Page 70 of Better Than the Movies
“Oh, it definitely would be.” She lifted her cup and toyed with the lid. “He trusts you, though. We both do.”
“I know.” I crossed my legs and traced one of the grooves on my tights with my finger. “And Wes and I are just friends, for the record. He’s kind of helping me with something.”
“What?” She swung her leg back and forth over the side of her stool. “Last I heard, you two were battling over that parking spot. Now, all of a sudden, you’re friends and he’s providing helpful assistance? How in the frack did that happen?”
“It’s kind of complicated.”
“I’d expect nothing less.” She looked through the opening in her lid before swirling her cup around. “But youhaveto be a little attracted to Wes. I mean, not only is the guy pretty and muscular, but he’s also hilarious. Like, if I was a teenager, I would totally go for that one.”
Before I had a chance to utter a sound, she interrupted herself with, “Oh, good God, please scratch that from the record. I sound like one of those teachers who sends pictures of her bits to her students. Youdoknow I didn’t mean it like that, right?”
That made me smile. “Of course.”
“I find Wes adorable in the way that one finds a puppy with huge paws adorable.”
“Settle down. I know.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“And I agree. Until recently, I hadn’t really noticed Wes. But now that I’ve spent time with him, I can totally see why a girl might be into him.”
“His shoulders, right? They’re wildly broad.”
I squinted. “They are?”
“You hadn’t noticed?”
“Not really. But that’s not the point. WhatIwas going to say was that I can see how a girl would get into him because he’s kind of thoughtful for a…” How would I even categorize Wes anymore? My previous labels didn’t seem to fit. “For Wes.”
I pictured him at Ryno’s party, saving me from certain humiliation by holding up the pants he’d loaned me. Holy God, WesBennett was kind of a catch, wasn’t he? He listened well, made late-night phone calls, built beautiful firepits that belonged in lifestyle magazines. Wes was a little bit dreamy.
“But not for you?”
“No.” No matter what I was learning about Wes, any real relationship with him would end in sure disaster. And—as if I needed to convince myself—just like that, I wanted to tell her. Everything. “So here’s what’s happening. But this is top secret, okay? Like, even Jocelyn doesn’t know.”
“Oh my God, I love being the one in the know.” She beamed and leaned a little closer. “Tell me everything, you sneaky little tart.”
And I did. I told her about Michael, and she made a heart-fluttering gesture when I described him and his unexpected re-emergence in my life. (Though I left off the connection to my mom.) I told her about Wes’s and my plan, and she laughed and called me an evil genius.
She cried actual tears when I described getting vomited on, and she snortedwhilecrying when I added the details of the nose-meets-basketball accident to the story. She was wiping at her eyes when she said, “Oh my God, it’s like fate is trying its hardest to keep you away from him.”
What? It wasn’t like that, was it? Those were just unfortunate coincidences.
“Every time you get close to having a moment with Michael, it sounds like the universe breaks it up with a ball to the face or a puke to the outfit. I think the universe likes Wes better.”
I’m pretty sure I looked at her as if she had a snake crawling out of her mouth. “No, it doesn’t. Those things were freak accidents. Ifanything, I’d say bad luck just follows in Wes’s wake. Me being near him was probably what fate was pissed about.”
Her eyebrows went up. “Oh-kay, Liz. Whatever you say.”
The universe likes Wes better.
My brain was fried by that single, solitary sentence as we went out to her car and drove to the shopping center. Did the universe like Wes better?
“I’m going to be sick.” I shook my head and stared as Jocelyn looked at her reflection in the mirror. She was wearing an orange floor-length gown, and she looked more like someone on the red carpet at the Oscars than a high school student trying on a prom dress. “Does anything look bad on you?”
Joss’s mom barked, “It’s too grown-up. Take it off.”
Her mother was one of those nice-but-intimidating parents. She’d always been supersweet to me, but when she was mad at Joss, it mademenervous. She was tiny—barely over five feet, but every inch of her was in charge.
