“And you’re okay with that?”
He shrugs. “It will be nice for Lex to have another girl around to hang out with.”
He’s not just acting like he doesn’t care; he’s encouraging it. And it makes me sad.
“Yeah,” I manage, giving up on the black spot that has made a permanent change in the pigmentation of the floor.
“I’m going to check in with my dad, and then I’ll take over the till, okay?”
“Sure,” I say, changing my mind about the spot on the floor. I scrub it until I can no longer see straight. It seems to have transformed into something more that I’m not ready to give up on just yet.
A week later, we were lying on Reed’s trampoline, looking up at the stars after a night swim, when he suggested a double-date with Miles and Lexi. We’ve hung out several times alone now, but nothing has happened between the two of us. Except for how he clings to my side right now, proving his fear of the dark.
I’m not even sure I want anything to happen between us, but I keep saying yes to spending time with him. I love being around him. He’s become the best friend I never knew I needed.
We do stupid stuff together like prank his mom by forking her garden, wrap his truck in lights to celebrate Christmas inJuly, and dress up in Hawaiian shirts and perform the Macarena to get a laugh out of Ronny.
Reed does sweet things too, like gushing over the smell of my hair and leaving a bouquet of wildflowers taped to my front door every morning before I leave for work. We’ve been dancing in this space between friends and something more.
Your heart still has room, and one day, when you least expect it, you’ll find someone else who changes you again,I hear my mom say inside my head.
I definitely didn’t expect this, my heart making room for Reed. The confusing part is that Miles has been a good friend too. He doesn’t ignore me at the fly shop like he did last summer. Instead, we talk while restocking shelves about trivial things like the weather and the crazy amount of mosquitoes we’ve had this year. But also, about important things too, like plans for our senior year and updates on our parents’ health.
We talk about everything except Lexi and Reed.
Mere minutes before Reed is scheduled to pick me up for our double-date, I’m buried in clothes searching for what to wear, when Cozy FaceTimes me. I flip the camera as I answer.
“Wow, are you not dressed?” she asks to my bare legs as I survey the huge heap of clothes on the floor.
I groan. “Does it look like I’m dressed?”
“Woah! It does not. Watch the camera angle or you’ll be giving me more of a show than you intended.”
“Shit. Sorry,” I say, flipping it back so it’s on my face.
“What are you guys doing again?”
When I look in the camera, Cozy’s face is resting in the palm of her hand, her feet swinging in the air behind her head as she lounges on her four-poster bed.
“Karaoke and a movie, I think?”
“Hold up! That would make thebestInstagram reel. I never thought I’d say this, but I think I’ve run out of content here. Maybe it’s time for me to take this show on the road.”
“Cozy, you can’t become a traveling influencer at seventeen.”
“The brands I’m working with would say differently,” she argues. “Why do you have to be such a realist all the time?”
“A realist,” I mumble under my breath. “That’s exactly what I am. A realist who knows there isn’t a piece of clothing in the world that’s going to make me feel confident about this double-date.”
“What was that?” she asks, straightening to a listening position.
“Nothing.”
It’s way too difficult to keep the camera angle aimed at my face, so I flip it back to my feet.
“Wait. Show me that black dress again,” she bosses, pointing her finger at the pile on my right.
“This?” I pinch the hem of a strapless dress.
