Chapter 16
We’re leaving the restaurant to a series of phones photographing us from tables and the waiting area when a voice calls out, “Wes! Hey, Wes!”
Wes has his arm around me like a bodyguard protecting a celebrity from the paparazzi, but he pauses and glances back toward the voice.
“Shit,” I hear him mutter before he turns around to greet the man who is jogging toward us.
I study the man with interest since clearly Wes isn’t happy to see him, and I’m surprised to see it’s Judd Harris, who went to high school with us.
He was actually my escort to one of the dances in my junior year, and I thought I’d hit the jackpot by having a date with a popular senior.
We went out a couple of times afterward, but then the relationship petered out.
Neither of us seemed to care all that much.
I’m prepared to believe there are a lot of people from our high school that Wes would prefer not to see, but he and Judd were on the soccer team together.
I thought they were friends.
Wes greets Judd with a smile, but I clearly have gotten to know him better in the past month because I can immediately tell the smile isn’t sincere. “Hey, man,” he says. “Good to see you.”
“You too. I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about the two of you.” Judd has a broad face and a wide smile with impressively white teeth. “So it’s real? You two are together?”
“We are,” Wes says, pulling me toward his side in a possessive gesture that he’s never used before—not even for the cameras. “We’re engaged.”
I’m more intrigued by Wes’s mood than anything else, but I flutter my hand toward Judd as if I’m showing off the ring.
“Nice,” he says in a tone I’ve always mentally identified as a bro tone. “Good going, man.”
“We’re happy,” Wes says, his hand sliding down toward my hip. “How about you? Anything new?”
“Marissa and I got divorced, which is why I’m at dinner tonight with my folks.” Judd gestures toward an older couple who bear a strong resemblance to him. “They dragged me with them.”
“Oh, that’s nice,” I say. “I bet they were trying to cheer you up.”
I don’t say it because I’ve learned it always makes others feel guilty and uncomfortable, but I’d give anything if I could have dinner with my parents again.
“I guess. Anyway, Wes, we should get together sometime. We can catch up.”
“Sure. We’re pretty booked with all the wedding stuff, but as soon as I get a free minute, I’ll reach out.”
Judd is satisfied with that response, mostly because he’s not clever enough to realize Wes is trying to put him off. Then he lopes off toward his parents, and Wes and I head outside and walk to where he parked the car.
“Why don’t you like him?” I ask after a minute, when Wes volunteers no information.
“Who says I don’t like him?”
“Please. Even if you hadn’t said shit when you saw him, I’d be able to tell just from the look on your face.”
He arches his eyebrows at me.
“You might have a better poker face than me, but it’s not that good.”
“Fine.” His face relaxes into a smile as we walk. “He was one of those school friends who aren’t really friends at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“Surely you had them too. They hang out with you and pretend to be friends, but they’re mostly just using you for their purposes. They’re never there when you need them, and given the chance, they’ll turn on you at the drop of a hat.”
“Oh. Yes. I know the type.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah. Once, in middle school, I had a girl I thought was one of my best friends. One day she and I and another girl were hanging out in the bathroom talking, and I left but then remembered something to say, so I turned back to come in again. I was hidden by a partial wall, and I realized my friend was talking crap about me to the other girl.” I shake my head, my stomach sinking at the memory. “It was… devastating.”
“Damn. I’m sorry someone did that to you. Who was she?”
“Why?”
“No reason.” He’s got his eyes aimed at the sky and is making an exaggeratingly innocent expression. “Just thinking of giving her a call.”
I laugh and take his arm as we walk. “See, that’s why I’m not going to tell you her name. I’m not sure she’s even in the area anymore.”
“Oh, I could find her.”
I feel myself beaming up at him, but I really can’t help it. Because, despite his teasing, he seems to mean the sentiment. That he wants to stick up for me and protect me against anyone who’s been mean to me.
“Anyway,” I go on, trying to shift my thoughts from that dangerous route, “what did Judd do to you?”
“He might have talked behind my back, but I never overheard him. When I was a junior, I decided I was tired of being a nerd, so I made an intentional effort to make more friends.”
“That’s when you joined the soccer team.”
“Exactly. I figured why shouldn’t I change the way people thought about me? I didn’t have to change myself completely. Just try to be more social. Get into things that were more popular.”
“I thought it was strange the way, out of nowhere, you had friends and were playing sports and getting attention from the girls.”
“Oh, was I?” He twitches his eyebrows at me.
“Yes, you were. I heard entirely too much about how cute you were and why you’d never hung out with us before and whether I might find out who you liked.”
That makes Wes chuckle. “I didn’t know that.
I figured you were barely aware I existed.
But anyway, during that time, Judd was one of the first guys I connected with.
I thought we were really friends. But then I started noticing something.
Whenever I said something private, he would laugh about it with the other guys, spilling what I shared as if it were all in good fun.
And anytime I scored more than him in a game, he’d come up with a hundred excuses for why it happened.
And anytime I was interested in a girl, Judd would go after her first.”
“What?” My eyes and my mouth are wide. “Seriously?”
“Yes. He did that.”
I blink, suddenly wondering why Judd asked me to that dance when I’d barely been on his radar before.
“I’m pretty sure he thought I was into you, and that’s why he asked you,” Wes says as if he read my mind.
“Not that he didn’t have reason to want to date you, but it seemed to be part of a pattern for him.
So I talked about how you and I never got along for day after day until he stopped asking you out. ”
“I can’t believe that! What an asshole.” I’m frowning as I think through the past with this interpretation to enlighten it.
“It all makes sense now. Including why he never seemed to care about me even as he was asking me on dates. It always felt like he was looking over my shoulder at girls he liked more than me.”
“He’s just that way. It has nothing to do with you. I hope I didn’t make you question—”
“No, no. He never meant anything to me except the excitement of a senior asking me to the dance. I’m not doubting my good qualities now that I realize why he was interested. I wonder why he made a point of coming over to talk to you tonight.”
“I assume it’s because I’ve got a lot of good things going for me right now and he doesn’t. So he wants to slide into our old pattern to feel better about himself.”
We reached the SUV a few minutes ago, but we’ve been standing next to the passenger door, talking. “I bet that’s it. I hope you never call him.”
“I’m not planning on it.”
His tone is gruff, and I study his face. It’s hard to tell because he’s a lot better at hiding his feelings than I am, but I catch something almost vulnerable in his eyes before he glances away.
I put my hand on his shirt. “Did he make you feel bad about yourself back then?”
“Y-yes. Kind of. Mostly in the way it made me doubt my own judgment. Like maybe I had no idea what a real friend was. But then I decided he only did it because I was a pretender.”
“A pretender?”
“Pretending to be one of the popular kids when I’m actually a nerd.”
“Wes!” I slide my hand up his shirt until I’m touching his jaw. I don’t know why. I just do. And I love the feel of the faint stubble against my palm. “You’re not a nerd.”
“I kind of am.”
“Well, it’s long past the time when such labels matter. Nerds often do very well for themselves in the real world.”
“Do they?” His voice and his eyes and his mouth are softer than before.
I swallow. “Yes. They do.”
Something inside me starts shaking, but what I’m expecting doesn’t happen. He doesn’t lean down to kiss me.
Instead, he clears his throat and steps backward. “We better get going.”