I took another hit, and the embers swelled orange.
“Tyler,” she said.
An exhale. “Yeah? What’s up?”
“Are you, like, more stoned than usual? You’re...”
“I’m what, Katherine?”
“I don’t know.” Her mouth twitched a little. “You’re just... staring at me.”
I bit my bottom lip and tilted my head. My eyes, still fixed on hers. She tugged on the sleeve of her sweatshirt, and then, finally, looked right back. The moon was high and nearly full, and the stars were absurdly bright.
“You’re still doing it,” she said.
I laughed. And then I put out my joint, climbed back into my window, and turned to her—as usual—to say good night.
11
Tyler
Present Day
New York City
That Friday night, after Katie and I had hit pause on our book for the weekend, I went out for Chinese food with Arthur and the guys, a ritual I always pretended to hate, but didn’t. We were on Fifty-First and Second Avenue, at our usual haunt: a very Midtown East, kept-in-business-by-corporate-takeout restaurant where the air smelled like burnt sesame oil and our table was always waiting.
“How’s the job, kiddo?” Arthur said, dumping a scoop of lo mein on his plate. I cracked open my soda and poured it over a cup of crushed ice.
“Fine,” I said. “Good. Fine.”
“What job?” That was Pedro. He was a fortysomething stand-up comedian who reverse-moonlit as a substitute teacher. When things got really bad, he was also a party clown. “You find a summer gig?”
Arthur gave me a knowing glance, which I expertly ignored.
“I’m kind of writing a book,” I said.
“Aren’t you always writing a book?” Cal this time. He lived on Park Avenue, did five years for insider trading, and always picked up the tab. He had the softest hands I’d ever shaken and had been divorced three times. Four days a week, he paid an ex-con to box with him at a gym in Hell’s Kitchen, and usually, I joined.
“It’s a real book this time. A ghostwriting thing—a three-month contract. And then I should be able to sell mine. The agent who got me the job said she’d help me.”
“That’s great,” Pedro said. “Wow, congratulations. Who’s the author? What’s it about?”
“Nothing,” I said. “It’s about nothing.”
Arthur shook his head, eyes bright through a frown that was really more of a smirk. I mouthed,What?and stifled a chuckle of my own, spinning the lazy Susan to retrieve a lukewarm egg roll.
“He’s writing a romance novel,” Arthur said.
“You?” Cal’s eyes went wide beneath his wire-framed glasses. “The boy they specifically tell girls to stay away from?”
“That’s not true,” I said. “That’s...”
Everyone else was grinning. Arthur, less so, but still.
“Face it,” Pedro said. “It’s not a Friday night in New York City if a girl’s not crying into a plate of diner pancakes because Tyler McNally changed his mind about her.”
“Fuck you!” I flung a fried noodle across the table. It hit him right in the mustache. “I really am working on it! I swear!”
