They sat there for another minute, the air through the open windows springtime cool and his house a shadowy outline against the streaky orange-pink sky. “It was good to see you,” Gabby said, looking down at her hands on the steering wheel. “I owe a thank-you to whoever pulled that fire alarm.”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “definitely.” He feltweirdly nervous all of a sudden, like he’d finally taught himself not to miss her and this afternoon was undoing it. He kind of didn’t want to let her out of his sight. “What are you doing this weekend, huh?” he blurted, before he could think better of it.
Gabby shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Nothing super special.”
“Monopoly Friday?”
She huffed out a little breath at that, likeYes, I know I’m predictable. Ryan had missed the way she breathed. “Yeah, probably.” She looked over at him then, her face half in shadow. “Why,” she asked, sounding timid and wry at once, “you wanna come?”
Ryan did. He wanted it like all hell, and the wanting was so fierce and sudden that it knocked him back a little. He washomesick, he realized. He was homesick forher. He made himself wait a beat before he answered. “Can I bring Chelsea?”
Gabby blinked at that. “I—sure,” she said, pausing exactly one second too long for it to sound entirely natural. “Of course.”
Ryan nodded anyway. “Great,” he said. “We’ll be there.”
GABBY
“Taste these,” Gabby’s dad said to Shay on Friday night, crunching thoughtfully on the marinated cocktail nuts hewas about to slide into the oven,1,001 Crowd-Pleasing Party Appetizersopen on the counter beside him. “They taste boring to me.”
Shay plucked a few off the baking sheet. “Cumin, maybe?” she asked after a moment. “My mom always puts cumin on her microwave popcorn.”
“Cumin!” Gabby’s dad said happily, and Gabby smiled. Her family had never given her any grief about being bi—she’d accidentally blurted out her giant crush on Zendaya in front of her mom and Celia in the car one day the summer before ninth grade, after which her parents had sat her down over bowls of ice cream and told her, in a nice but exceedingly embarrassing way, that they only ever wanted her to be happy. Still, she’d been kind of nervous to introduce an actual, nontheoretical girlfriend to her parents, but it turned out that her dad and Shay had a weird amount in common: cooking and disaster movies and a dorky, fanatical love of the US Women’s Soccer team. Normally it made Gabby really happy; tonight, she was too anxious to care.
“We’ll finish these,” she said now, jumping at the chance for a project, something to do with her nervous hands. She wasn’t entirely sure what had possessed her to invite Ryan over tonight. It felt like too much too soon, like they’d barely even made up yet. “Cumin, yeah?”
She and Shay were just sliding the trays into the oven when the doorbell rang. “Ryan!” Gabby’s dad cried when he answered it, looking so delighted that Gabby almost feltembarrassed for him. If he’d had a tail he probably would have wagged it. Gabby rolled her eyes.
“Hey, Mr. Hart,” Ryan said, handing over his customary bag of sour-cream-and-onion Ruffles. “This is my girlfriend, Chelsea.”
Chelsea smiled at her dad, then past him at Gabby. “Thanks for inviting me,” she said.
Gabby smiled back. She’d hung out with Chelsea a couple of times before she and Ryan had their fight, although honestly Gabby hadn’t expected her to last this long and hadn’t really paid a ton of attention. She couldn’t repress the urge to stare a little bit now. It was odd: she’d always thought that if Ryan ever got a serious girlfriend it would be someone...prettier. Not that Chelsea wasn’t pretty—she was, with dark curly hair and friendly brown eyes. But she was normal pretty, not Instagram-model pretty. It kind of weirded Gabby out. Having Chelsea here in the first place weirded her out, honestly; the truth was, Gabby had been instantly irritated when Ryan had asked to bring her tonight, even though she knew that made her a giant bitch. She just felt soinvaded.
“Hey,” Ryan said, looking at her curiously.
“Hey,” Gabby said, and turned toward the kitchen door.
They got snacks and drinks and rounded up Kristina from the basement; as they were heading back into the living room, Shay pulled Gabby into the darkness of the stairwell. “Hi,” she said, pressing a ChapSticked kiss against Gabby’s mouth.
Gabby grinned. “Hi,” she said, and kissed Shay back, hooking her fingers in Shay’s belt loop and tugging her close. Shay made a quiet sound, cupping Gabby’s face in two warm hands. “You realize there’s a room full of people like, right around the corner.”
“I do, in fact,” Shay said. Her hands were wandering now, slipping up under Gabby’s button-down, her fingertips whisper-light against Gabby’s skin. “I’m trying to distract you. Is it working?”
Gabby swallowed hard. She’d worried things might feel awkward and different after they’d had sex, but instead it was like she just wanted to be around Shay more, if that was possible. “I mean, yes,” she said, pushing herself against Shay’s hip; Shay smiled, pleased. “Do I seem like I need to be distracted?”
She was teasing, expecting to be teased in return, but instead Shay pulled back and considered her for a moment. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “You okay out there? You have a look on your face like maybe you feel weird.”
“This is my normal face,” Gabby said, then, gesturing between them: “I mean,thisis not my normal face, butthat”—she tilted her head toward the living room—“totally normal.”
“Okay,” Shay said, like she thought Gabby was full of garbage but wasn’t going to push her. “If you say so.”
Gabby huffed a breath out, frustrated. Shedidfeel weird, obviously she felt weird, and obviously it was about Ryanbeing here in her living room with his girlfriend. But it wasn’t becauseshewanted to be Ryan’s girlfriend, and there was no way to describe what she was feeling to Shay without making it sound like that’s what was going on. That had always been the problem with her friendship with Ryan: she couldn’t explain it properly to anyone, not really. Sometimes it was like she couldn’t even explain it properly to herself. “I get strange about new people at my house,” she said finally. “You know that.”
“You get strange about new people everywhere,” Shay pointed out, but she was smiling like that was a thing she found charming. Gabby felt herself relax.
They kissed another long minute, Gabby letting herself sink into it: Shay’s plush mouth and the lavender smell of her perfume, how soft her body was. Before they headed back into the living room, Gabby grabbed her by the sleeve. “Hey,” she said, pulling her back into the darkness of the hallway. “I’m glad I have you on my team, you know that? For, like, Monopoly, and also life.”
Shay smiled heryou’re such a dork, Gabby Hartsmile, but she also squeezed Gabby’s hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go.”
