You and Me and Him (24 page)

“Thanks.” I step away. “I’m good now.”

He watches me a minute, then shakes his head. “You know, I really like you, Maggie. But the whole thing with Nash got stupid. I wish it could have been better.”

“Yeah, I’m really sorry you got stuck with Kayla. That must have been hard on you.”

“Shit!” His voice is strained. “Why do you do that? You use all that crap to push everyone away. You duck and dodge anytime the good stuff gets close.”

“This is the good stuff?”

“That’s what I mean!” Tom keeps throwing his hands around while he talks. His slightly drunk, manic energy directed at me is a little frightening. “Ever since this whole thing started, you joke, and run, and put up every roadblock you can think of to avoid a real conversation.” He stops and rubs both hands through his hair, making it stand on end. “Look, I miss hanging out with you, Maggie. I miss our hikes, our talks, all of it.”

“I’m the one avoiding real conversation? You’re the one who never gets real. Besides, what’s the big deal? I thought you just wanted to be friends anyway.”

“But I miss you.”

I raise my eyes, and Tom’s looking at me now. I stare at him a minute, trying to figure out if he’s saying what I think he’s saying. He closes the distance between us, wrapping his arms around me in one fluid motion.

Then he’s kissing me. Again. He tastes like beer and cigarettes and peppermint lip balm. And for a second, I think I might let him keep kissing me. But maybe it’s Nash, or seeing Tom with Kayla, or being cornered by Jake, but I realize right now I don’t want Tom kissing me.

I put my palms against his chest and shove him away. “Nope. Not happening. I can’t do this, Tom. I really, really can’t do this.”

“Maggie, lighten up. It’s a kiss. It’s not the end of the world.”

“But, Nash—”

“Nash also needs to lighten up.” Tom grabs my hands, holding them gently and running his thumbs over my palms. The motion raises goose bumps on my arms, and I silently curse my own nervous system. “Are you saying you weren’t enjoying it?” Tom smiles, and my legs seem a lot less solid than they were a second ago.

“Yeah, okay. But a little while ago, you said you wanted to be friends, and now we’re . . .” I don’t think I can actually say out loud what we were doing.

“I do,” Tom says. “So?”

“Do what?”

“Want to be friends.”

“Seriously?” I stare at him. “You are the master of mixed signals, Tom.”

Tom sighs. He’s still holding my hands, but now it feels like comfort instead of seduction. “Maggie, you’re great. But this doesn’t mean . . .”

I tear myself away from him before he can finish.

“Look, Maggie. We’re drunk . . .”

“
You’re
drunk.”

“Fine, I’m drunk. We’re here. It’s been a hard week. I thought we were . . . I thought you were just . . .”

“Just what?” I ask. “Just slutty enough? Just lonely enough? Just desperate enough that we could hook up and have it not matter the next day?”

“Look, I’m sorry, Maggie. I really am, but I don’t like you that way, not enough to be your boyfriend or whatever. I’m not . . .” Tom rubs his hand hard on the back of his head, making his hair stand out. “I thought you understood. I want to be friends. No more than that.”

“Oh, well, forgive me if I’m a little confused. My other friends don’t shove their tongues down my throat.”

“Sorry. I guess things got a little mixed up.”

“It’s not things that are mixed up, Tom. It’s you. First you flirt with Nash, then me, then Kayla, and who knows who else? And I bet every one of us thought we had a chance with you.”

“I tried to fix things. When I told Nash we kissed—”

“Wait,
you
told Nash we kissed? I thought Kayla told Nash?”

“Maybe she did, but I told him first.”

“Why the hell would you do something so completely, obviously stupid? And you told me you didn’t tell him. I specifically remember you telling me you didn’t tell him.”

“I’m sorry. I know. It sort of backfired. But I was trying to get Nash to see that I wasn’t going to be, that I couldn’t be the guy he wanted.”

“And so you told him something designed to make him see that I’m not the friend he thought he had? Double heartbreak in one tiny little package. Perfect. Brilliant!”

Tom shoves his hands in his pockets and shivers, glancing back toward the house.

“Look, you’ve had an exit strategy since the day you got here, so I guess it doesn’t matter who you hurt or who you lie to. You won’t be around to clean up your own mess anyway.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

I can tell he means it, but it doesn’t change things. Tom looks back at the door again, and I can see he wants to escape. I feel the same way.

“Just go, Tom. I’m pretty sure we’re done here.” I step off the patio and feel my way in the darkness around the side of the house, scratching my arms on the huge arborvitaes along the way. By the time I reach the street, I am crying full out and start to run. I have to get away from the party, and Tom, Jake, and Kayla, and the whole fucked-up situation. The snow starts to fall, the huge flakes sticking to my eyelashes and teary face.

That weekend I hike the shoreline trail twice. With the cold weather, I have it to myself. The smell of cedar and the repetitive sound of water hitting land help me slow my breathing and quiet my brain. Mom leaves me alone for the most part, and so does Dad. I text Nash about a dozen times, but he doesn’t answer. I hear from Cece, who wants to know if I went to the party. And Tom. He keeps sending texts that range from apologetic to worried to frustrated, but I ignore his messages. Tom’s even more confused than I am. Besides, I need time by myself to think. Time to figure out how I can get my life back. But by late afternoon Sunday, I am a little stir-crazy, so I head to Square Peg.

“Hey, beautiful!” Quinn calls out when I enter the store.

I slouch onto one of the cracked vinyl stools behind the counter.

“What?” Quinn asks, crossing his arms. “What?” he says again when I don’t answer, and then leans in. “Seriously, Mags, you look like somebody told you unicorns aren’t real. What. Is. Up?”

My mouth forms a surprised O. “Unicorns aren’t real?”

“You’re hilarious. Now tell me.”

I flip through the records on the counter, somebody’s pile of classical cello music.

Quinn cues up “Lady Sings the Blues.” Billie’s voice is gravelly and deep and makes me remember every one of the crappy things that has happened the last couple of weeks.

“Nice.” I glare at him. “Kick a gal when she’s down.”

“Hmmmmm?” Quinn says. “Whatever do you mean? I am doing what I always do, fitting the music to the mood.”

I wait for him to say more, but he turns back to the ledger he’s poring over.

“And you think my mood is blue? Billie Holiday, heroin-addicted, early death kind of blue?”

“Not yet, but if you settle in there, anything could happen!” Quinn’s voice is cheerful. “I’m not going to let you get that comfortable.”

“Nice.” I try to look bored.

“Hey, someone has to pry you from your bunker of despair. And since your supposed ‘best friend’ is the one who put you there, I am acting as the proxy bestie.”

“Proxy bestie? That’s not a thing. You totally made that up. Besides, Nash did not put me in the bunker—I did. With a little help from Kayla and Tom.”

“Good point. But whoever put you there, I am here to make sure you don’t set up housekeeping.”

“For your information, I am not settling in.” I look around to make sure neither of the customers is listening, but they both seem absorbed in their individual quests for vinyl. I lean in and whisper, “I went to a party Friday night. A kegger.”

Now it’s Quinn’s turn to make the surprised O, but his astonishment is real. “A kegger? You?” he whispers.

I nod.

Quinn shakes his head, a rare moment of speechlessness.

“I didn’t get wasted or anything,” I say. “I needed to do something unexpected.”

“Mission accomplished.”

“I know, I know,” I say, covering my face with my hands. The party was a nightmare, but I’m enjoying Quinn’s surprise.

He switches out the record. I guess I’ve earned my way out of the blues, because he puts on Kiss’s “Rock and Roll All Nite.” Quinn does a little air-guitar riff while extending a Gene Simmons–worthy tongue.

I crack up. “It’s just been so weird since all this stuff started. So I thought, ‘What’s the harm in going to a party where nobody will talk to me?’ Check something off my high school bucket list.”

“And?” Quinn says.

“And . . . nobody talked to me. It was lame. It smelled of teen angst and desperation.”

“That’s it? Your first high school kegger and there’s nothing to report? You didn’t see anybody? Didn’t talk to anybody?” Quinn’s voice is skeptical. He knows I’m not saying everything.

“Well, not exactly.” I wonder if I can find a way to answer without really answering.

“Hmmmmm?” Quinn coaxes.

I slump a little further and start fiddling with the stapler.

Quinn removes it from my hand and puts it back on the counter. “Spill,” he says.

“There were some drunk wrestler assholes
who got a little too close for comfort.”

Quinn makes a face. “You okay?”

I nod. “They assumed I’d be up for it. Apparently the rumor mill has cast me as this week’s slut.”

“Wow. That’s, um—How exactly did that happen?”

“I haven’t quite pieced it all together yet. But I have some ideas.”

“Well, I hope you did some damage while you were telling them where to shove their attentions.”

“I did. I used one of my best moves.”

“Elbow to the sternum?” Quinn asks.

“Knee to the groin. Sort of accidentally, but the effect was the same.”

“A classic. Well done,” he says. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I am. Thanks. Disaster averted. At least on that front.”

“What else? You’re still holding out on me.”

“Well . . .” I hesitate. “Tom was there.”

Quinn waits.

“And, um, we talked for a minute. In the backyard.” I pick at my thumbnail, trying to decide if I want to tell Quinn the rest. “And he was kind of . . . Well, like I said, we talked and stuff.” I look at Quinn now, wanting to run, but also wanting him to help me tell him everything.

“‘And stuff’?” Quinn asks. But I shake my head, so he changes tunes, again. This is another bone of contention with Quinn and me. He has no problem listening to little snippets of songs and changing things out every couple of minutes. But I feel the same way about songs as I do about books. Once I start them, it drives me a little crazy not to finish them. I’m sure it drives the customers insane too, but Quinn doesn’t seem to care.

This time Quinn puts on “Love Is a Battlefield.” “If I were Tom, I’d be just a little miffed.” Quinn takes a swig of his coffee.

“Oh, so this is all my fault?”

“He behaves like a decent guy, and you blow him off for your gay best friend who won’t talk to you anymore. He’s got to be wondering what your freaking problem is.”

“When you say it that way, it makes me sound like a complete whack-job. And define ‘decent.’ He was there with Kayla. He was drunk. And he . . .” I take a deep breath and say it. “We sort of . . . kissed a little. Again.”

“What?” Quinn shouts.

“Shhhhh!” I lean in. “We kissed. But it was dumb and I stopped him.”

“Because?”

“Because I remembered Nash. And because Tom clarified that he just wants to be friends. But friends who kiss, I guess. Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Yeah, um, no.”

“Duh. Oh, and he’s the one who told Nash about the other kiss. Not Kayla. I didn’t see that coming.”

“Seriously?”

I nod.

“What a tool.”

“Yeah. Who knew?”

“No comment,” Quinn says.

I pick up the stapler again, and Quinn takes it away from me again. “Besides, I didn’t want him to kiss me. Okay, I like kissing him in general. But I didn’t want him to kiss me then, not with all that other stuff swirling around us.”

“A woman who knows her own mind. I like what I’m hearing.”

My cheeks get warm. “Yeah. Sometimes.”

Quinn nods. “So what else?”

“Kayla was . . . a little drunk. More drunk than Tom. And I’m pretty sure she’s the one who told those Neanderthals I was ready and willing. I wanted to punch her in the head. Hard.”

“Did you?” Quinn asks.

“No!” I laugh. “No! Of course not.”

“Why not?” Quinn asks. “She deserved to get her butt kicked from here to Texas with that popular-girl, shit-talking, gossip crapola.” Quinn chooses another record, placing the needle before speaking. Hall and Oates warn us to watch out for the maneater. “Please tell me you at least gave her a piece of your mind?”

I duck my head and start picking at my cuticle again. I tear off too much, and it starts to bleed. “Not exactly,” I mumble. “We sort of talked for a minute, and then she was off with Tom, and her friends were there. She was so clueless and drunk. It was pathetic.”

“I’m beginning to understand that when you say ‘not exactly,’ you actually mean ‘not even close,’” he says. “That girl needs to understand what she did. And you need to tell her.”

I suck on my bleeding finger, but I don’t say anything.

“‘Once more unto the breach,’ Maggie,” Quinn says.

“It’s going to take more than cookies and some old blues ballads to fix this, Quinn.” I change Hall and Oates out for some Three Dog Night: “One Is the Loneliest Number.”

“Har, har.” Quinn digs through the RAPs; he’s looking for something specific. “So what
is
it going to take, Maggie?”

This stops me. I know he’s right. I planned on telling Kayla off at the party, but at the moment, the thought of telling Kayla how much damage she did makes me want to hurl. And now that ship has sailed. What’s my plan B?

He puts his hand on my arm. “Time to stand up for yourself, Maggie,” he says. “To Kayla. To your mom. To Nash. To Tom.”

“I forgot to tell you. I did talk to my mom.”

“Well done! And?”

“I told her she has permission to talk about any of my wonderful qualities except my weight. She understands, and she agrees.”