“Yeah.” I sighed, glancing back at the first few diners, politely smiling at a couple who noticed us, then turned to face the horizon again. “Want to stay for dinner?”
We ate here sometimes. That was thefriendspart ofbenefits with friends.Yep, the word order was right for us. For me. Or used to be. The labels kept shifting, the friends part had a way of sneaking ahead, like it didn’t know its place in our arrangement.
“Can’t. Heading to my parents’ tonight. But I’ll be back tomorrow. When’s the contractor with the engineer arriving?”
“Nine-ish.”
“I’ll be here,” Sebastian said.
I looked at him. “Thanks.” I wasn’t resisting the help anymore. He’d probably be here, what, two, three days? I didn’t take theweseriously.
Outside, beside his car, I said, “See you tomorrow.”
“Bye, Ruby.”
Before I could turn away, he pulled me into his arms.
But he didn’t kiss me. Didn’t grope or tease. He just held me. Tight.
He wasn’t soft like he used to be—now he was all hard and corded—but the scent and warmth of his skin still felt comforting, like in the days I used to call it histeddy bear hug.
“It’ll be alright. Promise,” he said right before letting go.
“HE’S NOT SPECIAL. Ihave a crush on several others,” I said, flicking a streamer back to its place, when Sebastian asked what was so special about Dean Campbell.
We were hanging Homecoming decorations as part of the student committee when Dean walked in to look for his varsity jacket.
“God, I wish I could go out with him and wear that,” I sighed after he left. That was when Sebastian asked the question.
I’d volunteered for the committee because I wanted to do something useful rather than sit around, waiting for someone to ask me to the dance.
I’d had my braces off for over a year and thought maybe this would be my moment. But the teen movies and books I gulped down lied—there was no magical transformation, no sudden sparkle that turned me into a prom queen who got the most popular, most handsome boy in school. My hair never quite matched the trends, even after I fried it with a straightener. My drugstore concealer barely covered the acne. And no matter how hard I tried, I had thighs. Not a thigh gap in sight, which was basically a social crime in Cali.
Meanwhile, I crushed easily and often on the gorgeous, popular guys, who probably only knew me as the girl with the big mouth. And also on one from the chess club who turned red and mumbled excuses to leave every time I tried talking to him.
Rio had her own theory about my crushes. “You’re spreading your risks,” she said once. “Nobody can break your heart if you’re crushing on five guys in parallel and you give your heart to no one.”
She wasn’t wrong. Most of it was surface-level fantasies anyway, about some stunning guy—I didn’t even care which one—noticing me and falling wildly in love with me.
I wasn’t a social pariah. I had my various groups of friends—my best friend Rio, a tight girls group we hung out with, plus the two girls and the boys from the Force Alliance club, who laughed at my jokes and saved me a seat at lunch. I loved hanging out with them, and they didn’t mind that I called our club The Dork Side.
Sebastian and I had first bonded two years earlier in astronomy class, which Rio hadn’t taken, and we ended up volunteering together at school events. Plus, we were always quoting sci-fi shows Rio never watched. But they got along, and I was happy when my circles overlapped.
“Does this look okay to you?” Sebastian asked now, stepping back to inspect the banner he’d just hung.
“Perfect,” I said. “You have freakish banner hanging precision.
He gave me the proudest smile, and I handed him a pack of folded paper centerpieces. “Come on, engineer boy. Time to help me not screw up the table décor.”
By the time the dance rolled around, I was on my feet all night—fielding last-minute committee problems, tracking down a missing snack table, helping chaperons to un-dim the lights. Toward the end, with the teachers satisfied and the vibe officially fun, we all ended up dancing in a big group.
Rio joined us and told me she’d danced with Owen, her brother’s best friend and longtime crush. I high-fived her and twirled her around and felt ... happy. Free. Surrounded by people I liked and who got me.
Sure, I wanted someone to kiss. My hormones were doing laps. I wanted the dream every girl my age did—to drive some pretty boy mad, the way they drove me mad. I had that need for someone unattainable to chooseme, the way those girls in movies got chosen.
I wasn’t sad or desperate about it.
I wasn’t shy either. I was loud. “You have a mouth on you,” my mom used to say—never as a compliment, more like a diagnosis for why my dad left. But in school, I was known as the smartass who always had something to say, who had comebacks for the quarterback in biology and made the debate captain blush. But I didn’t have the look that went with the attitude, so no one ever saw me as the girl you asked out.
