pushed an ice cold glass bottle into my hands, then popped the top of the wine cooler like it was second nature to her. I envied her a little. Well, not her. But her experience. Her confidence. She had it in droves. All I had to offer was a mumbled, self-conscious thanks before I took my first sip of alcohol.

  It was too sweet. That was what I thought at first, grimacing around the swallow. I was used to the artificial sweeteners of my favorite diet sodas that something as innocent as sugar-laden juice felt…heavy. This felt like sipping straight sugar. Tori, on the other hand, had downed half of hers as she smiled and waved at someone over my shoulder. I turned around, my gaze colliding with Adam Oliver. It was the first time since we got to the party that we’d seen each other—which meant it was the second time we’d made meaningful contact and … yup, he still hated me. I looked him over for a reprieve from the staring contest that I would lose anyway, spying the beer in his hands as he lifted it. Which meant I was once again making eye contact with him.

  He eyed the glass bottle in my hand and the side of his mouth quirked up in what I might almost take as a smile before his attention turned to Keane.

  “We made out last night,” Tori whispered, her breath hot on my ear. “Keane, I mean. It was hot.”

  I turned, smiling and took another sip of the liquid sugar. “That’s why you ignored my texts last night?”

  “Yeah, sorry. After the lacrosse game, under the bleachers. He’s a great kisser.” She said that not to brag, but as if in offering. “If you’re looking…” she added. The infatuation with Keane was already losing its spark.

  I laughed. Like Keane would give me a second glance, especially when I stood beside Tori. “I’m not.” I braved another sip, but that one made my stomach turn and I knew I needed to give up the bottle sooner than later. Gross. “Losing interest already?” Asking it was pointless, but it kept her talking which kept my eyes from drifting to Adam.

  “I mean, I’m not looking for a boyfriend, you know?” she said, and I believed her. “I just wanted to kiss someone. You know how it happens sometimes.”

  But I didn’t, and she knew it. “Sure.”

  She laughed, drawing the attention of a few people from our class around us. Sweat prickled my brow, partly from the oppressive heat of so many bodies around us but mostly from the unwanted attention. I had tagged along with Tori to this party hoping she could pull me out of my shell a little, show me some fun before I spent the rest of the weekend buried in a book.

  “Adam though,” Tori said. She sucked in her bottom lip as she glanced over at Adam and Keane and my head turned, staring at them with her. Thankfully, Adam was no longer trying to murder me with his eyes, his attention having turned solely to Keane. Surely, Tori couldn’t mean she wanted to make out with Adam, too?

  “Relax, Hols.” She laughed, clapping me on the back. “I know he’s yours.”

  I bristled. “He’s not mine.”

  “Okay, not in the physical sense but in the romantic sense.” She tapped my forehead. “At least in here, he’s yours. I’m not going near him with a ten foot pole.” She drained her wine cooler and set it on the surface closest to her. “But it sounded like you had competition in the car.” She raised an eyebrow.

  “Here.” I handed her my wine cooler, wanting to change the topic before the subject of the note was discussed in depth. “This is too sweet for me.”

  “Thought so. We should get you something else.”

  But I was already reconsidering the whole partying thing altogether. This wasn’t my scene. I couldn’t be blasé about partying like Tori could. She was the girl everyone talked to, and the girl who talked to everyone. She was better than most people, but didn’t think of herself that way. So when people mistook her forwardness or self-confidence as arrogance, I was quick to correct them. Tori knew who she was. She knew what she wanted. Both combined made her years beyond most of us.

  She met my eyes. “Well then, come on.”

  “Huh?” But I had barely said it before she was tugging me along once again, but this time in the direction of Keane and Adam. “Wait,” I said, pulling back.

  She whipped her head toward me. “Let’s go talk to them,” she said, placing emphasis on them because what she meant was You should talk to Adam. But this wasn’t some sappy teen movie where the girl finally gained the courage to talk to the guy she’d swooned over from afar. Yes, I swooned over Adam. But he hated me.

  “What happened to not going near him with a ten-foot pole?” I asked, both of us in a tug of war, my arm as the rope.

  “Okay, I’ll bring you to him and then I’ll pull Keane away for some more lip service.”

  I groaned and used up all my strength to yank her toward me. “No way, Tori. No. Way. You cannot abandon me.”

  Her eyes glittered mischievously, but dulled when she saw the fear in mine. “Okay, fine, we’ll just makeout in front of you so you’ll have no choice but to open your mouth and actually say something to Adam.”

  “I can’t just do that.”

  “What?” She laughed. “Talk? Sure you can. It’s easy.”

  “Tori.” My stomach churned and I pressed my free hand to it. “You saw h
ow he looked at me. I can’t talk to him while you’re making out with Keane. I’m not you.”

  “Hey, he looked at me the same way as you. That’s just who he is.” She shrugged. “He’s like a human-sized ball of steel wool. Abrasive as fuck. You just gotta talk to him. Once he gets to know you, he’ll chill out.” She put an arm around me. “Hollis, you are smart and funny and you work harder than anyone I know. He’s gotta work for it if he deserves even a shot at talking with you. But let’s try, anyway.”

  It was hard to see myself the way Tori saw me. Adam was practically mythical for me, someone I had admired from afar but had never had the guts to talk to. Adam was musical and a deep thinker and also he looked at you like he was looking through you, finding out your contents and determining if you were worthy. And he’d clearly made up his mind about me before tonight’s party. I wasn’t convinced that Adam would ever see the things Tori saw in me. “You can’t abandon me,” I made her promise. “Seriously, you can’t.”

  “I won’t. Only if I see an opening, okay?”

  I groaned. “No. No way.”

  “Hollis.” She put a hand on my shoulder and leaned down so our foreheads touched. “We are seniors. In two months, we’re graduating. This is your chance to finally talk to the one guy you’ve ever had a lasting crush on.”

  “Ugh,” I said on a sigh.

  “Ugh all you want to me. But if I see an opening for you and Adam to get to actually have a conversation, I’m out of there.” She held up her pinky. After a moment’s hesitation, I looped my pinky with hers and let her pull me back through the throng of people to where Adam and Keane stood, just off the side of the dining room, near the door that led out to a deck. The door was open, letting a cool breeze ruffle my hair. When he turned, he looked at me with the eyes of someone judging me, deeming me to be someone I probably was not.

  Why, of all the guys in the room, did he make me feel compelled to prove myself? He hadn’t asked me to prove myself with words, but his eyes spoke more than his lips ever could. “Hey guys,” Tori said, bumping playfully into Keane. His cheeks pinked and he glanced sideways at Adam before smiling more fully at her.