Page 94 of Promise Me Sunshine

But he doesn’t look nice. He looks like the kind of man you cheat on your inattentive husband with.

He glances at my bare feet, my neckline, my lipstick. I reach up and properly straighten the tie he’s given up fiddling with. The moment grows thick and my fingers tingle with warm fabric. One of his hands moves infinitesimally and then settles back at his side.

There’s only one way out of this kind of tension.

“I think somebody needs to check to see if that belt buckle is real gold,” I tell him, tracing a finger over it and chomping my teeth meaningfully.

“Quit compulsively flirting,” he scowls and slaps my hand away. “I’m nervous enough already.”

“Compulsively flirting?” I’m the picture of outrage. “How dare you!”

He presses one finger into my forehead and moves me to the side so he can pass. “We should get going.”

“Miles.” I pinch the back of his suit coat and he stops immediately. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to wear this? It’s not…weird for you?”

He shakes his head. “I only chose the dresses that Icouldn’t really remember. It’s fine. She didn’t dress up very often. Now, if you were in her bowling league jacket, that might be weird.”

I smile. “She sounds so awesome.”

He nods. “She was.” And then he frowns, his eyes on my short sleeves. “Won’t you be cold?”

“I’m more concerned about the lack of footwear.”

“I scrubbed down your boots while you were showering.”

“Oh. Thanks! You think combat boots will…work?”

He shrugs. “There’s extra coats in the closet at the end of the hall.” He motions with his head. “Grab one and meet me in the car.”

He leaves and I double back to the coat closet. But when I swing open the door, I come face to face with a dim bedroom. Golden afternoon light juts through the cracks in the shutters and my heart promptly stops beating. This is a teenager’s room. There’s a signed Buffalo Bills jersey framed on the wall and a twin bed under the window. A desk with calculus textbooks stacked on the corner and a pair of gigantic sneakers lined up underneath the chair.

I blink back the tears that sting my eyes and immediately feel like such a bad friend.

Miles never talks about Anders. His cousin who died in the same crash as his mother. His cousin who lived with them. The cousin whose room Miles has clearly not touched.

I think of his mother as the hole torn in Miles’s heart, but he pats her picture when he walks past and has moved and packed and downsized her things to just a box of dresses that he can tear open and lend out.

I quietly close the bedroom door and go to the opposite wall. It’s the coat closet I was supposed to find. I grope through it and pull out a jacket and go join my friend in thecar.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Miles is silent on the drive. We drive down a long country road with fields on either side. We round a curve in the road and there’s a picturesque barn in the distance. I can see the twinkle lights and a line of cars from here. Miles’s knuckles turn white on the steering wheel.

“Nervous?” I ask.

“Hm?” His fingers quickly drum the steering wheel. “Yeah.”

I frown. “Is it just seeing Kira again? Or is there something else to be nervous about?”

He clears his throat and sort of shrugs.

I hazard a guess. “You’re worried that…you’ll see her and feel…regret? For breaking up with her?”

His eyebrows rise and he glances at me. “No. Not worried about that.”

I purse my lips. “What is this? Twenty Questions? Spill, Miles! You engineered an entire camping trip just to get me to be your backup at this shindig but you won’t let me help you, for shit’s sake!”

He scowls at me. “The camping trip was for the list!”

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