14. Dylan
FOURTEEN
DYLAN
It’s a random concert in the park, and none of us even know the band, but we go anyway. I watch Adrian agonize over what to wear. He changes his clothes four times. Goes from jeans to shorts to chinos to shorts. From T-shirt to a nice button-down.
Freya walks out the door in a yellow sundress and only has eyes for Adrian.
We’re three friends going out for the evening.
Only if I quietly stayed behind right now, I don’t think either of them would notice.
My masochism makes me follow them to the car.
We grab burgers before the concert.
Adrian pulls Freya’s chair out for her, and she beams at him.
I’m the third wheel.
Or I would be if Adrian weren’t Adrian, because even with Freya being here, he makes sure to include me in their conversation.
So instead of sulking and being an asshole, I put on a smile and make an effort.
Later, much later, when we get home, I make sure to yawn really loudly and make myself scarce.
They share their first kiss in front of Nina’s house while I lean my back against the door and let the full inferno of raging jealousy burn through my insides.
“So you were just blatantly lying when you said you’d be useless at trivia.” Freya sends me a mock glare.
I lean back in my seat and take a sip of my drink. “I just got lucky.”
“Oh, come on. We basically wiped the floor with everybody else here.” She looks around the room at the rest of the teams.
We’re in some random pub downtown. It’s a Friday evening after a long week of work, and this place has cheap beer, and they don’t seem to care too much that my ID says I was born in nineteen seventy-one.
“It’s Dylan’s thing.” Adrian throws his arm over the back of Freya’s chair and grins at me.
“Being smart?” Freya asks.
“Being terrible at admitting he’s good at something. Pay him a compliment and watch him turn a shade of red that’s not found anywhere else in nature.”
“I do not.” I halfheartedly kick him under the table, and he laughs.
“He can sing too,” he says. “His version of ‘The Sound of Silence’ is one of my favorite songs.”
I feel my face go even hotter, and Freya and Adrian both crack up at the same time.
“Fucker,” I say with a glower.
Adrian holds his hands up with a grin before he gets up from his seat. “I’ll get you another drink to make it up to you.”
He walks away, leaving me alone with Freya.
She tilts her head to the side and watches me for an unnervingly long moment.
“How come you don’t like me?” she asks. Just like that.
I blink at her.
Who just comes out and says something like that?
“I like you just fine.”
“I thought so. But you never seem to want to hang out with us,” she says.
No. No, I don’t.
But that’s got nothing to do with her.
Well, I mean, it’s got a lot to do with her. Just not in the way she thinks.
“You guys are dating. I don’t really want to be the annoying friend who won’t take the hint. You know. Like a third wheel.”
She hums at that. “You’re a great guy,” she says then.
“Uh. I’m… Sure?” I’m not sure where she’s going with this.
“How come you don’t have a girlfriend?”
I take a measured sip from the almost empty glass in front of me to buy myself some time.
“I’m not really looking for a relationship,” I say.
She studies me some more until I feel like a bug under a microscope.
“If that changes, I have a lot of friends,” she says.
“Yeah, thanks.” My face is heating again, because the only one I really want is her boyfriend, and saying that would make this conversation really awkward really fast.
Luckily, Adrian chooses that exact moment to come back to the table, and Freya only has eyes for him after that.
“Where are you?” Adrian’s voice has that worried edge to it, which wasn’t exactly my plan.
I wipe the rain off my face and scowl at the dashboard and the myriad of blinking lights on it. It’s kind of par for the course for this to happen in the middle of a fucking storm.
Even a flat tire would be good news right now. That, I could handle. But this fucking car just fucking died on me, and I have no idea what happened to it.
“I’m… still in the car,” I say, evasively but not untruthfully. Technically I am in the car. Just the car isn’t moving right now. Or possibly ever again.
“How far away are you?” Adrian asks, and I can hear his frown through the phone.
“I took a little detour.”
“You’re lost,” he concludes.
“No.” I sigh. “I know where I am.”
“But?”
“But nothing. I’m on my way.”
“Dylan,” he says sternly.
“Adrian,” I parrot, then blow out a breath. “Look, just go hang out with your girlfriend. It’s her birthday. I’m going to try and make it as soon as I can, and in the meantime you can do your best to not worry about me. I’ve got it covered.”
I went too far, I realize immediately. I should’ve stopped somewhere around “it’s her birthday.”
“What happened?” he demands.
I groan and throw myself against the seat. Then I take my phone away from my ear and snap a photo of the dashboard that’s lit up like a Christmas tree and send it his way.
“Wha—”
“I’m fine,” I say. “I was just about to call?—”
“Where are you?”
“Go be with your girlfriend.”
“Dylan,” he says sternly.
“Adrian.”
“Where are you?” he says, very slowly and clearly.
I roll my eyes before I pin my location and send it to him.
“I’ll be there in—why the hell are you in Portsmouth?”
I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a silent curse. “A little detour?”
I don’t know how to reasonably explain that I started driving and just kept going, my mind somehow unwilling to get me to Freya’s party. That I needed some time. And then some more. And then I was suddenly in Portsmouth without really even knowing how it happened.
“I’ll be there in an hour.” He should be frustrated, but he just sounds amused.
I stare at the phone. “Stop being an idiot. You’re not going to leave your girlfriend’s birthday because of me.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Yeah, I kind of do. I’m no expert, but I don’t think it’ll go down well.”
“Frey!” he shouts.
A second later, I hear Freya’s voice somewhere in the distance. “Yeah, babe?”
“Dylan needs me.”
There’s some shuffling and then Freya’s voice, a lot closer now. “Dylan! What did you do?” She giggles. “Were you bad?”
“No,” I say. “Just stupid.”
“Well, no worries. Adrian is already on his way.”
“Keep him there. I can figure this out myself.”
“Aww, sweetie. I don’t think anybody can stop him if you need him, not even me.”
My chest jolts.
My heart starts beating faster.
My whole body goes hot.
I want to hate her for taking him from me, but I can’t. No other girl would understand their boyfriend taking off from their birthday party. Freya does. She will never push me out of Adrian’s life.
“Sorry,” I croak, because I don’t know what else to say.
“I knew you two were a package deal. Don’t worry about it.”
She hangs up.
And I wait.
For Adrian.
Because I’ll always wait for him.
It’s one minute to midnight, but I’m not looking at the clock or getting ready to count down the last seconds of the year.
While everybody else is preparing to ring in the new year, I’m standing in the snowy backyard, hidden from view. I didn’t mean to be here. It just kind of happened that I snuck out earlier and now I’m stuck here.
Because there, bathed in the light coming from inside the house, are Adrian and Freya, him in his neatly pressed dress pants and baby blue shirt. Her in a sparkly dress, her hair falling in waves down her back.
A beautiful couple. Almost ethereal, with light snowflakes dancing around them—just enough to make everything look picture perfect in the glow of the fairy lights strung between the trees.
Ten seconds to midnight, and they’re both laughing and counting down.
When they get to one, Adrian wraps his arms around Freya.
And kisses her.
And I can’t look away.
The clock keeps ticking louder and louder.
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
Tick tock.