Page 91 of Happiness for Beginners

“His nickname for me is ‘Doc.’ When he looks at me, he literally sees the person he’s always intended me to be.”

“But he’ll adjust, right?”

Jake frowned for how to explain it. “My dad has only ever been willing to have one kind of son. The high-achieving, hard-working, valedictorian kind.”

“Tell me you weren’t valedictorian.”

He shrugged, like,Sorry. “But now everything’s different.”

I shook my head as I took it all in. “That’s why you can’t drive in the dark?”

He nodded. “And also why I was so squirrelly, too, in the hotel room.”

I looked down.

He went on. “I’m not really myself these days.”

Just then, it started to rain a little—just a sprinkle.

“I hate that I can’t really see you right now,” he said then.

“I bet you can,” I said. “If you try.”

He lifted his eyes, then, and I could tell he wasn’t sure what I meant.

So I took one of his hands—a scratched, callused, dirt-caked hand—and I pressed it against my face. He lifted the other one, then, to touch the other side, and then he moved his hands all around, touching my jaw, my cheekbones, my eyebrows, my nose. He closed his eyes, lost and concentrating. The feel of it, the intimacy of it, made my breath shudder.

“There you are,” he said, at last.

“Here I am.”

I studied his face while he concentrated on mine. “You have the best beard of the group, by the way,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“The bushiest, at any rate.”

“Oh, yeah. The men in my family can grow a beard in like a day.”

“That’s something,” I said.

“It’s a blessing and a curse.”

“I can imagine.”

“I grew a handlebar mustache junior year and waxed it into points.”

“Beckett’s beard makes him look like a rat,” I said.

“And Vegas looks like he’s been eating a caramel apple.”

“But you,” I said. “You have, like, a thick black forest of beard. In the right light, it’s almost glossy. You definitely win the beard prize. You’re like the Brawny paper towel guy.”

“I don’t think he has a beard.”

“Well,” I said. “If he did.”

He smiled for a second at that, but then the smile faded. Dropping his hands, he said, “I can’t believe I lost my fucking glasses.”

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