What would I even say in response? Anything with Noah would be an absolute disaster waiting to happen, since there absolutely would be strings attached. A Gordian knot’s worth of them.
Instead, he leaned back. “Fine. Have fun.”
My cheeks went hot with anger.Have fun?He seriously didn’t care if I hooked up with Tyler? Then maybe I would, if it mattered so little. “Fine. I will.”
I was irritable over the next few days, though I tried not to be, especially when I went with Jane to the Chicken Box to meet up with Mason from the bakery. It was a pretty good distraction, too, worrying about someone else’s romantic dilemmas rather than my own. Like about how Noah’s texts confirming dinner for Saturday night were terser than I liked. Which was ridiculous. He had no right to act haughty about my choice of potential summer hookups.
“What am I supposed to wear?” I asked Jane Saturday night, sitting on the bed in my underwear and holding up yet another shirt. Today had been a scorcher, the light white and hot, and I’d been thrilled to be in the Prose Garden’s air-conditioning, helping customers with perspiration dripping from their brows. The necklines and armpits of their shirts had been damp, their skin tanned or burnt. After coming home, I’d showered and blown out my hair, and now I regarded my limited options with despair. “I’ve never met anyone’s parents before. Other than Matt’s, but I’d known them forever from school stuff.”
Jane barely glanced up from her phone. “Understated money.”
“Meaning...?”
“You know. A hundred-dollar shirt. What do you think Mason means by ‘thanks for coming by’?”
“Um. He’s glad we met him at the show yesterday?”
“It’s soformalthough. Whosaysthat? Isn’t ‘coming by’ a little dismissive? We spent three hours there.”
“Maybe he’s being polite. Or making an excuse to talk to you. Do shirts really cost a hundred dollars?”
She yawned and stretched her phone above her head. She smelled like bread from the bakery, and a tiny dusting of flour still clung to her shirt. “Wear a sun dress. You have approximately five million.”
True.
Wearing a lavender dress with a cinched waist, I arrived once more at Golden Doors. Though the evening retained the heat of the day, clouds had dialed back the worst of it, and now the warmth felt more like a decadent blanket. Still, I’d applied two layers of deodorant, and sweat gathered on the small of my back as I climbed the porch’s steps. My stomach roiled as I listened to the echo of the doorbell. Should I have brought something? My parents always brought wine. Flowers? Dammit.
The door swung open. A woman my parents’ age stood there, neatly dressed in white slacks and a blue linen shirt. How were all these people wearing pants in this heat? She looked at me curiously. “Hello.”
“Um. Hi.” If I’d had flowers, my hands would have had something to do besides floundering uselessly. “I’m Abigail Schoenberg. Noah invited me?”
“How nice. Come in.” She stepped back.
Honestly, this entire summer had me feeling like a vampire awkwardly begging an invitation to other people’s houses.
“Abby, right?” A girl stepped up next to the woman, wearing shorts and a halter top. The cousin. Shira. I immediately felt overdressed.
I forced a smile. “Hey.”
“I’m Linda, Noah’s aunt,” the woman said. “He’s probably in the living room.”
“This way,” Shira said, saving me from additional awkwardness. She glanced at me over her shoulder as we went down the hall. “You guys met during your catering gig here?”
“Uh. Yes.”
She snorted.
We entered the living room. Dozens of people floated about: adults arranging food at the kitchen island, little kids running underfoot, an identical trio of prepubescent girls whispering to each other. Almost everyone had the distinctive Barbanel strong jaw and brows, dark eyes, and TV-worthy hair. “Full house?”
Shira shrugged. “Not really.”
Cool.
Across the room, Noah chatted with a tall, broad-shouldered older man with graying hair. I crossed to his side as quickly as I could without running, and Noah turned to meet me. “Uncle Bertie. You remember Abigail.”
I rememberedhim. He’d been the one who caught us in the study.
“Of course. Lovely to see you again, Abigail.”
