Page 64 of Fun at Parties
Didn’t what? Didn’t pay close attention to him too. Didn’t feel an electric current with him from the day we met. Didn’t keep him in a special pocket of my mind for years, as the guy who could’ve been right for me if only the circumstances allowed.
If only all of thosedidn’ts were reallydidn’ts. Nate must sense that we’ve gone from flirtation to something deeper, because he releases my hands. “Let’s get out of here. This isn’t how we’re going to find him.”
The afternoon passes without success. We try a multitude of strategies: walking the perimeter of the crowd at each stage, hovering outside the restrooms, patrolling the VIP section. Splitting up, sticking together.
When we pass the sunflower field, I gear up to ask Nate to take my picture, but he offers on his own. He doesn’t even make a face. I post the photo while he looksfor Logan in the activity field where people are playing dodgeball and tag. Bailey, whom I haven’t spoken to since Denver, messages me immediately:Hahahaha wtf.We go back to the campground twice to look for Logan and snag free snacks.
“I’m going to text Livvie,” Nate says when the golf cart drops us off at the security gate to reenter the festival for the third time. “It’s been a while since we ran into them.”
I check the schedule posted at the entrance. “Shaboozey is next on the main stage. Do you think Logan’s planning to go?”
“Might as well check.” Nate stacks his phone and wallet in a plastic dish, passes it to the security person, and walks through the metal detector.
“Excuse me?” The question comes from somewhere over my shoulder. I turn around, my own plastic dish of personal items in hand.
A young woman with a long dark braid threaded with pink hair tinsel gives me a tentative wave. “Are you Quinn Ray?”
“Yes!” CycleLove riders occasionally recognize me in public, but it’s not a regular occurrence. I straighten my shoulders and turn on my smile, hoping I don’t look too disheveled. “Are you a CycleLove rider?”
“Uh, no.” Her nose wrinkles. “Those bikes are expensive. I follow you on Instagram because that speech you gave about relationships was so inspiring. My boyfriend of five years broke up with me this summer, and you said a lot of things I needed to hear.”
“Oh!” I can feel how freakishly wide my eyes have gone. This is…good. Right? It’s good. One of the thingsI love about my job is making people’s days a little better through a good workout, and this is the same thing, just in a new way. “I’m glad. Breakups are tough, but I hope you’ve been hanging in there.”
She nods rapidly and lifts her phone. “Can I get a photo?”
I step out of the security line, and she waves over one of her friends, who snaps the picture. “Thanks,” she says as her friend heads back to their group. Then she ducks her chin and mumbles, “Um, can I ask you something really quick?”
“Sure.”
“Now that I’m single, hanging out with my friends sucks because they’re all in relationships, so I’m always the third wheel. Or the seventh wheel. What advice do you have for dealing with that?”
As she waits for me to answer, every memory of every breakup I’ve ever experienced or witnessed a friend go through buries itself deep in the inaccessible parts of my brain, and I’m left with a blank mental dry-erase board. “Well,” I start. “First of all, that sounds hard.”
It’s the Edible Arrangements of sympathetic statements: not groundbreaking, but it works for almost any situation. She nods vehemently, which emboldens me.
“The good news is, if you’re hanging out in a big group with couples, they probably bring their single friends around sometimes too, right? So maybe it gives you a chance to meet someone new?”
She shrugs, and it feels like a game show’s wrong-answer buzzer.
“Not that you need to meet someone new, obviously.” She can’t be more than twenty-one or so, which meansshe’s unattached for the first time since she was sixteen years old. Hurrying into another relationship just to make group hangouts more pleasant is definitely the wrong solution, and I don’t need to be an advice columnist to know that. But I have read an advice column once or twice. I can come up with something here. And then I remember Camila and Rosie from the club in Vegas.
“It’s okay to want time with your friends without their significant others around,” I continue. “It’s good for youandthem, and while it’s unfortunate they haven’t realized it on their own, you shouldn’t feel bad about communicating what you want. Whether or not they’re receptive, this might be a good time for you to branch out. Explore your hobbies, figure out who you are on your own. Take an art class, read in the park, play some pickleball. You may make new friends, and some of them will be in a similar situation as you.”
The smile is back on her face. “I was actually thinking of trying intramural soccer.”
I’m about to tell her that’s great, but the words die on my tongue. Over her shoulder—farther than that, past the fence and over Nate’s shoulder, in the VIP area—I catch a glimpse of floppy dark hair and an oddball cabana shirt in a sky-blue-and-hunter-green block print.
I know someone with that hairstyle who would definitely wear that shirt. If it’s him, when he turns to the side, I’ll catch a glimpse of his god-awful—
“Mustache!” I yell, because there it is. ThereLoganis, walking away from the orange kiosk with a spritz in hand, holding a beach ball under his other arm.
Nate looks up from his phone, cocking his head.“Excuse me,” I say to the girl. “I have to…” I trail off and move back toward security, but the line has grown longer. “Nate!” I cup my hands around my mouth. “I see him! Blue-and-green shirt! Beach ball!Go!”
He sprints off. Sheepish apologies get me to the front of the line in a couple minutes, but when I pass through the metal detector, neither of them is in sight. By the time I find Nate, he’s leaning against the fence on the other side, near the entrance to the main festival area, with his arms draped over the railing.
“Where is he?”
Nate’s jaw is locked. He nods at the other side of the fence, where it’s gotten more densely packed over the course of the day, with three shows going on at once. “He ran that way.”
