Being Friends With Boys (18 page)

Can I come?
he wants to know.

No. You’ll just hit on my stepsister.

The scrawny little one? Or the grouchy sarcastic one?

Probably both, knowing you.

Don’t think so. Not my type.

I tell him maybe he’ll have better luck finding one of his types at those Lake House parties I know he goes to.

Not unless you’re there
.

Ha hardy ha.

In the parking lot after school, while Gretchen and I wait for Darby to finish hugging good-bye to about thirty of her friends, I try not to see Trip going past in the front seat of Lily’s car. Try not to see him not even looking for me.

So that really
is
how it is now.

But Saturday, I practically run to rehearsal. As soon as Fabian shows up, I’m hot-buttery warm all over again. I don’t worry anymore does he notice me like I notice him. I
know
he does, because half the time when I look up, our eyes meet and we smile together.

“Pick you up around eight thirty?” he says after rehearsal is over.

“Sounds good to me” is all I say back, because it’s all I need to say. For now.

I try to explain it to Darby while she’s fussing over my hair again back at home.

“You mean, you don’t get that
thrill
when you see him?”

“Of course I do, dummy. It’s just . . . more like a spreading-out tingle than, you know, a sickening roller-coaster ride.”

“Dump him,” she says, twisting an end of my hair around her fat curling iron.

“Are you crazy? I like him. And we aren’t even going out yet.”

“All I know is,” she sasses, holding up a hand, “if the tingle vanishes, I do too. I mean I am out. The. Door.”

“You and how many boyfriends again?” I tease.

She jabs me in the back with her knee. “You and Gretchen don’t know all my business.”

I roll my eyes at her in the mirror. “I still get the thrill, don’t worry. But this is even better. It’s like I just want to be with him all the time. Doing—whatever. I would be happy just watching him eat a sandwich.”

“Oh god,” she groans, making a big production out of it.

“You’ll see, tinglepants. It’s not always just about sex.”

“You and how many boyfriends again?” she drawls.

And we both crack up.

Darby’s talk makes me all ultra-self-conscious about tonight, though. I’m obsessed with what she said about things tingling while we drive together. My thighs actually feel like they’re on fire, wanting him to reach over and put his hand down on one of them. But it’s not like I’m going to jump him. I don’t care what Darby says; I’m not that kind of girl. Wouldn’t matter if I were, because about three minutes after we peer over the railing to the dance floor, Taryn and Sylvia show up.

My whole body is so focused on Fabian while they talk, it’s
like some kind of weird hallucination when I see, of all people, Benji walking past our table.

“Hang on just a second,” I interrupt Sylvia. Seeing her confused face, I try over: “Sorry, I just—” I look farther back. “I think I just saw someone I know.”

I arch my neck to get a better view. And then—yep—there he is. Looking straight at me and raising his glass. The surreal jarringness of seeing him here makes me flush. And now I have to go say hello.

I move to the back, sit down next to him. “What are you doing here?”

He slants his eyes at me. “You look nice.”

It’s very Lish of me, but I still feel it: the idea of Fabian maybe watching me talking to Benji, and maybe feeling a little jealous.

“I thought you were going to some party at the lake,” I toss out.

Benji shrugs. “I know somebody in the band.”

I’m surprised. “You do?”

But he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. “Girl I used to date. We’re still friends, so.”

I’m weirdly stunned. I wouldn’t’ve thought, from what I’ve heard, that any girl Benji went out with would want to be his friend after, or vice versa. But then again, now that I know him, maybe it doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

I grab the sleeve of his army jacket. “Come meet my friends.”

“It’s cool; I’ll just hang out—”

“They’re not going to bite you, dummy. Come on.”

I lead Benji back to the table and introduce him to everyone. Fabian gives me a curious little brow furrow as we shift our stools around to make space. Within seconds, Benji is at ease with everyone. Seated beside two pretty girls (well, one pretty girl and one formidably
cool
one), he flirts and flatters into oblivion. At first I’m mad, a little, that he doesn’t act even half into me, but then it’s hilarious, his efforts, since neither Taryn nor Sylvia would be interested in him even if he were a girl. Fabian and I trade amused little looks, and at one point my knee bumps against his under the table. When he doesn’t move away, I don’t either.

After a few deadpan looks, Benji eventually figures out that Taryn and Sylvia aren’t going to flirt back, so he switches to telling stories. He cracks Taryn up so bad she almost falls off her stool. And this, somehow, gets Sylvia into a joking mood too. Her wild laughing is something else.

After another round of “Hooo boys” from Sylvia, Taryn grabs me and Benji by the wrists. “The band!” she cries. “You have to see them! Come on! They’re so fun!”

I remember that I am intensely curious to see this ex-girlfriend of Benji’s, so we follow Taryn down to the dance floor, where—she’s right—the band is good. It’s a different sound
than the group playing last weekend: better. They’ve got about seven members, all with different instruments, and they all rock. When a surprisingly muscled girl with a tattoo of a dragon wrapped around her shaved skull steps up to take the mic, Benji points. “That’s her.”

I look at her, then him, then her again.

“I can see why she dumped you.” I try to sound funny.

The briefest wince crosses his face. “She didn’t want anything serious.”

I realize Benji might’ve actually been hurt by this girl, and it makes me immediately dislike her, no matter how righteous she is sounding right now.

So I change the subject, though I have to say it loud over the music: “You still friends enough with her to ask her how I can get Sad Jackal up on that stage?”

A crafty twinkle glimmers in his eyes. “Only if you pretend to be my girlfriend.”

I laugh, glad to see him back to his joking self. “Guess she’d better see us dancing out here first, huh?”

“You said it!” he shouts, and starts thrashing around like a whacko.

I jump up and down alongside him. Taryn bounces closer, pulling Fabian over. We all smile and flail, inspired by Benji and the intensity of the band. They switch singers again—Benji’s ex
falls back to pick up a flute—and the new song rises around us. Swept up in the pulsing, I grab Fabian on the shoulder.

“This is fantastic!” I shout into his ear.

He squeezes my hand. And we stay dancing like that for the rest of the night.

“You mean you didn’t kiss him
again
?” Darby groans at the end of my bed when I get home.

I yank a brush through my knotty hair. “Not everything has to be all hoochie and gross.”

“Not everything has to be all old-fashioned and boring, either. What’s his deal? Is he gay?”

I level my gaze at her through the mirror. “He is
not
gay. If he were, he’d’ve asked Oliver out and not me. And maybe I didn’t even want him to kiss me at that point—did you think about that?”

“Maybe because you really like Benji instead.”

“Benji and I are just friends.”

“That’s your problem, Char. You’re friends with all these boys . . .”

I put down my brush. “Stop telling me what my problem is all the time. And besides, Fabian and I are more than friends.”

“Oh yeah? Says who?”

“It just
feels
like more than friends,” I rush. “I don’t care what
you think. When we look at each other, I just know. And I like that we’re moving slowly. It’s more romantic.”

Darby makes a disgusted noise from deep in her throat.

“We’re in the band together,” I excuse. “It makes sense that he’s being a little cautious. How would it be if we broke up?” Though really, I hope this doesn’t prevent our hooking up for too much longer.

Darby raps her knuckles on my forehead. “How would it be if you
even got together first
?”

I swat her away.

“It will be
great
,” I tell her. “I know it’s going to be just great.”

T
he week before the dance is both vomitously exciting and vomitously nerve-racking.

Monday after school, every single car in both the upper and lower lots has got a flyer tucked under its windshield, advertising the Halloween dance. The name of the DJ is bigger than ours, but we’re still on there, making everything incredibly real.

At rehearsal that afternoon, we spend almost half an hour buzzing about the publicity, but once we start practicing, we nail every single song. We decide on the final lineup, then go through it, serious.

The whole time, even when I’m not singing, there’s a thread
between Fabian and me—flowing through the music and binding us together. It feels so strong, I wonder if the other guys can see it. They definitely seem affected by
some
kind of excited magic. By the end of the first run-through, Eli is high-fiving Oliver and Abe, who are both arm-punching each other with pride. Fabian and Eli squeeze each other in a hug, and Abe does some kind of robot move that ends in a salute to me. We go through the set again, twice. At the end of practice, I leap up and hug all of them around the neck. But Fabian gets—and gives—the biggest hug of all.

Wednesday at lunch, I’m walking out to Oliver’s car to hang with the guys when Lish and her friends drive past in a stupid hulking SUV. I see Bronwyn in the back, wearing these giant sunglasses that are identical to the ones Lish has on in the passenger’s seat. I don’t know if Lish sees me. I don’t know if she cares. And I don’t know if I care. I also don’t know, climbing up to take a seat on the hood of Oliver’s car, whether it’s cool or weird that she doesn’t know I’m really in Sad Jackal now and not just managing. She’ll find out at the dance on Friday, I suppose. My stomach twists, unsure what she’ll think. And why I’m wondering about it at all.

Late Thursday night, right after our last amazing rehearsal, a text shows up from Trip.
Good luck 2mrw
, it says. And I’m hit by how
foreign it is, hearing from Trip, how not hearing from him has become my new normal. I text back
Thx
, and then wait. Nothing else. I decide, if he’s not going to say any more, then neither am I.

It’s Friday after school when the panic hits me.

“Gretchen, I need the car this afternoon,” I tell her as she drives us home.

“Why?”

“Or take us over to Urban Outfitters. Please. I have, like, nothing to wear tonight.” Darby claps her hands and squeals. “Charlotte makeover, here we come!”

“I was going to go—” Gretchen starts.

I lean forward, grabbing the back of her seat. “Please, Gretchen, I’m begging you. I’ll do all your chores for a week.”

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks is no fair. But I’ll—” I calculate exactly how much allowance I have stored away. “I’ll get you whatever you want if we go. Under a hundred dollars,” I say fast, because otherwise she’d pull out some two-hundred-dollar jacket she doesn’t even need.

“Fine,” she grudges, though I know she loves shopping.

Twenty minutes later we’re at Urban Outfitters. And of course everything is awful and stupidly expensive.

“Here, Charlotte.” Darby holds up some flowered thing.

“You must be joking,” I growl at her.

I find some jeans I think might work, but when I try them on they are totally no way. Gretchen already has four different things that look awesome on her, and Darby’s found this killer dress that’s way on sale. I hate myself. I want to cry.

At the register, Darby’s shocked. “You’re not getting
anything
?”

“Whatever. I’ll just be myself, right?” This is so incredibly depressing.

While I pay for Gretchen’s stuff, I hear them murmuring together behind me.
Yeah, I know. Somebody just take me out into a field and shoot me.

Maybe, I think, I can find something in our closet that Jilly didn’t take with her to college. But the idea of wearing Jilly’s rejects onstage is almost worse.