18 #2
“Yeah, it is.”
“I wish...”
“What?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
“Come on. What do you wish?”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I can feel her thinking about whether to tell me whatever she was going to say.
“I wish this could last longer,” she says finally. “This day. This feeling. All of it.”
“It doesn’t have to end.”
“Doesn’t it?”
“Not tonight. Tonight we can just... be here.”
“Be here,” she repeats, like she’s testing the words.
“Yeah.”
“I like that.”
At nine, the first firework explodes over the lake, a burst of red and gold that reflects off the water and makes everyone on the deck cheer.
Liv immediately tightens her grip on my arm, pulling me closer, and I realize she’s using the fireworks as an excuse to touch me more.
Which is fine by me, because I’ve been looking for excuses to touch her all day.
“Ooh,” she says as a particularly impressive firework lights up the sky. “That one was beautiful.”
“You’re beautiful,” I say without thinking.
She turns to look at me, and in the glow of the fireworks, her face is soft and open and perfect.
“West.”
“Yeah?”
“I...”
Another firework goes off, and whatever she was going to say gets lost in the noise and the cheering from our friends.
But she doesn’t look away from me, and I don’t look away from her, and for a moment it feels like we’re the only two people in the world.
Like this isn’t fake.
Like this is exactly what it looks like.
“The grand finale’s starting,” she says, but she doesn’t turn to watch it.
She stays looking at me while the sky explodes in color and light and our friends cheer and clap around us.
And I think: If this is fake, I never want real.
19
The drive home is quiet in the best possible way.
Not the loaded, tension-filled quiet we’ve been navigating all week, but the comfortable silence of two people who are sun- tired and slightly buzzed and content to just exist in the same space.
West has the windows down, and the night air is warm against my face. I’m still wearing his sweatshirt. When did I put on his sweatshirt? And it smells like him and lake water and summer.
“Good day,” I say, letting my head fall back against the headrest.
“Yeah. Really good day.”
“Your friends are the best. I can see why you love them.”
“They love you too.”
I smile. “How can you tell?”
“Hurley asked if you had a sister.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh god.”
“When I told him you were an only child, he looked genuinely disappointed.”
“Poor Hurley.”
“He’ll survive.”
I close my eyes and let myself relive the day. The boat ride, the way West’s arm felt around me during the fireworks, the moment when he called me beautiful, and I forgot how to breathe.
It was perfect. Too perfect.
When we get back to his house, I kick off my sandals and immediately head upstairs to pack for tomorrow’s wedding.
We’re driving down to the coast in the morning, staying overnight, and coming back Sunday.
Which means I need to pack smart. Wedding clothes, post-wedding clothes, sleepwear, daily outfits, and enough options to cover any scenario.
I’m pulling things out of my closet when West appears in the doorway.
“Need help?” he asks.
“Sure. You can fold things while I decide what to bring.”
He settles on the bed next to my open suitcase, and I hand him the dress I wore when I landed. I watch him attempt to fold it and immediately start laughing.
“What?” he asks.
“That’s not how you fold a dress.”
“How do you fold a dress?”
“Not like that. Here.”
I take the dress from him and demonstrate the proper technique, laying it flat, folding the sleeves in, rolling instead of creasing.
“See? It takes up less space and won’t wrinkle.”
“Where did you learn that?” he jokes.
“YouTube.”
He smiles. “YouTube?”
“YouTube has tutorials for everything. How to fold clothes, how to pack a suitcase, how to fake confidence when you’re completely out of your depth.”
“Is that what you’re doing? Faking confidence?”
I pause in the middle of folding a shirt and look at him.
“Sometimes.”
“Not today though.”
“No. Today felt... real.” My mind trails off, rewinding throughout the day, and how amazing it truly was. It was so perfect, and I don’t want it to end.
“Yeah. It did.” There’s something in his voice that makes me look at him more carefully, but he’s focused on attempting to fold another dress, so I can’t read his expression.
“Four pairs of heels?” he asks, looking into the shoe section of my suitcase.
“Different occasions require different shoes.”
“It’s one wedding.”
“It’s a wedding, a rehearsal dinner, and whatever we end up doing Sunday morning before we drive home. Plus I need backup options in case something doesn’t work with what I’m wearing.”
“Backup options.”
“Yes.”
“For shoes.”
“For shoes.”
“Women are complicated.”
“Imagine the ones I wear breaks? It’ll be a disaster.”
He picks up a strappy black sandal that I bought specifically for this trip.
“These are dangerous. If they don’t break, it’ll break your ankle,” he says.
I laugh as he sets the shoe down carefully, like it might bite him, and I try not to read too much into the way he looked at it. Or the way he’s looking at me now.
“What time do we need to leave tomorrow?” I ask, focusing on packing instead of the way his presence in my room is making everything feel smaller and more intimate.
“Ten. The wedding’s at four, so that gives us time to check into the hotel and get ready.”
“And it’s black tie?”
“Yeah. Fancy. The whole thing.”
“Good. I brought the right dress.”
I pull out the dress I bought specifically for this wedding. It’s the navy blue one that’s elegant but memorable and lay it carefully in my suitcase.
“That’s beautiful,” West says.
“Thanks. I wanted something that would photograph well.”
“For pictures?”
“For the social media evidence. To prove we were there together.”
“Right. The evidence.” He smiles as he says it like this is a game to him.
I grab my toiletry bag from the bathroom and start adding travel-sized versions of everything I might need. Face wash, moisturizer, makeup remover, the expensive mascara that doesn’t smudge.
“You’re very thorough,” West observes, watching me organize everything into neat compartments.
I glance at him, enjoying his company as he analyzes everything that I will be bringing. It feels intimate and like we’re getting to know each other. “I came prepared.”
I pack another bikini, tossing it into the suitcase without really thinking about it.
When I look up, West is very carefully not watching me pack swimwear.
“It’s another swimsuit, so don’t freak out. We might not even need them,” I say. “But the hotel has a pool, so...”
He nods. “Yeah, it’s good to have options.”
I press my lips together, holding in my smile. “Exactly.” I zip the suitcase closed and set it by the door. “I’m ready.”
He nods once, standing, and I glance up at his face. He’s been my teenage dream ever since I could remember. My heart starts racing, and a piece of me wishes that he would just kiss me already. I can tell he’s thinking it. There’s no way that he’s not, right?
I mean he’s standing there staring at me, dumbfounded.
Neither of us knows what to do next, but let’s say he kissed me…
then what? We’re not skipping into the sunset while holding hands.
I have my life back home. He has hockey camp or something like that starting next week.
I don’t know how we fit, so I want to save myself the heartache.
I am well-aware that all this tension, all this back-and-forth thing in my head is not good, but the reality is that it’s not the right time, and I have to be okay with that.
I can’t kiss him. I can’t let him make a move.
Everything right now is perfect. We will only complicate things if either of us pulls a move.
The tension is so thick, I don’t know what to do, so I break it.
“You should pack,” I say, nodding.
He nods, too. Oh, great. This is getting awkward. “Yeah, definitely,” he says, still nodding.
He leaves the room, and I stand still for a moment, trying to understand the realization that just dawned on me.
I can’t complicate things further by wishing he would kiss me, so that stops right this second. He’s already sent me the five-hundred-dollars for this week, and that’s what I need to remember here. He’s paying me for this.
I hear his bedroom door shut, so I close mine and sit on my bed.
I remind myself that the only way out is through.