My stomach sank.
Maybe I should’ve given him what he wanted last night. I wasn’t going to be here long, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to have a taste of what we didn’t get when we were younger.
Shit, Seth. I’d been staring at Iggy so long I’d almost forgotten about him.
Harvey:he’s sleeping peacefully, and I’ll be there
I couldn’t say he was fine, because I had no idea, but that’d have to do. I also couldn’t let Seth down two days in a row—missing a meet-the-crew brunch was one thing, missing the suit fitting might actually screw things up for him.
If I couldn’t do the right thing by one friend, I could at least try to do it by another. Seth had asked me here to be his best man, and it was an honor, and I wasn’t going to mess it up.
Reliable. That was what Reggie had called me last night. I wanted to live up to it.
It was too late now to wake Iggy, have the talk we definitely needed to have,andmake the suit fitting. Besides, he needed the rest.
I ducked into the bathroom to clean up as well as I could without hopping into the shower, afraid the noise would be enough to wake Iggy, then got dressed and sat down again with a notepad and pen.
Had to go to a suit fitting for Seth’s wedding. I’m not mad. I hope you’re not mad. I’m leaving you my number and I want you to call or text or whatever if you need anything. Please rest.
I hesitated, tapping the pen against my lips as I thought about what else I wanted to say.
Dinner’s on me again. Theo’s in charge until I get back.
Harvey
The last line made me smile when I read it to myself again. Hopefully, it’d make Iggy smile, too. The last thing I wanted was to leave him feeling like there was anything wrong between us. He was still the best friend I’d ever had—no one had even come close to replacing him.
I pinned the note to the fridge with a couple of pieces of the magnetic poetry set scattered all over it, swallowed down a glass of water, and took one last peek at myself in the bathroom mirror before grabbing my phone—but not the laptop bag I’d left propped up against the coffee table, or my suitcase.
They’d sayI’m coming backmore clearly than any note could. I wasn’t about to run away from Iggy, not after I’d just found him again. No matter how awkward it was.
“You’re in charge, Theo,” I told him as I slipped out the front door. “Take care of Iggy for me, he means a lot.”
* * *
“You’re sohot in this color,” Seth enthused, tugging on the lapel of the wine-red linen suit he was putting me in.
Itwasa beautiful suit, and I did look good in the color.
“So now I’mpositivethere’s something else on your mind, because that didn’t even get the barest hint of a smile out of you.”
“Iggy kissed me last night,” I said, before I could think better of it.
Horror hit me as I realized telling Seth was the equivalent of grabbing a megaphone and standing in the middle of Main Street, yelling at the top of my voice.
When I risked meeting his eyes again, his brows were drawn together in a frown.
“When you saykissedyou, is that, like, a euphemism? Or did he actually just kiss you?”
“He kissed me,” I said, tugging on the sleeves of the jacket. “And then I did the mature thing and ran the hell away.”
“Why? Iggy’s hot.”
“I panicked. Also, he hit his head,” I pointed out.
“Harvey, please. People have wanted to kiss you without hitting their heads first,” Seth said.
That was true. Even though I still sometimes caught a glimpse of him in the mirror, the awkward, gangly, acne-prone, braces-wearing teenager I used to be was gone. People looked twice at me in the street. People slipped me their number—or their room key—on a semi-regular basis. If Iwanteda hookup, I didn’t struggle to find one.
