Dani follows with “I hope not. I don’t want her to hate us more than she already does.”
“Okay, first, she doesn’t hate you two. Second, I am twenty-one years old. I can do whatever I want.”
“Except sleep with a married professor and get a DUI,” Annica quips. Dani shoots her a look. “What? Too soon?”
Three more jumbo margaritas are set down in front of us, and we each take one. I ignore Annica’s not-funny joke. “Those are last year’s mistakes. This is a new year, a new me.” I raise my glass. “To being seniors.”
The three of us walk down College Street as the sun begins to set over campus. I trail behind the two of them, tipsy from our dinner at Fresco and thinking of Jonah. The long road is lined with trees still green from the summer and houses that are in serious need of upkeep. Faded Greek letters mark porches with string lights hanging haphazardly from the balconies, and groups of underclassmen stumble about with large backpacks sagging from the missing weight of warm beers they were surely full of this morning. Red cups and empty seltzer cans are scattered throughout every yard as the daytime revelry continues into the night.
“You know, I’m gonna miss this place next year,” Dani says before pinning up her short brown hair into a claw clip.
As if on cue, a barefoot, half-naked man with a beer box on his head runs past us on the sidewalk, nearly crashing into Annica.
“Are you sure?” Annica steps out of the way, her face contorted in disgust.
Dani laughs. “I just can’t believe this is the last first pregame of the year with the boys. I think I’ll miss them the most.”
“Gee, thanks,” Annica says.
The boys—Charlie, Sam, Jake, Asher, and Wesley—have beenour friends since freshman year. Annica went to a private high school with Wesley and Asher in a ritzy town just outside of Boston, and we quickly fell in with their group.
“Is Wes going to be here tonight?” I ask, my heart skipping a beat in my chest at the thought.
Annica glances at me from over her shoulder and arches a brow. “Why do you ask?”
The look on her face makes me wish I didn’t. Annica has one rule for any girl she introduces to Wes: Do not sleep with him. She made a big fuss about it freshman year, saying her high school best friend did and when it didn’t end well, they were no longer welcome to hang out with his group. Wesley is the leader type; if we were to be on the outs with him, we’d be on the outs with all of them.Part of me always thought it was becausesheliked him, but another part knows it’s because these friendships mean the world, and not just to her.
“You said last night that he might not come in until Sunday, that’s all.” Though that’s not why I’m asking, my question is answered as we approach their house.
Wesley McCavern is sitting on the porch railing, one leg dangling over the side with a beer in his hand and a backward cap on. I watch him as we walk up the sidewalk. He pushes up the sleeves of his PC sweatshirt and laughs at something Charlie says. Suddenly my mind is transported back to when we were eighteen and I walked up to this very same house, and he sat on that very same railing. He smiled at me then, and for a moment I forgot about Jonah, who had just broken up with me.
“There they are!” Charlie yells from the doorway. “Charlie’s Angels have arrived.” His nickname for the three of us.
This time Wes doesn’t smile when he sees me; in fact he quickly averts his eyes. But all the same, I find myself forgetting about Jonah, even if just for a moment.
Charlie greets us first, bringing each of us in for a big bear hug, holding on to Dani for a bit longer than me and Annica. He asks us how our summers were and listens intently as we tell him. I’ve always had a soft spot for Charlie, as he’s easily the nicest out of the five of them. Always checking to make sure we get home okay and a good person to spark up a deep conversation with. He was raised in a house with four sisters and it shows.
Sam follows behind, quieter, with his hands in the pockets of his black jeans. He gives us soft side hugs and hardly makes any eye contact, but we’re used to it by now. Then Wesley stands, and he puts both arms around Annica and Dani, roughing up Annica’s hair in the way that a brother would, which she absolutely hates.The two girls remove his arms from around their shoulders, moving on to the rest of the gang, and leaving Wesley and me alone.
“Hey,” he says, opening his arms when I do for the most awkward hug of the century. My left arm goes up when his right does, causing one of us to have to change direction, making for a strange fumbling situation. Anyone watching might think we just met. Like we haven’t known each other for years. Like we didn’t sleep together this past summer.
I catch a whiff of his cologne in our short embrace. I always thought he smelled like detergent and rain. Like fresh laundry during a summer storm. It’s usually a comforting scent, but now it makes my heart ache. His eyes are cast down at our feet when we separate, and I look toward the door, where my friends aretalking to Asher and Jake. Annica quickly looks away, like she had witnessed this whole interaction.
“So how are you?” I ask to break the silence.
He takes a deep breath and answers on the exhale, “Yeah, uh, good. You?”
“I’m fine.”
Wes nods, taking a sip of his beer and looking off to the side, where the setting sun casts a golden glow over his face. I could get lost in the way the light shimmers in his green eyes, but I snap myself out of it. This conversation has run its course.
“I’m going to grab a drink.” I give him a tight smile and step around him, but he catches my wrist. Gently, like a whisper.
“We should talk later.” He doesn’t say about what; he doesn’t have to.
It’s about last summer, it has to be. I walk through their house imagining one specific scenario of this conversation: It plays out in my head like a movie scene. At the end of the night, everyone will be gone, and he’ll catch me as I’m leaving the party. Small droplets of warm late-summer rain will fall around us and he’ll tell me he hasn’t stopped thinking about me, and damn it all to hell, let’s just be together. We’ll kiss as the rain comes down harder around us, like something out of a Nicholas Sparks novel.
A stray Ping-Pong ball hits me in the side of the head as I make my way through the living room, pulling me from my daydream. This is notThe Notebook, this is college. I toss it back to the table where Dani and Annica are already in a game of beer pong. I keep down the hall toward the kitchen. The floorboards creak beneath me and my shoes stick to the ground with each step. Cream-colored paint chips from the walls, which are lined withmismatched couches and random pieces of furniture. It’s obvious a group of boys has been living here for three years.
