The Start of Me and You (22 page)

“Streamers,” he said, pitching two more packages into the cart. “Check.”

I put a check mark on the list, which Ryan had written down on a napkin. He had even, left-slanted handwriting, much neater than I’d expect from a guy. If Morgan only knew.

Ryan’s idea was to make Max’s birthday like when they were younger, with cheesy decorations—streamers and noisemakers and enough balloons to inundate the house. Pushing the cart forward, I caught up with Ryan, who was scanning the racks for trick candles. He leaned closer to one of the packages, studying the label.

“They don’t sell them here,” I said. “My dad tried to buy them for my sister’s birthday last year.”

He selected number candles—a one and a seven—and a pack of the standard-issue colored candles. “These will work. I think that’s everything. Decorations: check. Candles: check. Cake order: check.”

The cake was a specialty design, and it took Ryan five full minutes of his best flirting game to sweet-talk the bakery department into it. I nodded. “Looks good.”

On our way to the checkout, we walked past the floral
department. I paused in front of the lines of bouquets, from simple red roses to wildly purple irises. I thought of the fancy pink peonies in my eighth-grade collage.

“You wanna get Max flowers, too?” Ryan teased.

“Nah. I’m just trying to decide which one is my favorite.”

My eyes passed over white lilies and fuchsia Gerbera daisies, Morgan and Kayleigh’s respective favorites. But not mine. No, my gaze caught on the tulips: beautiful but not showy, in white and yellow and pale pink. They looked like they belonged in a bicycle basket on the streets of Paris.

“Can I guess?” Ryan asked.

I laughed a little. “Okay …”

He moved down the line of flowers with his hand out, like he was searching for gold with a metal detector. He paused at the daisies, turning to glance at me. I shook my head.

“Yeah,” he said. “A little too simple.”

His feet stopped at the tulips next, and he turned to gauge my reaction. When he pointed to the orange ones, I wrinkled my nose, and he switched to pale purple.

“How’d you guess?” I asked as we moved toward the self-checkout lanes.

“Everything else seemed too fussy or too bright. Tulips are sweet, but unassuming.”

I felt my face turning tulip pink. This wasn’t a date—I knew that. So why did it feel like a date? There, in the same grocery store where Ryan Chase first snagged my
heart, I promised myself: if the moment happened, I’d kiss him tonight. Checking off item number three on my list felt so close. Maybe he just needed a little nudge.

After we’d scanned everything, my heart pulsing faster every time he looked at me, I heard a peal of laughter from behind us.

I glanced back to see Leanne Woods in tight jeans and spike heels, hanging on the arm of a tall guy in a leather jacket. He looked older, but not old enough to be buying the case of beer in his hands.

I turned away just in time to watch Ryan’s face fall. It was almost a wince, as he concentrated on the payment screen. In another minute, I heard Leanne’s heels clacking toward the exit. My eyes followed her, that long, dark ponytail swishing across her back. With the clopping of her shoes, she reminded me of a show pony, beautiful and meant to be seen.

When she was gone, I asked, “You okay?”

Ryan nodded, loading the final bag back into the cart.

“Orchids,” he said quietly, “if you were wondering. Those are her favorite.”

I pushed my bangs off my face, puzzling over what I could possibly say to him. He had been downright gleeful all night. Now he looked like one of the deflated balloons that we’d purchased by the dozen.

We were quiet the whole way back to my house, and I
wished bad things on Leanne for hurting this sweet boy and ruining our night. Not really bad things, of course—just, like, split ends and a few zits that even concealer couldn’t disguise.

When he pulled into my driveway, I glanced over. “Max is going to love this party.”

“I hope so.” He slid the car into park and leaned back in his seat. I took this to mean that he didn’t want me to leave quite yet, so I waited for him to continue. “You know, I feel kind of responsible for Max, since I convinced him to come back to Oakhurst. He liked Coventry, and I literally begged him to transfer so I’d have, like … one good friend here. What a loser, right?”

He gave a bitter laugh, running his hand through his hair. Seeing him with his cool-guy facade down only made me like him more.

“When Leanne broke up with me, it was like …,” he trailed off. “It wasn’t just her that bailed on me. It was everyone, trailing along behind Leanne like they were her royal subjects. Well, everyone but Connor and Ty.”

Tessa had mentioned this before, in so many words. It seemed much worse coming from Ryan, seeing the betrayal creased in the lines of his face. “That’s pretty cold.”

“Yeah.” He snorted. “Which is, ironically, one of the things I liked about Leanne. She does what she wants and says what she thinks: really mean, really nice, doesn’t
matter. She has no filter, and I always thought that was so cool. No bullshit, no guessing.”

He could have been describing Tessa, too. No wonder he always seemed taken by her. She shared a quality with Leanne that he’d loved—a quality I was markedly lacking.

“You’re not over her, are you?” I asked, and he shrugged.

“My parents are high school sweethearts, so I thought that’s how it might go for Leanne and me.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “That’s so lame, right? I’d probably get kicked off the track team for saying crap like that.”

“It’s not lame.” In fact, I knew all too well how it felt to have your expectations flipped upside down. Anytime something you’re sure of changes in an instant—even when it’s your own parents’ divorce—it feels like a carnival ride: sudden and off balance and nausea inducing.

Ryan turned, staring straight into my eyes. “Hey, Paige?”

Heat broke out across my skin. “Yeah?”

“Thanks for being so cool to Max,” he said. “Really. It means a lot to me.”

Of course it would be about Max, our common denominator. “You don’t have to thank me. It’s not a favor.”

“I know it’s not,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m just glad that he’s found people that he clicks with. He’s awesome, and not everyone sees it.”

Max was the human equivalent of a cult-classic TV
show. Most people didn’t get it. But the people who did? They loved it for all of its quirks.

“You’re a good guy, Ryan,” I said, coiling up all my nervous energy and trying to convert it to braveness. “If Leanne doesn’t see it, then she’s an idiot.”

He smiled a little, looking down at his lap. “Yeah, well.”

And with the gusto of a much more confident girl, I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “See you Monday.”

Okay, so it wasn’t quite the actual kiss I had planned. But, as I made my way up the driveway, I felt a swagger in my walk. I was inching toward the edge of something big, stepping closer to being Paige Hancock again.

In my room, I searched my mom’s collection of Martha Stewart magazines until I found a picture of tulips, bundled into a blue vase. They filled a blank space in my new collage, next to a picture of an open planner and a nail polish ad that looked like a row of Easter eggs—all the pastel colors Morgan used to paint on as a reminder. All the colors I’d loved ever since.

Tessa texted me as I was gluing on an ad for
The Mission District
, asking if she could stay the night at my house after the concert. I let my mom know she might hear Tessa come in late, and she nodded without looking up from her book. It had been my mom, after all, who bought Tessa a toothbrush to keep in my bathroom.

I nodded off but woke up when I heard my bedroom door close.

“Hey,” I said, turning over.

“Hey.” Tessa opened my bottom drawer, where I kept T-shirts and sweats.

When she climbed into bed, I asked, “How was the concert?”

“Amazing. Just … completely beyond.” I could smell the Carmichael on her—not bad, but hints of spilled beer and other girls’ perfume.

“So everything’s okay?” I was so tired, my mouth barely opening.

“Everything’s okay. It’s just that my parents haven’t been home in two weeks. Going home to a quiet house after such a great night sounded lonely.”

“Tell me about the concert,” I said. “It’ll be my bedtime story.”

She laughed, and I fell asleep to her descriptions of dancing and banjos, the long draws of cello strings and how being there made her feel like the world might be way more beautiful than anyone has been giving it credit for.

Chapter Seventeen

“Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend?”

“I’m going to a surprise birthday party tonight,” I told my grandmother, snuggling into the floral pillows on her couch. I tried to say these words with nonchalance, even as my nerves did tiny pirouettes under my skin.

Ryan himself had dropped me off for my visit with my grandmother. He was picking up our special-ordered cake, and he’d be back to get me in an hour. We would head straight back to his house to set up for the party and wait for everyone to arrive.

“Who’s the guest of honor?” my grandma asked.

“A friend of mine.” I talked about Max a lot, but of course she didn’t remember.

She smiled. “So, how was your QuizBowl match?”

“Oh, it was good.” Then I thought for a moment. I was sure she didn’t remember me mentioning it a week before. My mother must have told her earlier today. “We won.”

“Wonderful. Who is Max?”

I blinked. “What?”

She’d heard stories about Max—about QuizBowl and other silly anecdotes. But there had never been an indication that she retained this information.

“Max. Who is he?”

“How do you know about him?”

“You told me.” She produced a little notebook from her purse on the floor. “I’ve been feeling forgetful lately. Your mother said that could happen after a stroke, and I should jot things down.”

My mom tried to protect her from the confusion and fear of Alzheimer’s, so it made sense that she would blame its effects on the stroke—never mind that my grandmother had to be reminded every morning that she’d had a stroke in the first place.

“Here,” she said, opening the notebook. On a page dated a week before, she had written:
Paige here today. School is good. Ask about “QuizBowl.” Ask about Max
.

“It’s funny,” she said, smiling. “I don’t remember talking about him. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Yes,” I said, too quickly. On legal TV shows, the jumpy witnesses always had something to hide. “It’s actually his surprise party tonight.”

“What’s he like?” she asked.

My grandmother would forget later anyway, but how could I box Max into a few sentences? The airplane obsession, the babysitting, the self-imposed uniform of button-down shirts and Converse.

“Um,” I said. “He’s in all honors classes. He’s the captain of the QuizBowl team. He actually, uh, took me to the hospital the night you had your stroke.”

She peered down at her nails, trying to seem casual. “Is he cute?”

Then she studied my face intently. Subtlety is lost on the elderly.

“Maybe,” I said, shrugging. “To girls who are into the dorky-cute look.”

“What did you get him? For his birthday?”

“Oh. Just a book that I know he hasn’t read, but I think he should. And, um … an IOU for a TV-show marathon. With me. Only because there’s this show he really likes, and I’ve never seen it. He keeps trying to get me to watch it. I’m kind of curious, so …,” I trailed off, all too aware that I’d overexplained.

This was, based on her expression, the exact response she’d been hoping for. “Sounds like this Max fellow might be more than a friend.”

“No, it’s not like that. He’s great. He’s just … I mean, he’s on the robotics team at school. Like, he builds robots. For fun. And is routinely sent to the nurse’s office because
he’s so clumsy in gym class.” I heard my own words—and they sounded snobby. But not as mean as the flat-out truth: that I just wasn’t attracted to Max like that. There was no zing, no confetti cannon, no tickle of butterfly wings in my stomach. “I guess he’s just not my type.”

My grandmother smiled. “That’s what I said about your father, Katie.”

“Paige.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Paige. Yes.”

When she opened her eyes, they seemed bleary and far-off. “I’m Gloria.”

“Right,” I said, reaching over to pat her hand. Sometimes physical touch brought her into the present, reminding her of the where and when.

She shook her head. “Silly me! I don’t know what made me say that. What were we talking about?”

“Max.”

“Yes. And what were you saying about him?”

“That he’s a nice guy. But not my type.”

Despite the confusion that preceded this comment, my grandmother’s mind seemed perfectly lucid as she smirked. “Oh, right. And I was not believing you.”

As I set out drinks for Max’s party, my grandmother’s cheeky commentary bubbled inside me like carbonation. I was already nervous about pulling off the surprise part of
the surprise party. But now I kept thinking about Max. If a septuagenarian with Alzheimer’s saw a spark there, was I missing something? Did Max like
me
? If so, I sensed major awkwardness in the making. I replayed clips of him in my mind, and yes, we had fun hanging out. But the same could be said for him and Tessa.