He sits in the vacant seat next to mine. His eyes look tired.
“So…your friendssuck,” I say.
“Yep. Yeah. I’m increasingly aware.” He nods.
I lean toward him. “West, what are you doing here?”
“You’rehere.”
“Because there’s something cultish about SoulCycle and Daphne is bad at saying no. What’s your excuse?” I rest my chin on my hands and wait.
“I know,” he says with a sigh, running a hand through his damp hair. “The guy who owns the press that published my book is part of all of this.” West gestures to the house.
“Okay. And?”
“And what? I’m in kind of deep with them.”
“Why? Because you sold them your novel for—and I’m guessing here—a fraction of its worth? They published it, the deal is done. You don’t owe them anything.”
“They have connections, Mars. They have a reporter fromThe New York Timescoming to talk to us. That could be big for me.”
“You don’t need them! You have more talent than all of them combined.”
He looks surprised, and then uncomfortable. “You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“I remember.” I turn sideways to face him and tuck one leg up under me. We’re treacherously close. The butterflies in my stomach wake from hibernation.
I remember, but I don’t know if he does.
When I’m feeling emotionally fragile, I sometimes wonder if I made it all bigger in my head. If, in the process of writing Fox and Juniper, I’ve mythologized our own history in a way that was outside of reality and then bought into my own lie. Maybe what we had is better on the page than off.
West’s gaze is searing. His hand lands on my bare skin, just above my knee, and silent acknowledgment passes between us. The set of West’s shoulders and the weight of his palm say the same thing:It was real. You didn’t imagine it.
I look down at his hand. Heat is building in all my dangerous places.
The glass pocket doors at the back of the house slide open. West withdraws his hand, seemingly unbothered. Meanwhile, my heart pounds like we’ve been caught by our parents. A bearded guy with no shirt on sticks his head out the door. I can’t remember his name.
He stifles a yawn. “Food?”
“Depends. Do you want oysters for breakfast?” I pick up the oyster from my plate and gag it down. It’s disgusting and unsexy.What a move.
“Pass.” Beardman vanishes back into the house.
West looks at the table. “Are you going to eat this?”
“Not if I don’t have to.”
“We could make dinner?”
I pretend to gasp. “Think of the ambient noise!”
He laughs, and I grin, feeling nineteen again.
“There’s nothing edible in the kitchen anyway. Except the edibles,” I add.
