I hold my hands out, weighing options. “Ageist and lazy. Who’s to know?”
“Not all of us are neat freaks.” Hendricks takes on a stern expression, or what he thinks is stern. “Do you want to watch your choice of movie or not? Because I’m good withDieHard.”
“What movie are we watching?”
“I thought you wanted that new Netflix romcom?” He says it with such disdain, but it’s all show. The last time we watched a movie that I picked, he cried like a baby and blamed it on allergies.
“For that”—I smile over at him—“I’ll let you have a slice of my pepperoni.”
“Planned to anyway.” He winks, grabs the one I have in my hand, and takes an enormous bite.
We eat and talk, eat and talk. We go over the exams he’s got between now and the end of the term. I tell him about the teaching English abroad program I applied for and haven’t heard back from. As the pizza boxes empty and get put to one side, we become a tangle of legs under the blanket. I lean into his side only to slide into the spot he creates when he lifts his arm, and I swear I feel his lips brushing my hair as he takes a deep breath.
Popcorn balances precariously between us, and when Hendricks moves to reach the remote, I have to grab it before it spills.
“Ouch, you’re on my hair.” I wince when he sits back.
Releasing the end of my ponytail from where it was trapped, he curls it around his fingers, flicking the ends between his fingertips. “It’s so long now.”
“I know, I’m trying to see how long I can get it.”
“Think you’ll be able to sit on it?”
“We’ll have to see.”
He nods, satisfied, and picks up the remote. “Let’s start this thing, shall we? I want to see how love develops when you’re stuck in the middle of the rainforest . . .” Hesmirks, reading the synopsis. “Not very practical, is it? Bugs, bug spray. All the creepy-crawlies?—”
“Stop ruining it already and start the movie.”
He presses play, we get through the familiar bong of the Netflix logo, and then it stops.
“What are you doing?”
He shifts his body around, hands gripping my thighs so I don’t move away from him. He stares at me long enough that I’m about to ask if he’s having an aneurysm. “I miss you, Stor. I’ve missedus.”
Miss you. It’s words we say to each other all the time, and they’re the truth. We mean it when we say it to each other. But this feels different. This time, they feel heavier, more resolute.
“I miss you too.” My head drops to the side. “What’s going on?”
“It feels like there’s always been something coming up lately that’s kept us apart. We haven’t spent more than a day together all year. I’ve been away, you’ve been away, exams,boyfriends. . .” He nudges me with a grin. It’s teasing butnot.He has no proof that I’ve had a boyfriend, because I’ve never told him. He’s fishing.
I’ve known Hendricks a long time, and the tic under his eye is his tell. A loaded question disguised by the casual, breezy tone.
I know he won’t ask, just as I won’t ask him, because we don’t talk about other people. If we pretend they don’t exist, then they don’t.
But he wants to know if I’m single.
The ugly truth, the one I only admit to myself in the dark of the night, is that any boyfriend I’ve had has only been fleeting,casual. Because deep in my soul, I’ve beenwaiting for Hendricks, and as harsh as it might sound, even if I wasn’t single, I would end things in a heartbeat if it meant we finally got our chance.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I volunteer. “Haven’t in a long time.”
His head bobs, his mouth rolls, and his brain ticks. In that order. “Oh yeah? No Pelling hanging around lately?”
I sigh, frustrated. How does he not know it’s only ever been him for me? Sam Pelling has never and will never hold a candle to the guy in front of me. My best friend. The only boy I’ve loved for as long as I can remember.
“Hendricks, c’mon.” I shift around, scooching onto my knees, changing the subject. “How long’s it been since we did this?”
“A couple of months, maybe. It was Easter, after Miles and I got back from skiing? We spent the weekend in the farmyard with the new calves.”
