Willa and Al shared a look. Willa spoke first. ‘Gabriel invited us to his graduation party.’
‘Really? Aw, that was sweet of him.’ I knew that since I had been gone, Gabe and Al had bonded over their love of movies. The few times I saw them together, Willa would roll her eyes, excuse herself, and know enough to never come back. ‘So we’re all heading in the same direction.’
The tension in their faces eased, and they walked out with me, asking how the brunch shift had gone and how my hand was adjusting – they asked about my hand more than Natalie and George did.
Brad was parked in the roundabout just outside the automatic front doors. He popped the trunk and got out of the car.
‘Come here,’ I said to Al and Willa. ‘I want you to meet someone.’
They shared another look and followed me as Brad handed me the backpack I’d asked him to hold when he dropped me off for my shift that morning.
‘Willa, Al, this is my friend Brad Waldorf. Brad, this is Willa Vaughn and Alvin Turner.’
Brad put on his most charming smile and held out a hand to both. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘Hello,Brad,’ Al said in a flirtatious voice that made Brad’s cheeks flush.
‘Always nice to meet afriendof Thomas’s,’ Willa said.
I gaped at her. ‘You’redoing it now, too?’
She shrugged as if she didn’t know what I was talking about.
‘All right, let’s go. Say goodbye, Brad.’ I pushed him gently toward the car as Willa and Al said at the same time, in the same overly friendly tone, ‘Goodbye, Brad’. I turned on them both, clenching my teeth at them. Willa gave me the quickest of winks, and they headed off to her car.
‘Aren’t you going to change?’ Brad asked, looking at the backpack in my hand.
‘Yeah, I’ll just do it on the way there.’ His cheeks flushed again, and I smirked. ‘What? This isn’t breaking any rules. You’ve seen me in my underwear before.’ Our rules were very simple: we were taking it slowly because of our history together. We were dating and doing all the things we had jumped right over that first night we got drunk and gave in to oursecret desiresalmost two years ago.
His cheeks grew redder as he started the car and began to drive. I unbuckled my belt and gasped.
‘Oh, shit. I forgot! I didn’twearany underwear today!’
‘You better stop it.’ He was grinning ear to ear. But I caught him glancing over during a red light, and there might have been a bit of disappointment to see that I had in fact remembered to wear underwear.
It was a ten-out-of-ten day. Barely seventy-six degrees, with huge fluffy clouds drifting across a bright-blue sky. My graduation celebration – I didn’t want a party – had been on Friday, and it was rainy and gross. My mom and I went into the city to an expensive restaurant owned by one of the formerFood Network Starchefs. I don’t know how my mom even got a reservation, because it was packed, but my God, was that food good. They had this Portuguese chickpea dish that, had you drowned me in it, I’d have died happy.
Meanwhile, Gabe’s graduation party couldn’t have come on a better day. When we arrived – parking right near the same spot Ava, Morgan and I had parked on Halloween – there was a massive tent in their side yard and people walking around in tux shirts and vests passing hors d’oeuvres. I started to wonder if Gabe’s parents had paid for this perfect weather.
Brad grabbed a mini quiche off a tray and popped it into his mouth. The server held the tray out to me, and I waited for Brad to finish chewing to ask how it was.
‘It’s the best mini quiche I’ve ever had.’ He took four more, and I took one as well. And, yeah, it was pretty damn amazing. Buttery crust, fluffy egg andrealbacon, not freeze-dried then rehydrated.
We separated as Brad headed for the tent to see what food stations were there, and I went to the bar to ask for two sodas. That’s where Gabe found me.
‘What did you do to piss off your parents into spending your college fund on a party?’ I asked.
He frowned. ‘It is pretty ostentatious, isn’t it?’
‘“Ostentatious” is your middle name. Oh, wait.’ I set the sodas on a table and took out my phone. He peeked over my shoulder as I opened the contacts app and changed his name to ‘Gabe Ostentatious De La Hoya.’ Out of respect, I had corrected ‘La WHORE-a’ to ‘La Hoya’ after the Vic-pigging.
He chuckled. ‘Perfect.’
Brad joined us, his hands full of small plastic fishbowls filled with rice, veggies and tuna tartare.
‘There’s a poke station!’ he said, setting the bowls down on the table. He turned to Gabe. ‘Hi. I’m Brad.’ He held out a hand.
‘Gabe, nice to meet you. Thomas has told me a lot about you.’ Gabe’s smile was genuine. If he was nervous or jealous or feeling really any other emotion other than contentment, he wasn’t showing it.
