I let out a pathetic sniffle, swiping under my eyes in a futile attempt to get them to stop producing the tears that seem to never want to end. Goddammit, I hate crying. I promised myself once, years ago, after a guy I liked in eighth grade told the entire class he would never go out with me because he preferred girls who werequieter, I would never, ever cry over a boy. Except maybe when the boy is Tyler Hansley, who has never once in our entire lifelong friendship wished I was quieter or anything other than exactly who I am, a few tears are okay.
“Oh, honey.” The whisper and the hand on my shoulder have me stifling a gasp and whipping around, my entire body tensing when I see Julie standing behind me. Tyler’s mom studies me with a face full of sympathy and a kind of knowing that has my eyes welling up again. Reaching out, she takes my hand, squeezing lightly as she tugs me away from the fence and leads me back up the driveway before wrapping me in a hug.
“I didn’t…I mean I couldn’t…I don’t…” My voice breaks off as I finally give up, my brain refusing to make words to explain why I was hiding in her bushes at nine o’clock at night, watching her son make out with a stranger. Instead, I cry on her shoulder and she lets me. Even when I soak her perfect white silk blouse with my tears and streaks of mascara that will probably never come off, she never lets go.
“You didn’t know,” Julie says quietly, pulling away when my sobs slow but keeping her hands on my shoulders as she studies me with blue eyes so much like Tyler’s that tears clog my throat again. “I’ve always wondered.”
“Wondered what?” I ask in a shaky voice.
“Wondered whether you knew you were in love with him.”
Julie’s words are my second sledgehammer of the night because how could she possibly know something I didn’t know myself until four minutes ago?
When I gape at her she smiles, shaking her head. “It’s a mom thing. You might belong to Molly and Gabe, but you’ve always been mine too. If you ask your mom, she would claim Tyler and my girls the same way. I know you, Soph, so I know you’ve had feelings for Tyler for a long time, even if you didn’t know yourself.”
“Does he…” I trail off, not knowing exactly what I want to ask.Does he know what I didn’t know?Does he feel this way too?
Julie shakes her head. “He doesn’t know.” She shrugs with a smile. “Men rarely do until it smacks them over the head.” Her eyes go serious then. “But it will. I can promise you that. You are Tyler’s the same way he’s yours. It was always going to be the two of you. I knew it when I found you both back here pulling your little birthday all-nighter when you were eight and I know it now. It might take him some time to get his shit together because, again, man.” She rolls her eyes, and I let out a watery laugh. “He’s in his first year in the league and dazzled by everything that comes with it, including women he barely knows who he kisses in my backyard but will, no doubt, forget before the sun rises. I’m not telling you to wait for him. You are way toobrilliant and incredible to wait around for any man, even one who belongs to me. But I raised him, and I know him, and this stage will be over sooner than you think. When it is, he’s going to be ready for you. If you want him, he’s yours, honey. He’s always been yours,” she repeats.
He’s always been yours.
For some reason, the certainty with which Julie says those words dries my tears the rest of the way, has my shoulders squaring as I stand straight. “You think?”
Julie nods decisively. “I know. Why don’t we call your mom, Emma, Hallie, and all your friends, and have ourselves an old-fashioned girls’ night? No boys allowed.”
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to settle my roiling emotions. I’ve always felt big and fast, but tonight has been whiplash, even for me. I need to think, but even more than that, I need friends. And food. I really, really need food. “Can there be grilled cheese? I came here to force Tyler to make me grilled cheese. He makes it the best.”
Julie scoffs. “Who do you think taught him how to make it?”
“You?” I ask, trying to remember if I’ve ever seen Julie cook.
Julie laughs. “Actually, no. I wish I could take credit for it. That’s all Asher. I’m hopeless in the kitchen. Asher can make us all grilled cheese and someone who isn’t me can make margaritas, and then we can kick him out and get a little drunk and ruminate on why men are even a thing.”
“That sounds…perfect actually. But could we maybe not tell anyone about this?” I wave my hand down the driveway towards the fence. “Hiding in the bushes to have a life-changing epiphany and cry over the guy who is supposed to be my best friend kissing someone who isn’t me is…well, it’s kind of embarrassing and extremely not on brand for me. I think I’ll keep it to myself for a while.”
And also, I don’t want this getting back to Tyler. Because he’s still my best friend, and the idea that he could find out about mylittle epiphany and put distance between us because he doesn’t feel the same makes my chest ache. He can’t know.
Julie nods, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “It’ll be our secret, I swear.”
I give her a grateful smile, and she leads me up to the house. I cast a single backwards glance at the smoke still rising from the backyard fire pit, my brain serving me up one last image of Tyler with his hands on that woman’s face. And I wonder how long it will be until he kisses me like that too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SOPHIE
Present Day
“I kissed her in our spot. On our blanket.” Tyler looks at me with eyes full of regret, voice a little pained, like the idea of kissing a girl who isn’t me in our sacred place hurts him. And the idea that it does, that he understands, that our space means as much to him as it does to me, makes me fall a little harder for him, if such a thing were even possible.
Smiling, I lay my hands on his cheeks, getting a little thrill that I can do this now, and an even bigger one when he leans into my touch, lifting one of his hands to cover mine. “I don’t know how long my feelings had been brewing before that night. I spent a long time trying to figure it out before I gave up because the truth is, I think your mom was right. They’ve been there for a long time. Maybe forever.” I slide my hands around to the back of his neck, and my smile grows when he grips my hips, tugging me close enough to erase almost all the space between us. “I think you were always meant to be mine.”
Tyler’s eyes swim with emotion as he leans his foreheadagainst mine. “Yours,” he says quietly. So quietly I barely hear the word.
I nod against him, my entire body vibrating with anticipation. “Mine. And…” I trail off, taking a deep, fortifying breath before leaning back so I can see him when I say this next thing. “If it’s okay with you, I would really, really like to be yours.”
Tyler takes a sharp breath in and opens his mouth, but I shake my head, gripping his forearms to stop him so I can finish. “It’s complicated, with how intertwined our families are. If something goes wrong, it could mess everything up, and it could completely fuck up our friendship in a way that’s unsalvageable. That’s the thing that’s kept me from saying something for all these years. You are my most important person, Ty, and the idea of us not being friends? It was always worse than keeping my feelings for you buried because I would rather have what we had than not have anything at all.”
“And now?” he asks, running the back of his hand down my cheek before sliding his fingers into my hair and sweeping his thumb over my jaw.
