I turn to find my grandma standing there, a tiny woman who has shrunk several inches in the last few years. She’s been looking for Derek all night.
“No, remember, Grandma?” I say. “He couldn’t make it.”
Her face falls, and her eyes flick to Brendan, which is the exact moment when I realize I forgot to warn Brendan about—
“That’s too bad,” Grandma says. “I was just thinking I’d introduce him to your friend. What was your name again, dear?”
“Brendan,” he says, his eyes widening like a deer in headlights. Or a Brendan who’s being talked at by someone he doesn’t know. Same difference. Not nearly as wide, though, as the first time we met, when I babbled at him about his highly recommended video editing skills for about three minutes straight, and he stared at me like I materialized out of thin air for the express purpose of giving him a heart attack.
I realize too late that I’ve gotten sidetracked when I should have been heading off what Grandma’s about to say next. “Derek is such a nice boy,” she continues. “He’s a homosexual, you know.”
I smile, and Brendan looks confused. “I—I don’t think I’ve met—”
Okay, now I’m not interrupting Grandma because I think this is funny.
“A lot of the kids are, nowadays,” Grandma says. “But I think you two would get along.”
Brendan finally gets what’s happening and opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.
“I think a lot of people have always been gay, Grandma,” I say. “And Derek’s married, remember?”
“Also, I’m not gay.” Brendan gives me a little mock-glare for not sparing him from the Grandma matchmaking ambush.
“Oh, dear,” she says. “I do wish Derek would call. I never know what’s happening in his life.”
I know for a fact that Derek calls her once a week, and yet she’d probably try to set him up with his own husband at this very wedding, if the two of them weren’t off on some “spiritual journey” in Australia that seems to involve lots of scuba diving and high-end shopping.
Grandma spots some other cousin and shuffles off, and Brendan shakes his head at me. “You knew what she was going to say.”
Brendan gets mistaken for being gay a lot, because of the pink hair. He’d never admit it, but I’m pretty sure he encourages it so that he doesn’t get hit on by girls and sent into panic attacks.
“I did. But I’m incapable of saving you from social embarrassment when it happens to amuse me.”
Brendan smiles. He knows I’d never set him up for something he couldn’t handle, and after four months of being more or less joined at the hip, I have a pretty good sense of where that line is.
His blue eyes hold mine for an extra long moment. I wet my lips, which suddenly feel too dry. Maybe I should get another drink.
“You know,” he says, his gaze dropping to his shoes. “I still haven’t gotten that dance you promised me. We need to show off those new moves of yours.” He looks back up. Is that a hint of nervousness in his expression?
He’s never nervous around me, not since that very first day. Something is definitely different.
My pulse feels thready, remembering how it felt to be in his arms a couple days ago in our attic studio, when I told him I was worried about having to dance at the wedding. He offered to show me how to dance—a skill I’ve never possessed.
But with Brendan as a teacher . . .The memory makes me a little breathless.
“The world should definitely not be denied these new moves of mine.” I take his hand as he leads me to the dance floor, just as the jazz band starts in on Etta James’s “At Last.”
I see Mei-Ling grinning at me triumphantly, as if she was somehow involved with timing.
Brendan’s arm is around my waist, one hand at my lower back, his other hand clasped with mine. He guides me through the steps, as I try not to count out loud or step on his toes or bob my head like a chicken. Brendan’s good at leading, though, and doesn’t criticize, and it’s not long before I don’t have to try. We’re just dancing, and I fit perfectly against him. (One advantage of these awful torture-heels is the extra three inches of height they give me—which now makes him three incheslessthan a full foot taller than me.)
God, this feels so good.
The thing about Brendan is, he’s not only my best friend, he’s my Desert Island Person—you know, like if I had to pick one person to be marooned with on a desert island for the rest of my life. My DIP. (Did I make that up? Should I trademark it?)
That’s saying something, because I’ve actually been on a desert island when I was onStarving with the Stars—so I know the helpfulness of being able to construct decent shelter out of, like, sticks and rat guts or starting a fire with nothing but sand and soggy kelp. I’m pretty sure Brendan would suck at all that as much as I did, but I’d pick him anyway, even over my main celebrity crush Daveed Diggs. Who I also think would probably suck at harpooning dinner eel, but could entertain me by performing all ofHamiltonin his Lafayette accent while wearing a coconut bra.
Come to think of it, I bet Brendan could do that, too.The thought makes me giggle to myself. Or maybe not so much to myself, because Brendan raises an eyebrow.
