‘Oh, hey! Yeah, you too! Your house is beautiful. I was actually here for the Halloween party.’
‘Thanks. I thought you looked familiar. You’re friends with James and Xavier, right?’
‘Yeah, we played hockey together.’ He grabbed one of the poke bowls. ‘This spread is amazing, by the way. Sushi station, charcuterie board, raw bar.’
‘They’re going to barbecue later. There’s also a chipwich station where you choose what cookie you want and what kind of Oscar’s Ice Cream you want inside.’
Brad’s eyes went wide with excitement. He turned to me. ‘Achipwichstation? Would you excuse me? Nice to meet you, Gabe. I’ll be right back. Want anything?’
‘I’m good with the poke for now.’
He gave us a thumbs-up and left in search of the chipwich station. My heart gave a little flutter. I tried to hide my goofy grin and failed miserably, because Gabe gave me a knowing look.
‘He’s adorable,’ he said.
‘He is.’
‘Are you still not-boyfriend-boyfriends or have you evolved to not-not-boyfriend-boyfriends?’
‘Shut up.’ I took a bite of the poke bowl, and damn, was it good.
Brad wanted us to move slow. It was his therapist’s suggestion, to make sure we managed to hit all the stages of dating and relationships Brad wanted to hit. He also discussed all of them with me, making sure I was okay with them and asking what I wanted.
It had been weird at first. But the more I thought about it, the better it was. I didn’t want to just assume things with Brad like I had with Gabe. That had bitten me in the ass – or, well, fingers. We took things in steps. It was like baking – measuring everything and making sure enough time was put into each step before moving on to the next. It was nice, knowing someone was on the exact same stage of the recipe as me. If something went wrong, we agreed to talk about it. But we also agreed that our dating now didn’t guarantee our dating when we got to Rhode Island. Fate had managed to keep putting us together, but we still each had our own plans for school.
That part made me a little nervous if I thought about it too long, and I felt like the same happened to him, too. But that was all later, not something we had to worry about now.
‘You know you could have had a boyfriend-boyfriend,’ he teased. Four months ago, a joke like that would have felt like a dagger to the heart. But now we had our own friendly gallows humor. Our own Sunset Estates nuance humor.
‘Because you weresoavailable.’ I rolled my eyes.
‘You could make a huge scene here and dump him and run away with me. My parents will break into my trust fund and buy a fleet of new cars.’
‘Run away to Los Angeles? That’s a big commute to Rhode Island.’ Gabe had gotten into film school at USC. He was off to become a famous Hollywood director completely against his parents’ wishes. Good for him.
‘Why would I commute to Rhode Island?’
I rolled my eyes and finished off the mini poke. Thank God Brad had brought more.
‘Seriously, though,’ Gabe said. ‘I like him for you.’
My face burned, but I played it off. ‘Thank you for your approval. It means so much given your stellar track record with men.’
He laughed, and his face brightened. ‘Al and Willa came!’ He waved, and I followed his gaze to see them wave back as he left to go say hello. I sent Ava a text. She was at her own graduation party, which was strictly family – I could have gone, but she said it was still going to be her family trying in vain to talk her out of a gap year. I told her about the food stations and that we should have gone to her party instead because now Brad was going to leave me for Gabe.
No way, my stuffyfamily are dragging me down, and my aunts are stillarguing about their potato salads.
We settled this. Aunt Ruby, hands down.
I KNOW! Tell Richie Bitch I’m hitting that sushi station hard when I’m done here. See you at five.
‘I panicked.’ I looked up from the text to see Brad with a plate with four different chipwiches. Each chipwich had one cookie flavor on one side and a different flavor on the other. They were all cut in half, so there were eight different ice cream flavors sandwiched between each half of a cookie.
I laughed. ‘You have to eat all of those now.’
‘That’s not a problem, but I did plan to share one. They also have candy and stuff you can dip them in – you know, like, to line the ice cream – but that was too many choices.’ He handed me half a chipwich. It was an oatmeal raisin cookie with what looked like a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie sandwiching …
‘Is this Scoop-ita Nyong’o?’
