“Umm…”
“Carter, it’s fine,” she said.
What?
“What?” I said aloud, looking up at her as she paused to look at the scavenger hunt list.
“It’s fine,” she repeated, glancing up from the papers to look at me. “Honestly kind of a relief. I thought there was something wrong withme.” She paused, eyes widening. “Not that there’s anything wrong with, uh… you know…”
“Being gay?” I asked.
No. That word tasted strange in my mouth.
I remembered Aiden’sbi-furiouspin, and a distant bell rang in the back of my head.
“That,” Mandi agreed. “It’s fine. Great, even. You always seemed… I dunno how to explain it. Like you could never show anyone your whole heart. Made it kind of hard to really connect with you.”
My head spun. Was it me? WasIthe problem between the two of us?
I thought back to Aiden asking me if I’d ever wanted to kiss someone. If I’d ever tried to find out with someone else whether or not I liked kissing boys.
Thing was, I knew the answer now. There was at least one boy I’dreallyliked kissing, even if he had taken me by surprise.
I had a choice, here. I could pretend it’d never happened, that last night had been a blip and this morning had been some combination of stress and temporary insanity, or…
“Anyway, he likes you. I get that he’s experimental, but you seem… happier, honestly. I’d like to see you with someone you can really connect to.”
“He’s not experimental,” I said, bristling. “I know you’re all looking at him and thinking he’s not good enough, but trust me. We’re not good enough forhim. None of us.”
Mandi raised an eyebrow. Probably because I’d never really talked back to her before.
“Wow,” she said, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “You’re really into him, huh?”
I…
No?
Was I?
He’d kissed me once and we’d huddled together for warmth last night. There wasn’t a whole lot to bereally into.
Except therewasmore than that. He’d agreed to come to this ridiculous destination wedding, for a start. Out of the kindness of his heart, he was doing me a favor. A favor he’d had to reschedule a week’s worth of clients for.
He’d sat and talked to me last night,reallytalked, and more importantly, reallylistened. No one had ever listened to me like that before, aside from Kieran, maybe.
But not about those kinds of things. Not about the stuff I didn’t even talk about to myself.
And this morning he’d brought me coffee and breakfastjust because. I hadn’t even needed to sleep with him for him to treat me like a goddamn prince.
Those were all things I could be into.
Those were all things Iwasinto. And those things? They were real. The relationship might’ve been fake, but all the nice things Aiden had done for me had been while we were alone. It wasn’t an act.
“I can see you’re thinking deep thoughts,” Mandi said. “Care to share?”
“I…”
I hesitated. Mom and Mandi were in each other’s pockets, but she was… different, right now. Like she really did want to listen to what I had to say.
