Page 56 of One Night

"Then I'll work at the restaurant."

"They're not open on Thanksgiving."

"Fine, whatever, but I'm not going home."

"Then you can hang out with Dylan that weekend. You'd have four whole days to get to know each other." She gives me an exaggerated wink.

I laugh. "I'm not going to survive dating him if you keep this up. You're way too eager for Dylan and me to get together."

"Because you guys are perfect for each other. And think how great it'll be if you guys are a couple. We're all best friends. We can double-date. Go on trips together. It'll be awesome!"

"You're getting ahead of yourself. Dylan and I barely know each other. It'll be a long time before I'll consider us a couple. I'm not even going to see him again for weeks."

"Which makes absolutely no sense." She goes around me and opens the freezer door. "I know you want this romantic dream or whatever, but not seeing him is crazy."

"Yeah, you've told me that like a million times."

"And I'm going to keep telling you until you finally agree to go out with him. On a date. Like a normal couple." She hands me a quart of ice cream. "Want some?"

"Sure. Do we have any sprinkles?"

"Ha!" She points her finger at me.

"What?"

"You only want sprinkles when you miss a guy, which just proves how much you miss Dylan, even though you just saw him this morning."

I roll my eyes. "That's ridiculous. I don't only want sprinkles when I miss a guy."

She puts her hands on her hips. "High school. Sophomore year. You were dating Cody and he went to Europe with his parents for two weeks. You came to my house everyday and went through an entire container of sprinkles in two weeks. You even ate them plain, like candy."

"Because I like sprinkles."

"Sorry, but it's more than that. You stopped eating them when Cody got back. And senior year? When you were dating Luke and he went to that football camp? The day he left you made us go to the store to get sprinkles."

"You're making this up. Eating sprinkles does not mean I miss a guy."

"Fine," she says as reaches in the cupboard and takes out a jar of colored sprinkles. She shakes it in front of me. "Then I'll just save these for myself."

"I just told you I wanted some, and NOT because I miss Dylan."

"Then just for fun, let's do a little experiment and see how long you can go without eating sprinkles."

"Your experiment is pointless because the two are not correlated."

She smiles and sets the sprinkles on the counter. "If you eat those, it's proof you miss Dylan and want to see him."

I sigh as I open the drawer to get the ice cream scoop. I hand it to her. "I changed my mind. I don't want ice cream. I have to go study." Then I walk off to my room.

"Go see Dylan," she calls after me. "He's just sitting at his house, waiting for you. Pining for you." I hear her laugh to herself.

Shutting the door to my room, my mind goes back to when I was in here earlier, when Dylan walked in on me. What if we'd given in to what we wanted? Would it really change our relationship going forward? Of course it would. I'd be crazy to think it wouldn't. We can't go back to doing what we did that night. We need to be friends first. Hold off on the physical part of our relationship until later. Which means I can't see him.

Kira was right. I do eat sprinkles when I miss a guy. I have no idea why. Whatever the reason, the fact that I want to eat that whole container of sprinkles right now shows how much I miss Dylan. But I can't see him. Seeing him would make it too tempting to do more than just kiss. So for now, I'll just wait for another letter.

***

The next day, I go to two classes in the morning and one at noon, then I scarf down a quick lunch as I drive to the elementary school to read to Emily. I volunteer for a program for kids who are struggling in school. Emily is seven and still can't read more than a few words. Her mom works two jobs and doesn't have time to read to her and her dad took off a few years ago and never came back.

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