“So what about you?” she asks.
I watch her, feeling again like I should say something comforting. Feeling again like she doesn’t want me to. “Um. What about me?”
“You and Luca? Have you and he ever—?”
“Oh my god, no.”
“Why not?”
“He’s like my brother. No, he is my brother.” I cringe for effect and Eva laughs.
“But you and Jay?”
I breathe out a long breath. “Yeah, me and Jay. Unfortunately. But that’s over. Way over. So over.”
“So you’re over?”
I splash some sand onto her feet, and she kicks it onto my legs.
“Are you dating at all right now?” she asks.
My gaze drifts to hers, a slow crawl. “Nope.”
She nods and looks away. “I’ve never even kissed anyone.”
“Are you serious?”
She winces a little, and I feel like a total jerk.
“Sorry,” I say, then put on a fake British accent. It’s really awful. “What I meant was, How very demure of you.”
It does the trick. She laughs. “Trust me it has nothing to do with being demure. I only just came out about a year ago. I mean, I’ve had crushes on a few girls, but they were all straight. Let me tell you how fun that was.”
Natalie’s pitying smile at the end of that summer flashes into my mind. Her soft hand on my shoulder as she turns me around and points out her college boyfriend waiting for her by his black Beamer.
Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea.
“And, I mean, I lived in New York, so I definitely knew girls who were gay. Just no one I liked. At least, not when I was brave enough to act on it. And I was dancing, like, all the time. There wasn’t time for much else. Like I said, this is my first real party.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Depressing, isn’t it?”
“Kissing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Her eyes widen. “For real? Because it looks freaking awesome.”
I laugh. “Okay, you caught me. It’s pretty great.”
“Just as I suspected.”
Laughter explodes behind us. Turning, I see Jay, bare-chested, twirling his shirt around his head to a Beyoncé song like he’s a stripper or something. Girls flock around him, waving dollar bills and honest-to-god squealing.
“Good lord, he’s totally smashed,” I mutter, getting to my feet and brushing the sand off my butt.
Eva reaches out a hand to me, and I help her up. Her fingers grip mine a little longer than they need to. But maybe that’s all in my head. Maybe every look and smile and flirty smirk is forever and always in my head, just like it was with Natalie.
Ugh. Ugh infinity.
