“That’s what Nina says.”
“She’s right,” Alex said. “So what does Shitty Peter have to do with the nerves about your list?”
I sighed. “The whole point was to get back the time I’d wasted with Peter. I purposely put things on the list that scared me to make up for being so weak.”
“You are the opposite of weak, Jo.”
I kept my gaze on my feet, unable to look up at him. “I guess I thought the list would help me figure out what I want from life, or find myself again, as cliché as that sounds. I’m almost thirty. Shouldn’t I know who I am by now? Or who I want to be?”
“I don’t know,” Alex said. “My life now is nothing like I expected it would be when I was twenty-nine. And thank God. I was kind of an asshole.”
“You mean you didn’t plan on wearing a crop top and sleeping in a creepy castle?”
Alex laughed. “No, that was absolutely in the plan.”
I hugged my arms tighter around my knees. “I still don’t believe you were an asshole.”
“You can ask Greyson tomorrow, she’ll tell you.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t need to know the old Alex.”
He didn’t say anything, and I was reminded of the night we’d met and how I’d been drawn to him from the start. If I hadn’t kissed him, would we still have found our way to this moment?
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Of course.”
“The night we met at Mitch’s, right before Nina ran off, you were in the middle of saying something. I wanted to know what you were going to say.”
“Refresh my memory.”
“You said something likeFlorida Girl, you are...and then you got cut off. I was just wondering what—”
“Unexpected,” Alex said. “You’re unexpected. Which I think turned out to be true. What did you think I was going to say?”
Unexpected. What did that mean? “I don’t know,” I said. “Florida Girl, you’re crazyor something like that.”
Alex shook his head. “No. I didn’t think that.”
We looked at each other in the dark, and just like when he had his hand on mine in the galley, the urge to kiss him swept over me, strong as a rip current.
And then Nina let out a loud snore. Alex fought to hold in a laugh and glanced at his phone. “It’s late,” he said. “You better try to get some sleep if you’re going to check this one off the list.”
“Hopefully the ghost of Edgar Leafskin will help me fall asleep.”
“I think you mean Edward Leedskalnin.”
“Whatever. You knew what I meant.”
Alex settled down onto his sleeping bag, and I stretched out on mine. I closed my eyes and wrapped my mind around the flicker of happiness within me, the tug of sleep finally pulling me under.
Thirteen
World Thrift was the largest thrift store in South Florida, and therefore Nina’s favorite. She’d dragged me around the giant warehouse to search through racks of used clothing more mornings than I could count. Though the building was nondescript, the clothing inside was arranged by color, rainbows as far as the eye could see. In the middle of the open floor plan was the furniture section, and on the opposite wall from the entrance were shelves of seemingly random items. A few years ago, Nina had found a meat slicer and insisted on buying it. She kept it on a shelf in her living room, and when I’d asked her why she never used it, she’d looked at me blankly and said,It’s a statement, Josephine.Stating what, I hadn’t bothered to ask.
Today we stood before a wall hung with formal wear: floor-length evening gowns, puffy-skirted prom dresses, and one deflated-looking wedding dress. Nina pinched the lace of the wedding dress between her fingers and scowled.
“Absolutely not,” she said, shoving it aside.
