Madeline scrunches up her face and then exhales hard, breath fogging into the air. “We’re fucked,” she says succinctly.
“Well, with that attitude.”
“With any attitude!” she says, laughing, nudging our shoulders together. Even through two winter coats, I swear it tingles. “The right attitude isn’t going to make me suddenly have good balance, and I’m probably going to take you down with me.”
“Is that a threat or a promise?” I ask. “You remember this was your idea, right? Is this all so you’ve got an excuse to knock me over?”
“This wasnotmy idea, this was Ben’s idea,” she says. “And also, do I even need an excuse—oh! Hey!”
She waves with the hand that isn’t holding hot chocolate, and fifty feet away, a man and a woman wave back. I stand a little bit taller and ignore the knot in my stomach, some combination of vague jealousy and the secret hope that her oldest friend will like me.
“We escaped the family event and got here early,” she says as they get closer, finally coming into the light. They’re both wearing hats and scarves, so it takes me a second before recognition dawns on me “Ben, Amy, this is Javier. Javi, this is my friend Ben and his girlfriend?—”
“Castillo?” I interrupt, staring at Ben’s baffled-looking girlfriend.
“Lopez?” she says. “You’re…?”
“You’rethatAmy?” I say, looking from Madeline to Ben to Castillo. “Birdwatching boyfriend Ben isthisBen?”
“Wait,” she says, and looks for a moment like she’s doing equations in her head. “Is—Madeline—are you the one-night stand girl?Madelineis the girl I heard about on a biweekly basis for all those months?”
Next to me, Madeline has gone very still, and my face has gone very hot, and Castillo has suddenly gone very quiet. I clear my throat into the silence.
“Yeah, this is her,” I offer.
“He’s also her stepbrother,” Ben says, in a possible attempt to make this less awkward.
“Not yet!” That’s Madeline, and Ben rolls his eyes.
“They’re T-minus two weeks from being stepsiblings,” he says. “I’m going to their parents’ wedding. It’s going to besointeresting.”
“I didn’t know you were dating anyone—and definitely not your stepbrother,” Castillo says with a sideways look at Ben. It’s a little accusatory.
“It was a secret! I told you I could keep a secret,” Ben says.
“We went tobrunch,” Castillo says this time to Madeline. “I thought brunch was a friendship event where we shared our personal lives! I told you about my reading!”
“Your reading is on the bookstore’s website. That’s not a secret,” I tell her.
“It’s a secret that I’m A. Y. Castillo.”
“It’s got your picture.”
“I haven’t told very many people about…this,” Madeline says, making a vague gesture between the two of us. Fair. “Uh, pretty much, I told Ben.”
Ben is currently giving me a long, thoughtful look. I return it with one of my own.
“Well, I guess I understand why,” Castillo’s saying. “Even if you’re not technically related, it’s still kind of taboo. Maybe that’s part of the appeal?”
“I think we should ice-skate now,” Ben says, and gestures us all toward the front kiosk.
“I hate children.”
“Wow.”
“Look at them,” Madeline says, gesturing one gloved hand at two kids zipping through the throng of ice-skaters like they were born with skates on their feet. “Why are they good at this? They learned towalk, like, three years ago.”
The gesture throws her a little off-balance, and she wobbles before righting herself. I hover my hand over her arm, just in case, but it’s more out of a desire to help than confidence that I actually could. At best, I’d heroically go down with her.
