What was my point, again?
“Thanks,” I said belatedly. “I think.”
Chris chuckled. “He wouldnotshut up about you last ski season,” he said. “Glad you finally figured yourselves out.”
“Really?” I asked.
Devin had said last night he’d had a crush on me since before I was willing to admit to having a crush on him, even to myself, but I’d brushed it aside. How could that betrue?
“Really. You hold up to what he said about you, by the way.”
“What… did he say?” I asked.
“Kind, charming, funny, huge,” Chris said. “Into flowers. He asked me if I thought you’d like his butt tattoo.”
“It’s not really on his butt,” I said.
“Butt-adjacent, then.” Chris shrugged. “Doyou like it?”
I snorted. “Yeah, I like it. I like… him,” I admitted.
Chris lit up just as Julie poked her head around the van door, drowning in a dark hoodie that looked just like Devin’s
“Is there room for me in there?” she asked, and I was already shifting over to make sure there would be. If the others still wanted to stand in the rain, that was their business.
I looked over to see that Marta had joined the boys.
… and Devin had lost his hoodie.
Of course. He wouldn’t have let Julie freeze, and the rain had chilled the air. Just like Kieran.
I was still convinced it was actually Kieran’s hoodie.
“Holy shit, you reallydohave a hickey,” Julie said, pulling my collar out of the way to look. “Marta was right.”
I blushed all the way to the tips of my ears.
It was less a hickey, more a bite mark. My back was covered in scratches, too, and there was a bruise on the inside of my elbow where Devin had been gripping me tight.
I hadn’t expected anyone to notice, and I’d thought the sweater I was wearing hid it pretty well.
“Rumor has it that you and Devin got together,” Julie continued without so much as a pause. “He looks so happy today. I like seeing him smile.”
“Me too,” I said, glad Devin had so many caring friends. He deserved them.
I just wished they were atinybit less observant.
“Shit, I never got around to congratulating you and Alex,” I said, turning to Chris and artfully changing the subject at once. “Seriously, I don’t… know you guys super well, but I’m happy for you. You seem like a good match.”
“I love him,” Chris said, looking out from the back of the van at Alex. We were lucky we’d gotten this spot—lucky in the sense that I didn’t want Devin to have to walk too far on his ankle, and I’d ignored the guy giving parking directions because of it.
Every now and again, being a big guy with a shaved head had its advantages. No one wanted to tell me where I could and couldn’t park.
“He loves you,” Julie said. “I mean, I guess you know that now. But he told me when I was reading his palm.”
“I bet you get all kinds of things out of people when you do that,” Chris said.
Julie shrugged. “I’m easy to talk to.”
