Page 17 of The Plus Ones
He blinks. “What are you saying? Did you want me to call you the next day or something?”
I laugh. I can’t help it. It’s not funny. In fact, it’s so not funny I sort of want to throw him in front of a bus, but I mean… He’s asking me if we’re cool—five years later. He’s asking me if he should have called me—five years later.
He is not amused. “This is funny to you.”
I can’t stop laughing. I’m laughing so hard I’m crying a little.
“You think I’m an idiot for bringing it up now, but you’re the one who’s been trying to avoid me all this time.”
“I’m not trying to avoid you. I just don’t want to see you. There’s a subtle but important difference.”
“You don’t want to talk to me. About what happened between us.”
“Nothing happened between us. We kissed.”
“Uh-huh.”
“I mean, it was a good kiss. Good kisses happen. To people. All the time.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What is there to talk about?”
“Can you just answer this one question, and then I will never bring up this subject again, I promise you.”
“What?”
“Are you actually mad at me for not calling you after we kissed? Were you mad at me? Be honest.”
Am I? Was I? Sort of? Maybe?I can’t answer this question.
“Oh my God,” he says, slapping his hand to his forehead. “All this time you’ve been thinking I’m an asshole for not calling you.”
“I think you’re an asshole for all kinds of reasons.”
“Have you ever been in a serious relationship in your life?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Because you act like someone who has never been in a serious relationship in her life.”
“How would you even know how I act? We don’t really know each other. Just because we have the same best friends—”
“Why is it so important to you to believe that?”
“It’s not important to me. It’s true!”
“Is it? Is that what’s true? That you and I don’t have any kind of connection? Because we’re different? Because I was a dick to my best friend and yours over seven years ago for like a month? Because another thing that’s true is that Chase and Aimee and I all made peace with each other and I became best friends with Aimee too and our circle of friends grew and included each other. And then everyone else got married and had kids except us, and one summer night on the deck of a loft in Greenpoint at our best friends’ wedding, you and I felt something—it may not have been for each other, but we felt something together—and we kissed. And it was a great fucking kiss and I liked it, and that doesn’t mean it had to mean anything more than that. But it happened and it happened between us. And you walked away from me because you didn’t want it to become anything else, and that’s fine. But it’s not fine for you to be mad at me because you think I should have called you, even though you made it very clear to me that you didn’t want it to go anywhere. You can be mad at me if you want, but you do not get to be mad at me for that.”
My eyes are stinging. I have no idea what just happened. One minute we’re chatting on a sidewalk, and the next he’s mad at me. He doesn’t get to be mad at me!
Why do I feel so much closer to him right now?
Why am I so turned-on right now?
I slide as far away from him as I can, backed up into the corner of the back seat, right up against the door.
His eyebrows shoot up. “Are you afraid I’m going to hit you?”
