“You can stay here whenever you like, Henry,” she says gently. “You’re always welcome and I like the company. It’s really nice having friends. Even if maybe I panic I’m going to lose them all every single day and have dramatic embarrassing outbursts when I’m hungover.”
“You’re not embarrassing. You are dramatic, though. But if it makes you feel better, you’re not even in the top three of the most dramatic people I’m friends with,” I say, squeezing her side playfully. “You broke a rule, though; please stop feeling embarrassed around me. Maybe your friendships will feel less delicate if you get to know people better. We need to give you a new experience anyway. Have you ever been on a group date?”
“I sort of have, actually. It was horrible and I felt like an alien the entire time.”
“Good, it’s better that you’ve done it before. That way I won’t have to feel bad about stealing you away the minute we get there. We’re playing away this weekend, but we’re going to the beach on Sunday when we get home.”
Halle laughs, her body vibrating against mine. “So not a group date then. Just a date with witnesses.”
“Annoying witnesses.”
When she frees herself from being curled up against me, she looks happier than she did when I got here, and I’m thankful I haven’t somehow made this worse. “Annoying witnesses? What could possibly go wrong?”
Chapter FifteenHENRY
OF ALL THE BORING THINGSI’m required to do this week, watching Anastasia weigh cooked rice is the most boring.
I lean against the palm of my hand on the other side of her kitchen island, observing her move the glass container from the counter to the scale and back, over and over. By the time she moves on to chicken breast I’m half asleep. She occasionally turns around to stir the sauce she’s concocted for all of this food prep, but other than that, she’s a cooking robot, hardly saying anything.
“Santa Monica will be more fun than this,” I say, hoping that will be enough to convince her. The reality is anything would be more fun than this.
“I don’t have fun scheduled in my planner, so like I said, I’m going to have to pass.”
“All you do is skate and study. You need a break.”
“That’s not true. I also eat seventeen thousand times a day like a fucking shrew.” She abandons adding broccoli to her meals and leans against the counter. I don’t think she knows how tired she looks. “Did Nathan put you up to this?”
“No.” She stares at me in the way she does that makes me feellike I’m being disciplined by a parent. “He didn’t. He said you were stressed and it made me realize I hardly check in on you. I haven’t intentionally neglected you.”
“You haven’t neglected me at all, Hen. I know you have a lot going on with school and hockey, and you’re spending a lot of time with Halle”—a borderline unhinged smile spreads across her face—“who I want to hear all about, by the way. I had to find out you were dating from Mattie, and I spent our entire lecture stunned. Didn’t learn a thing.”
“We’re not dating. We’re friends.”
It’s annoying how smug she looks right now. “I’m your friend and you’ve never kissed my forehead or held my hand.”
Fucking Mattie. “That’s your own fault. Grow six inches and then we can talk about it. I’m not bending over to be nice to you.”
She flips me off and huffs. “I’m just saying. Special rules for special friends and all that. I wouldlovefor you to have a girlfriend. I worry about you when you’re being slutty.”
“I haven’t even kissed anyone in more than a month, so you can stop worrying. Were you worried about yourself when you were being slutty?”
I don’t know why I haven’t kissed anyone, so I don’t have an answer if Anastasia asks. I could come up with tons of excuses about stress and hockey. I wouldn’t admit to her that I’d feel weird kissing someone in front of Halle, and we’re together a lot. I don’t even want to kiss someone. Maybe I overdid it in the summer, and now I’m in a different phase. Maybe I like the idea of kissing the same person. I don’t know.
She rolls her eyes and plucks a grape from the bag in front of her, waving it about as she talks. “I dispute I’ve ever been slutty, but the point is, sex is fun—”
“I know you think that. I’ve heard you do it tons of times.”
She launches the grape at me. “—and if you’re doing it becauseit’s fun, great. But you start running through women when you’re lonely.”
“I wish I hadn’t told you that.”
“Well, suck it up because you did. It would just make me really happy if you could have both. The companionship as well as the other stuff. You like her, right? Even if you’re not officially dating.”
“I like her, but I don’t know how to or want to date someone. What if it ruins how good things are?” It’s something I’ve thought about a lot since Halle’s emotional outburst. All I wanted to do was hold her and look after her. I hated having to leave because I had other commitments. I’ve also thought a lot about how the idea of her hooking up with someone makes me unhappy, even though she was joking. And how I want to watch her have friends and be confident that she’ll keep them.
Anastasia plucks another grape and pops it into her mouth. “How would you feel if she dated someone else?”
“Don’t know… I do know. I’d feel unhappy. I don’t understand why, though.”