Page 41 of Love at a Funeral and Other Awkward Conversations

Nick, a stereotypical Jersey Italian, shakes his head. “I’m in HVAC, but my brother works there.”

“Tony?” I ask.

“Yep.” He removes his sunglasses so I can see the bit of resemblance between Vince and Nick. “You know him?”

“Yeah, I ran into him a couple of times while I was hanging out at the funeral home.”

“Huh,” he says, his eyes toggling between Vince and me. “You like being there?”

I laugh. “That’s a stretch.”

Vince’s mouth quirks to the side, and my joints go loose, my tongue thick. I like him. That’s not a stretch.

Ryan, with sandy hair and a beard, frowns. “Gives me the creeps.”

When I agree, he tilts his head up, smiling at me with one eye closed against the bright sunshine. He hovers his hand over his brow as his gaze drifts over me. It’s not gross, more or less curious. “Hey, Cass.”

He says my name overly familiarly, and I slant my head back.

“Don’t remember me, do you?” he asks.

I shake my head, and he runs his hand over his beard. “We graduated together. You were in my Spanish class freshman year.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t remember.”

The beard covers up the lower half of his face, but even without it, I don’t know if I would be able to recognize him. He shrugs. “Eh, you were too smart for me. I barely passed that class.”

I squint, trying to recall the teacher’s name. I snap my fingers. “Señora Garcia.”

“Yeah.” He grins. “You sat two rows over from me. You had shorter hair then,” he says, angling his hand by his ears.

I’m shocked he remembers all that, and with the way Ryan leans back in his chair, folding his arms smugly over his chest, I briefly think maybe it means something more than a fleeting memory.

“Drinks?” I ask, peering down at Vince. He pulls his focus away from Ryan and orders a beer. The other two follow, and I’m barely away from the table when I hear Ryan ask, “Is she single?”

Once I return with their beers, there’s a weird tension at the table, and I don’t try to engage in any more chitchat. I take their food orders and leave, even though I’d really like to stay and talk to Vince. I float from table to table, occasionally sensing attention on me, but every time I turn to Vince’s table, they’re talking among themselves. I shake off the imagined awareness and drop off the check with quick goodbyes.

When Nick and Ryan leave the table, Vince sticks around, his sunglasses gone. He holds on to my elbow to keep me in place as he hands me the folio. “I think Ryan liked you in school.”

It comes out like a quasi-accusation, and my tone is more defensive than I’d like it to be. “I honestly can’t remember him.”

“He obviously remembers you.”

I lift my brow. “What’s that tone for?”

He scratches the side of his head, where his hair is shorter. After a few weeks, I’d finally strong-armed him into a hairstyle from this millennium. “I don’t have a tone.”

“A little bit, yeah,” I say, and he shrinks back apologetically.

“Sorry.”

Maybe it’s my stress-addled brain or the weird air between us, but I blurt out a long-held secret. “Besides, I wouldn’t have noticed other boys. I sorta had a crush on you.”

“You what?” His posture changes from the annoyed-shoulders-back thing he does to this one that’s forward and amused. “How do you sort of have a crush on someone? You either do or you don’t.”

“I didn’t know there were rules.”

He shrugs. “Should’ve read the rule book. So, which one was it?”

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