Page 50 of Cool for the Summer

Which is amazing. We’re heading to a late dinner now.

Everything good with you and Van?

I stare at the phone. What does he mean by that? I haven’t said a word about our roommates-with-benefits thing, and I can’t imagine Donovan would have mentioned anything, either.

Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?

No reason. Great.

I debate before typing my next question, but figure, what the hell?

When you and Pete got together, were you both on the same page about the relationship?

Sort of.

???

I knew I was all in, if that’s what you mean. Pete was almost there, but it just took him a little longer. But once he caught on that I was the love of his life, then we were good. Does that answer your question?

Actually, it does. Thanks, cuz. Have a fantastico dinner.

Will do. Take care.

I smile sadly at the phone until it goes dark. I think I get what Jack means—I know I have feelings for Donovan, and if he woke up one day and realized he had feelings for me, then the constant ache in my chest would disappear because we’d both be in this up to our hips. The difference is, I don’t have much hope of that actually happening. In fact, I’d be a fool to hope for it.

And I’m already acting as much a fool as I can stomach.

We decide to walk to Kingston’s house on Bramble Street. It’s only about half a mile away, and that way, neither of us has to be the designated driver. Donovan looks edible in a white short-sleeved button-down shirt that shows off how much sun he’s gotten over the past few weeks. He needs a haircut, and his bangs keep flopping into his eyes. I shift my container of cookies to one hand so I can sweep his bangs up.

“Shit, I probably shouldn’t do stuff like that at Kingston’s, should I?” I say.

“Why?” he asks, adjusting his grip on the bottle of chilled bubbly we’re bringing.

“Because Kingston doesn’t know we’re—” I honestly can’t come up with another word besides fucking, and for some reason I don’t want to reduce what we have to that.

“Being intimate?” Donovan suggests in a melodramatic voice.

I know he’s trying to be funny. “Yes. That.”

“Is it a secret?”

That shocks me. “Well, I haven’t told anyone. Have you?”

Donovan seems to think. “No. I guess I haven’t.”

“I don’t think it’s anyone else’s business.”

“If that’s what you want. You don’t want people to know you’ve stooped to fucking an actor?”

I think he’s still being funny, but I answer honestly. “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me at the end of the summer.”

“Why would they feel sorry for you?” He sounds genuinely perplexed.

“Donovan, if our friends knew we were hooking up, and then you go back to the city while I’m still here, they’re going to assume, well, that not hooking up anymore was your idea.” I mentally urge him to get my drift so I don’t have to explain that not only is that how it’ll look, it’s how it’ll be. So far, he seems to think I’m just as happy with the expiration date stamped on our arrangement as he is.

“That’s silly. You’re the one who’s got big plans. You’re going to be the owner of a cookie empire one day. I’m just going back to the grind of auditions.”

“That reminds me, how’s your audition class coming along?” After he went to speak to Dulcie’s class of aspiring thespians at the Art Center, she got him to agree to doing a one-time audition workshop later this summer. For the past few days he’s been alternating working on his play, which he says he’s made progress on, and the curriculum for the workshop.

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