“Hear, hear,” Erin says, raising her wine glass. “Matty has amazing parents, so he has no idea what you’re talking about, buttrust me, I get it. If they don’t like you for you, you shouldn’t feel guilty for not wanting them to be a part of your life.”
“I don’t feel guilty,” Jacob admits. “Like, I know I probably should, but... I don’t know. I mostly just feel relieved.”
“I get it,” Erin says again. “You and I should really have a bottle of wine sometime. I feel like we would get along.”
“It’s fifty-fifty,” Matty announces suddenly, looking up from his phone. “At least according to this study. Although, I feel like these statistics are kind of nonsense, because if you’re in the closet, you’re not exactly going to tell some random survey person that you’re gay, right?” He frowns. “Although maybe if they tell you it’s anonymous, or if it’s, like, a secret internet survey poll—”
“Put some more pizza in your mouth, Matty,” Heather says. “Stop the words from coming out.”
Matty tosses a chunk of pizza crust at her. “For real, though, that sucks about your parents,” he tells Jacob. “If you ever want to borrow mine, just let me know. They love other people’s children. They’ve already adopted Erin and Travis, but I’m sure they’d love a third child.”
Jacob chuckles. “I’ll remember that.”
Erin asks everyone if they want more drinks, and the conversation turns to something else. I lean closer to Jacob and touch his hand under the table.
“I’m really sorry,” I say quietly. “I didn’t mean to mess everything up with your family.”
“You didn’t,” he says. “It’s their issue.”
I squeeze his hand once, and he presses his shoulder against mine. He stays like that until we all get up and migrate to the living room, where we sit and chat awhile longer. Jacob and Matty get into a passionate and extremely boring discussion about track limits at the Austrian GP (they’re both shocked I don’t have astrong opinion on the subject), Hunter tells me about the great new guy Thomas is dating, which makes me feel a lot better about that situation, and Erin shows me some pictures she took in Canada for some nature magazine.
Everyone takes Jacob’s cell phone number before we leave, and Heather says she’ll text us all to set something up again soon. Jacob is quiet as we walk back to my car. He didn’t drink anything except the old-fashioned Heather made him, but he’s got a jittery, nervous sort of energy about him.
“Was that alright?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “It was fun.” He hesitates a moment, then adds, “Do you think your friends like me?”
I grin. “I do.”
He lets out a little breath, and some of the tension slips from his frame. “Good,” he says, as we reach the car. He clears his throat and adds, “Kelsie will like you, too. She thinks you’re super hot, which is a good start.”
I laugh and pull open the driver’s-side door. “That is a good start.”
Jacob gets into the passenger seat beside me. There’s a beat of silence, then he says, “I’m meeting up with my friend Nate next weekend, too. You could come with me if you want.”
I go still, just for a moment. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I think you’d like him. And he’s bringing his fiancée, so.” He leaves the sentence unfinished.
“So... you want me to come as a friend?” I ask, carefully.
He looks away from me to fiddle with his seatbelt. “I guess. Or you could just come as my boyfriend.” He clears his throat again. “I mean, if you wanted to. I know we haven’t really talked about it.”
He gives me a small, slightly nervous smile, and a rush of fondness swells up in my chest.
I wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling this way. I don’t think so. He’s as firmly rooted in my heart as he was that first week in Scotland. And as awful as I felt sometimes during the past ten months, I can’t bring myself to regret it. It brought me my own family, Heather and Matty and Hunter and Matty’s parents and Mrs. Costa. And it brought me this new version of Jacob, who’s exactly like the boy I already loved but with all the layers of uncertainty stripped away. He said that he’s in this, a hundred percent, and I believe him.
I lean over the handbrake to kiss him.
“Your boyfriend,” I agree.
36
Home
I wake up to find Travis’ new dog, Morocco, staring at me. She’s curled up on his abandoned pillow with her chin tucked between her front paws and a stern look on her face, like she’s judging me for sleeping in so late.
I stretch my arms out and breathe in deeply. I forgot how good it feels to sleep through the whole night. All of my muscles are loose and warm, and my mind feels clearer than it has since the crash. I can hear Travis’ coffeemaker gurgling in the kitchen and the faint sounds of music, a Mumford & Sons song I vaguely recognize. Hunter mentioned last night he was working on Travis’ musical education. Or, as Heather put it, “trying to turn Travis into an annoying hipster, as if the world doesn’t have enough of them already.”
