Chapter 27
Ren
“I kissed Miller,” I whisper to my best friend, but I’m staring resolutely at the metal armatures supporting a towering saurolophus femur.
“What?!” Imani shrieks, whipping around, brandishing an empty Riker mount.
“Well, it was an accident. Just the corners of our mouths. And he seemed . . . he thought I was trying to hug him.” I chew on my bottom lip, finally looking away from the display. “Do you think he was . . . I don’t know, repulsed by me?”
Her fingers curl around the edges of the mount, and her mouth turns down in assessment, chocolate eyes squinting at me from behind glasses. “If I liked kissing people I wasn’t in love with, I’d probably like kissing you.”
“Oh, great, thanks.” I throw my hands in the air. “What a ringing endorsement.”
“It is, actually.” She gives me a pointed look, setting the mount on a cart full of random paraphernalia the exhibit designers use. “When was the last time you kissed someone, anyway?”
“A long time ago.” I frown, considering. “One . . . no, two years ago. Remember, my therapist said I should try dating again? And they were all—”
“Self-important Bay Street douchebags?” Imani finishes for me.
“Yes. Every single one. So, uhm, a long time ago.”
“Were any of those”—she leans forward, dropping her voice to a whisper—“good kisses?”
I snort. “Seeing as I barely remember them, I’m going to say no.”
She waggles her brows. “And what about your accidental corner kiss with Miller?”
My throat dries out, all that air leaves my lungs again, the floor shifts beneath me, and that corner of my mouth starts to burn. “It was—”
“You’re blushing!” The cadence of her voice rises before she remembers we’re standing in the middle of a half-assembled exhibit and anyone—Dev or Graham or god forbid Scott—could come along. Her tone turns accusatory. “You do have a crush on him. I knew it.”
“No, I don’t,” I sputter.
But last night his full lips met mine, even in the loosest definition of the word kiss, and I do think something crushed me.
Another asteroid—shaped like a man with unruly hair, a sideways grin that you feel all the way down to your bones, eyes that might be the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, and a brain he doesn’t seem to appreciate enough but you think is wonderful.
“Oh my god, I’m pathetic!” I slap a hand to my mouth, and I feel like slumping down into the fake ferns and sprawling out, waiting for the extinction asteroid to come back and get me. “A man touches half my mouth and I’m, what? Thirteen again?”
Imani cocks her head. “What’s wrong with that? Were you ever . . . thirteen?”
“Of course I was thirteen!” I shriek, waving up and down my body. “I’ve aged well past that, actually.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She shoots me another knowing look, and I have a feeling she’s ready to launch into another scientific-laden analogy. “I mean, has anyone ever made you feel . . . like that? Giddy? Happy? Silly? Like . . . yourself?”
Miller, Miller, Miller, my heart sings in my chest.
But my brain reminds me of something else, and I say quietly, “I thought they did.”
“Would it be so bad?” she asks softly.
“I don’t . . . Scott, he said something the other day and—”
It’s her turn to throw her hands up. “Please do not tell me we’re listening to Scott of all people now!”
“No, of course not, but he made . . . a valid point.” I almost choke on the word. “That I don’t want to be alone.”
Imani’s lip pulls back. “So?”
“That I can’t be alone.” I lean forward, hissing the words like that will somehow make her understand.
“Can’t and want are two very different words.” She crosses her arms over her chest, leaning forward, too, so our noses are almost touching. “Should I go get a dictionary?”
I throw a giant eye roll her way. “Yes, you can flip to the pages with the words meddling, prying, interfere, interpose—”
“Ladies.” Graham’s voice comes from just beyond the exhibit barrier. “What are you doing?”
We both snap up straight, eyes flaring wide, and Imani chokes back a giggle of nervous laughter, and I have to swallow a snort.
Turning to Graham, I smile politely, pointing towards the empty space between the fake ferns stuck in the ground of the exhibit at our feet. “Deciding whether we need more foliage in this spot here.”
“Seems like something Dev should take care of, as exhibit designer,” Graham says, brows lifting before he looks at me. “Ren, I was looking for you.”
“Here I am.” I wave before turning towards the exhibit. “I was just making sure the saurolophus femur was mounted securely. It required more work than I was anticipating. Did you need something?”
“My colleague from the Maritime Museum called,” he states, voice flat and devoid of anything.
Imani’s eyes go wide, and she makes a small gasp beside me.
Graham doesn’t even spare her a glance. “They were quite impressed with your CV. They’d like to speak with you this afternoon.
Around three. I said I’d make sure your schedule was clear. ”
My mouth forms a small O, but Graham doesn’t wait to see how I’m going to react—he’s already turning on the heel of his dress shoe, a hand lifted over his shoulder in acknowledgement when I call, “Thank you,” after his retreating figure.
Imani digs her heel into the ground, slowly pivoting back to face me, with a wobbly smile. “That’s exciting, right?”
“Sure.” I nod, forcing a smile that I think must wobble, too. “I mean, that’s what’s best, right? The next step towards achieving my dreams.”
Her head tips to the side, lines of her face soft. “Are you sure about that?”
“No.” I snort through a wet laugh, and I don’t mean to—but my fingers rest at the corner of my mouth. My own personal Chicxulub crater.
My best friend’s fingers roll around my wrist, and they tap in time with my pulse. “It’s okay if your dreams changed, Ren,” she whispers softly. “It’s okay if they became a person. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.”
“This is—this is what we set out to do.” I dig my own heels into the proverbial, fernless dirt.
“We’ll go to the cottage. We’ll have our pretend practice date.
He’s going to get his trade at the end of the season.
He looks great in the media again, and I .
. . wanted to reclaim old pieces of myself.
I did that. And now, I’m . . . going to do this. ”
Imani’s mouth twists, almost sorrowful. “I know the curator job here—it was important. It was something you wanted for yourself. But I think . . . Did you ever think you were just trying to prove something? To yourself? To Scott, maybe?”
“I don’t have to prove anything to Scott,” I bite out.
“I’m not saying you do, in fact, I’d prefer if you never gave him another thought.
” She shakes her head, resigned. “I just mean . . . it’s okay if you wanted it because it was the first new dream you had for yourself.
But it’s also okay if you picked up those pieces of yourself and realized you started dreaming about .
. . someone. A boy. It doesn’t make you eighteen and looking for someone to love you so desperately you won’t bother to be discerning. ”
I think her words make impact, too. But not where Miller and his mouth did. Right through my chest and so deep they carve another crater in my heart, and they tilt the world beneath my feet too. I say the only thing I can think of, mumbling through a wet eye roll. “He’s not a boy.”
She taps the corner of her mouth. “You’d know.”
Sniffing, I bat away tears and finally give up, sitting down in the empty space between the fake ferns.
My best friend doesn’t hesitate to join me. She folds down beside me, straightening her legs and smoothing out the lines of her silk skirt. “You don’t think . . . I’m sorry if it seemed like I was meddling or prying, I just—”
“No, I don’t really think that.” I open my palm for hers. “I’m lucky to have someone who cares so much about my survival.”
Her skin meets mine, but instead of sliding our fingers together, she brings my hand between both of hers.
“I don’t want you to survive anymore, Ren.
I’d rather you really live.” Imani smiles, watery, before she tips her chin towards the ceiling.
“Do you think this is what they saw before the asteroid hit?”
“Industrial beams and specialized LED lighting that looks like it could use a dusting?” I laugh, tipping my chin up, too. “I hope not.”
“Me either.” She snorts. “But I think I hope, even more, that none of them were alone.”
“Me too,” I murmur, and all I can think of is how maybe this new me, with all these reasons to be who she is and always has been, doesn’t really want to be alone either.