How to Meet Boys (12 page)

“Even me,” Gus said. “Aha. Now I get it.”

“No, everyone, including you,” said Claire. “Don’t be such a pain, Savoy.”

“Let’s go talk about it—but by the fire,” Sarah said. “Now that we’re not running around, I’m freezing.”

Since the fire had dwindled to some smoldering yet very hot coals, Claire and I took charge of looking for some more wood. She and I split up to search. I remembered finding lots of kindling over by this small wooded area near the cove the summer before, when I was at a bonfire then. I walked carefully so I wouldn’t crash into any twigs and picked up a few small fallen branches and logs.

All of a sudden I heard a voice. “Claire?” I asked softly. “That you?”

No response.

I stopped moving and listened again. I couldn’t make out who it was, or even if it was anything besides the breeze rustling the leaves.

I got moving, quietly, stepping through the underbrush to the cove.

That’s when I saw two figures standing on the sand. One of them was Jackson. He was only about ten feet away and he was facing me, but couldn’t see me because of the thick overhang of trees I was standing in.

I could see him in that way you can make out a face or figure that’s really familiar to you, even on a pitch-black night. He was talking to someone—a girl. I watched for a second. I knew I probably shouldn’t. But I had to know who he was with. Then they moved closer to each other and started kissing.

It was just like Claire had said: he’d dated a hundred girls since that dumb incident with me. Summer had barely begun, and here he was, hooking up with someone.

Then I looked closer. The girl was tall with long, wavy brown hair, and was wearing short plaid shorts that showed off her long, toned legs.

Jackson? Kissing
Mikayla
?

Or should I say: Mikayla, kissing Jackson?

Seriously?!?!

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HarperCollins Publishers

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Sometimes when I go for a hard
early-morning run, it helps clear my mind, and everything that comes afterward seems relatively easy in comparison.

Not today.

I was supposed to be thinking of how to break the news to Lucy. Instead, all I could think about was Jackson and how amazing being in his arms had felt. When Sarah and Henry had dropped me off the night before, I’d run inside the house, hoping she was still up so we could talk, so everything could be out in the open.

But her door was closed and the lights were out, so I’d had to wait until morning. Instead I’d curled up on my bed and spent another hour texting with Jackson, trying to plan the next time we could get together.

I could only run through this scenario in my head so many times.
Lucy, you kind of hate Jackson. And I kind of like him—a lot, actually.
Just thinking about being with him last night almost made me weak in the knees—or maybe I’d run too fast, and too far.

I walked into the house, hoping she was up and that she’d listen to me without getting upset. She’d understand—she had to. We were best friends. We supported each other, always, no matter what was on the line.

Then again, she might tell me that I should stay away from Jackson, that he’d only end up being a jerk to me the way he had been to her. She might think that was supporting me.

Only I couldn’t stay away from him. After last night, that was impossible.

So I had to make this work somehow. What was the worst that could happen? I’d tell her, and she’d be furious with me, and then I’d probably have to move out. . . . Where would I go next? I wondered. Was I really risking one of the best friendships ever for someone I’d only known for a week?

Lucy was sitting in a chair by the doorway to the back deck. “Hey. Good morning,” I said.

She didn’t answer at first. Then I realized she had her headphones in and was watching something on her tablet.

I poured myself a glass of juice. I’d wait.

I sat at the counter and leafed through the local free paper someone left on our doorstep each week. This one was full of ads for events surrounding the Fourth of July, which was a week away: concerts, fireworks, a carnival, sidewalk sales, and the Bridgeport Bay 5K.

Lucy finally slipped off her headphones and came over to the refrigerator. “Hey,” I said. “What are you watching?”

“Nothing much.”

“Oh. Well, uh, last night was fun,” I said, trying to broach the subject in a casual way. Maybe if we talked about someone else first, it would help. “Who was that guy you were talking to—the one with red hair?”

“That’s Gus,” Lucy said.

“Gus. Right! How do you know him?” I asked.

“He came into the store one day. He works for a caterer. It’s—it’s a long story,” she said. “Anyway, Claire knows him too.”

“Oh. That’s, um, interesting,” I said. “Do you like him?”

“No.” Lucy shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe.” She nearly glared at me. This wasn’t exactly the mood I wanted her to be in, but I had no choice. She was headed back to her chair.

I got up and followed her. Now or never. “I have to talk to you about something,” I said. “Um, I think I might have broken the handle on the bathroom sink this morning. When I went to shut it off, it turned too far and sort of got stuck there.”

“It’s working fine now,” she said.

“Yeah? Okay, well. Phew.” I laughed, uneasy. “That’s a relief. I thought I broke it. Right. So that was the first thing. The second thing is . . . well, it’s . . . kind of harder to say.”

“What is it?” Lucy asked, looking at me.

“Do you remember when I told you and Claire about this guy I’d met at Earl Grey’s, and how he nearly crashed into my bike . . . we got along really well, but I didn’t know his name?”

“Sure,” Lucy said.

“Well, that’s Jackson,” I said. “Your Jackson.”

“There’s no such thing as ‘my’ Jackson,” Lucy said. “And what do you mean? You’ve known each other a lot longer than you said last night?”

I nodded. “I didn’t tell you the whole story last night—at least, not the part about how many times I’d talked to him. Still, nothing happened between us, I mean, we were just friends, until last night when we . . . well, we kissed. I mean, who knows what will happen next, because this
just
happened.” I watched Lucy’s face carefully for a reaction.

I expected her to be shocked, upset—maybe furious with me. She looked completely neutral, though. “Lucy? You okay?” I asked.

“Of course I am,” she said, brightening a little bit. “I’m surprised . . . I mean, I don’t know if you really want to trust him after . . ”

“I
know
this is awkward and I never would have tried to find him to go after him—it’s just that by the time we connected—that’s when I discovered who he was, and . . ”

“And what?” Lucy asked.

“It was too late because I already liked him. As soon as I found out who he was, I knew I shouldn’t talk to him, or see him that way. I tried to. But it’s like . . . we just sort of, I don’t know . . . click? I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” Lucy asked. “It’s okay if you like him, as long as he likes you . . ”

She was acting very nonchalant. I wondered if this really didn’t bother her as much as it had seemed to when we started the conversation. If she’d adjusted to the idea that quickly, I’d be surprised.

She might be faking it just to make me feel better. And that, actually, made me feel even worse.

“I mean, it’s a little awkward,” Lucy finally said. “I’ll give you that.”

“I know,” I agreed. “And I don’t want it to be.”

“And I’m not sure you should trust him. That’s a problem,” Lucy said.

“I don’t know—I really feel like I
can
,” I said.

Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the front door, and I almost jumped, I was so startled—talking to Lucy about Jackson was making me really tense. She didn’t seem to be angry, but she wasn’t thrilled, either, that was for sure.

Lucy headed for the door. I hoped Jackson hadn’t decided to drop by unexpectedly. This was not good timing.

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“What’s going on?” Ava asked.

She stood on the doorstep, with a large striped duffel bag at her feet. She was wearing a couple of layered tanks, khaki shorts, and sandals. Her dyed-black hair was cut at an angle so that her bangs fell across her eyes.

Mikayla and I both threw our arms around her. I couldn’t have asked for a better surprise right then. If Jackson had stood on the front steps instead of Ava, I think I would have thrown up a little.

It wasn’t that I disliked him, or Mikayla, obviously, but the idea of them being a couple—if that’s what they truly were—did make me feel slightly ill.

On the other hand, I was relieved that Mikayla had been up-front with me. I couldn’t have endured living in the same house if she’d kept that sort of secret from me. Though I couldn’t shake the feeling that she
had
been keeping a secret from me already. After all, she had known that Jackson was the guy who’d crashed into her before last night, yet she’d neglected to mention that when she told me she knew him. Maybe it wasn’t outright betrayal, but it sure felt like it.

Plus, I had to worry about whether he was going to act the same way with her that he had with me. Sure, we were all a lot more grown up now. That didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of hurting her feelings, even unintentionally. I didn’t want Jackson, of all people, to ruin Mikayla’s summer.

“Sorry I’m late,” Ava said. “I had to stop and ask directions to this place about ten times, because it didn’t even show up on Google Maps, and—”

“Late? How can you be late when we didn’t even know you were coming?” I asked. “Why are you here?”

Ava looked taken aback. “That’s not much of a welcome.”

“Sorry, but why aren’t you in Chicago?” Mikayla added.

“Do not even talk about my internship. Do not even speak the words ‘Chicago’ or ‘internship.’”

“Too late,” Mikayla said. “What happened?”

“We can talk about it later. Are you guys going to let me in, or what?” She peered over my head to the living room and kitchen behind us.

“Sure, of course! Come on in,” I said, laughing, glad for the comic relief and distraction Ava was providing. I needed to talk about something else—
with
someone else.

Ava and I dragged her duffel bag through the door and pushed it against the sofa. She deposited a slightly crumpled box of donuts and muffins on the kitchen counter. Then she collapsed into the only comfortable chair we had, looking as tired as if she’d just run a marathon. Her face was paler than usual, which is saying a lot. I quickly got her a cup of coffee, just the way she liked it, with cream, sugar, and a tiny bit of cinnamon, and set it down on the cardboard box/coffee table beside her.

“So
this
is the place that you guys were so excited about living in?” She lifted her mug and took a sip of coffee as she surveyed the room. “Needs a little work.”

“I know, but we’ve been doing a lot,” I said. “You should have seen it when we moved in.”

“Seriously?” she asked. “Because I could get some fabric and make some curtains, pillows—stuff like that,” Ava offered. “I think we should pick a color scheme and—”

“Wait a second. You sound like you’re moving in. Are you
staying
?” Mikayla asked.

“Sure, for a while,” Ava said.

“Yay!” Mikayla cried, leaning over to give her a hug. “I’m so glad.”

“That’s great,” I said, while inside I wondered how I’d be able to pull this off. By telling my mom and grandparents, or by
not
telling them? Ava never stuck with anything for long. If she got bored or wasn’t having fun, she’d move on, rather than waiting for things to change. After she quit our soccer team midseason (which I was furious about for a while), she joined the drama club. She appeared in a play and was really good at that, too—but she dropped out and took up Peace Leaders, this group that travels around working with anti-bullying initiatives in elementary schools.

My mom and my grandparents think she’s too flaky, and maybe sometimes she is, but I didn’t care. I really needed Ava to be here right now, considering how weird things had just gotten between me and Mikayla. “Um, for how long?” I asked.

“I’ll have to see. If I find a job, then for the summer, or what’s left of it. If I can’t get a job, then I’ll probably have to head home in a few days,” she said. “I do not plan on doing that, just so you know. Because guess who would never let me live that down? Dean, of course.”

Dean had been one of the reasons Ava wanted to get completely out of the Cities for the summer. Though he didn’t want to date her anymore, he also didn’t want to let her go. It was complicated.

“He’d be all, ‘You’re back—I
told
you you couldn’t hack it in Chicago,’” Ava said. “And I’d be like, ‘Shut up, dummy. You broke up with me, so why do you even care what I’m doing,’ you know?”

I noticed she wanted to talk about anything but the reason she was here and not in Chicago working for
Faux
magazine. Still, I had to ask. “So what really did happen? Was it horrible?”

“You’ve seen disaster movies, right?” She smiled. “Like that. So do you think I can crash here for a few days?”

“You can sleep in my room,” Mikayla said. “There are actually twin beds. They’re kind of on the firm side, and a little bit short, but they’re not horrible.”

“They sound like cots,” Ava said. “But I could sleep on the floor, I’m so beat.”

I knew Ava wanted to crash for a while, but I couldn’t wait to tell her what was going on. I hadn’t even told Claire that I’d seen Jackson and Mikayla together—I was so shocked and confused that I’d ditched the hunt for firewood and gone home. Maybe that was childish, but I didn’t know what else to do.

“This is so relaxing. I love it. I can’t believe you guys have your own place.” Ava leaned back and stretched her arms above her head. “So why don’t
you
guys seem relaxed?”