“Not too serious,” I say. “Serious is good. Maybe a little too traditional?”There is nothing traditional about Maya and me. “Maybe something that says ‘I love you and I hope we work out?’ Maybe, ‘I love you and I’ll leave my band for you?’ Or ‘I love you and I swear it wasn’t just a hookup?’”
I’m reaching here. I know it. Kirsten certainly knows it. She looks at me with wide eyes. “That’s a lot to ask of flowers,” she says. “Let me look in the back.”
I stand at the counter feeling like a total idiot. But when she comes back, she’s holding a single long-stemmed rose in this deep purple color. “What do you think of two dozen of these?” she asks. “It says ‘I love you,’ and also ‘You’re beautiful in a rare kind of way.’” She looks at me expectantly.
“Those are perfect,” I say. “Thank you.”
She takes my card and tells me she’ll have the bouquet right out. When she scans my card, she takes a look at my name and grins. “I thought that’s who you were,” she says. “Kevin Collins. Lucky girl.”
Possibly this whole exchange is going to be on the internet later, but I’m too nervous to care. “Trust me. If this works out, I’m the lucky one.”
“I hope it does,” Kirsten says. “Good luck.”
I appreciate that. I’ll take all the luck I can get.
Twelve
Maya
He’s in love with me.
I meant every word, he said.
It echoes over and over in my head, him telling me how much he loves me, his voice throaty and so close. It felt like he really was there with me, touching me, holding me, moving inside me, his skin pressed to mine.
It was the most intense sexual experience of my life—the most intimate, somehow. And I can only imagine (and have done plenty of imagining since last night) what it would be like to really be with him, to have his hands on my body and his muscles tensing beneath my fingertips.
I meant every word.
And that’s when I knew what I need to do. I was so certain of it—Iamso certain of it—but that doesn’t mean I’m not practically shaking with nerves. Especially now that I’m going to be seeing him soon. His plane landed already; he should be on his way.
“You look like you’re about to pass out,” Leigh says, her forehead furrowed in concern.
“Seriously,” Miranda agrees.Then she gives me a sly look. “Save that for after he rocks your world so hard you see God.”
“Again,” Leigh says, waggling her eyebrows. I swear, they are about one more reference to my phone sex escapade away from high-fiving each other like locker-room dudebros.
And I kind of love them for it.
They were so excited to hear about last night—in more detail than I probably should have told them, but oh my god, I had phone sex with Kevin and I needed to tell someone.They’re even more excited to hear that he booked a flight out today and that he’s taking me out on a date, where I will finally tell him how I feel.
They don’t know the rest of what I’m going to tell him. Because it feels like he needs to hear it first. And I need to hear how he reacts to that before I can even think about telling anyone else.
“I’m going to actually see him again,” I say, like I haven’t said this about a dozen times already in the last hour. “Like, here. He’ll be here.” My body flushes, just thinking about him being so close.
Kevin. My best friend.The guy I’m crazy in love with. I’ve spent so long now denying how I felt about him, shoving that far into the back of my mind like it’s a box I can hide behind the dusty Christmas ornaments in the attic.Trying to forget it was there all along.
So it’s weird to let myself think about it so openly like this. Weird and scary and wonderful, all at once.
“And you’re going to tell him you looooooove him,” Leigh says, bouncing on the balls of her feet happily as she holds up another pair of earrings by my face—gold hoops.
“I am,” I say, drawing in a deep breath. “Right? I am.”
Miranda shakes her head, and for a panicked second I think she’s going to tell me I shouldn’t do this, that maybe there’s reasons I haven’t even thought of yet as to why this would be a Very Bad Idea. But she gestures at a pair of dangly fake diamonds. “Those ones.They look better with the dress.”
Leigh grabs the other pair and holds those up. “Okay, yeah. Definitely these.”
I stare at myself in the mirror, trying to imagine how Kevin might see me. Maya as a bundle of nerves, maybe. But I have to admit, this bundle of nerves cleaned up pretty well. I’ve got a form-fitting cocktail dress with diagonal magenta stripes that accentuate my curves and look pretty awesome against my rosy-brown skin tone. My hair is half-way pinned up, the rest falling smoothly down just past my shoulders. Makeup done—eyelashes nicely full, lips stained and hopefully very kissable-looking.
