For a moment, all I can do is stare at her. Then my mind rewinds. The hotel room. The request that Renee and I reallytryto get along. Her excitement that wewere.“I…you…but…the room…” I’m trying to form a thought, but I’ve been reduced to slinging single syllables.
“Just admit it.” Gin lifts her chin in pride. “I’m a genius.”
“Anevilgenius,” I amend, and she claws her hands, tips her head back, and does her very best supervillain cackle. There’s no one here to witness, but I’m still secondhand embarrassed.
“I sometimes forget you used to do theater,” I grumble, accidentally out loud.
“I’m pretty sure that’s a compliment, coming from you. Although…” Gin pokes my bicep and smiles smugly. “Word on the street is that a certain someone can really nail the harmonies on theRentsoundtrack.”
My entire body flushes, and a long line of questions marches to the tip of my tongue.Renee told you about that? What else did she tell you? Do you know how she feels about me? About us?I don’t get toask a single one because here comes Kurt with a fist full of cables, requesting my help with setting up sound. Time is ticking down, and ready or not, there’s a wedding tomorrow. I refuse to let “or not” be an option.
For the rest of the day, Renee and I are like planets, orbiting each other but never colliding. She returns with the tulle just as I’m leaving to pick up an extra extension cord. Then I’m back, and it’s time to test the ceremony mics, but Renee is suddenly needed inside. It’s amazing, really, the way we were stuck together all the times we didn’t want to be, but now that I’m desperate to get her alone, we’re parallel lines, our paths never crossing. Not even at the rehearsal dinner downtown, where we’re seated on opposite ends of an extra-long table. I hardly have an appetite. The only thing I want is to talk to Renee.
Back at the Outpost, we break out the mehndi kits, and Asha paints swirling florals and detailed mandalas on the bridesmaids’ hands in henna. It’s hard to sit still and even harder not to scratch my itchy hands while the henna dries, but it’s nothing compared to the itch I can’t scratch. The conversation I need to have, if only I could get Renee alone. Every time her blue eyes flash to mine from across the living room, I hear that same, steady cadence.I know, I know, I know.
The right time never presents itself. It hardly ever does. Once the house has all gone to bed, I slip back downstairs, where Renee lounges in the golden lamplight, cozied beneath the Pendleton blanket. She’s wearing her neon-pink bachelorette party T-shirt, and for a moment, I worry she may be asleep, but then her eyes lift to mine, tired and blue.
Our gazes hold in one long silent question, but when a twitch of a smile tugs at her mouth, all the worry and nerves melt away.What was I so scared of? I have been honest with Renee all summer. I can be honest with her now.
“Can we talk?” I finally ask out loud.
Renee looks at me—reallylooks at me—before she nods, just barely, then shifts to a seat, clearing space for me beside her on the couch. She lays the blanket over both our laps, our own little woven cocoon. Finally, it’s just us, and I don’t want to overthink this. So I start where it makes sense. With the person who brought us together in the first place.
“So I talked to Gin.”
“Did you?”
“And it seems like you…talked to her too? About…us?”
Renee stares at her hands. She twists the thin gold band on her middle finger back and forth. Left, then right. Every second of silence between us carries its own electric charge.
“I did,” she finally admits. Her throat bobs with a swallow, and her voice is steadier when she speaks again. “I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have said anything. I just needed a gut check with people who have known you longer than I have.”
“People? Plural?”
“Chrissy, too.”
I want to comment on how impressive it is that Chrissy’s kept her mouth shut about that, but I’m keeping mine shut too, waiting for Renee finish her thought.
“We talked about it on that drive home when I told them about losing my job,” she goes on. “And…well,this.” She draws a line in the air, connecting her heart to mine. “According to Gin,thiswas allherdoing.”
I bite down on a smile. “Yeah. She told me that, too.”
We both roll our eyes.
“Pretty funny, huh?” Renee says.
“I think it’s funny she thought we’d be good together, honestly.”
At this, Renee flinches, but she doesn’t disagree. Even before we met, we knew we were opposites, destined to butt heads. “We don’t have much in common,” she admits. “And yet…here we are.”
And there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.
It’s quiet for a moment while I search for what to say next, then Renee draws in a shaky breath, and I think she’s about to say something. She doesn’t. Instead, she lays a hand over my knee. Heat, instantly, down my neck and the arches of my feet, and it’s instinctual, the way I tangle my fingers into hers. The right thing tosaymay evade me, but this—holding Renee’s hand—feels like the right thing todo. I’ve missed her touch, and every second that she doesn’t let go feels like the new best second of my life.
I know. I know. I know.
What Idon’tknow is what I’m going to say, but I start to say it anyway, reading whatever script my heart offers up.
