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“Barrett,” he says on an exhale, just as my thumb brushes the shell of his ear. He says my name like it’s something delicate. A slip of silk. Dandelion fluff. “I wanted to tell you—you know you don’t have to turn everything into a joke. And maybe that sounds strange, given what I just said about how funny I find you. But it doesn’t have to happen every time. It’s okay to also just… live in those bad feelings a bit more.”
Our lips are a breath apart, and I’m no longer in denial. I’m wearing a shirt that says CHERISHED FRIEND OF BIRTHDAY BOY and he’s that birthday boy, and we are stuck in time but not in our ways, and there is only one thing I want before today ends.
“I’ve done enough of that,” I say, shifting closer on the blanket, my thigh pressed right up against his. “I want to feel something good.”
A dark, determined flicker crosses his face, and I want to etch it in stone. He wants me the way I want him—I’m certain of it. This boy I thought was so rigid, who’s shown me again and again that he’s capable of change. He is sweet and unique and so fucking cute, and I’m not even sure he’s aware of it.
I’m leaning forward, ready to take that final leap between something safe and something terrifying, when it happens.
A flash behind my eyes.
Miles and me, in the room of a house I only half recognize. It’s too loud, too packed. Dark. Fuzzy. His mouth on top of mine, my hands in his hair.
“Barrett,” says the Miles in front of me again, but there’s none of that tenderness in his voice anymore. Now he’s drawing away from me, backing up. “Wait.”
We’ve done this before.
Chapter 30
THAT FLASH—IT’S NOT QUITE A memory, and it comes with a headache so fierce I have to bend over, pressing a hand to my temple and jostling my glasses, cursing under my breath.
“Barrett? What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I manage. I get to my feet too quickly and stumble backward, knocking over a bottle of wine belonging to the family next to us. “Sorry. Sorry!”
Miles and me. Miles and me kissing, somewhere I don’t remember. I try to cling to the not-memory, searching it for details, for a way to make sense of all this, but it’s a slippery thing, unwilling to be pinned down.
My heart thrashes inside my chest. Whatever I just saw didn’t happen to this version of me. That much I’m certain of, the way I’m certain that somewhere out there, in a timeline parallel to this one or in some shape my puny human mind can’t possibly fathom, Barrett Bloom kissed Miles Kasher-Okamoto.
“We’ve kissed before, haven’t we?” I say. “In one of your timelines, before I got stuck with you. We—we kissed.”
Miles’s features are painted with shock, mouth slightly open. “How did you—”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell is going on, only that I saw it happening in my head, even though I don’t remember it at all.” The pounding in my skull intensifies. “So if you could just tell me whether or not we’ve kissed, that would be really fucking helpful.”
Now he looks like a small animal that’s been caught in a trap. “Yes,” he says quietly. His hands are limp in his lap. “We did. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Barrett. I should have told you. I should have—”
I clutch my head as another flash of pain tears through it.
“Tell me.” I sit back down as the nearby family glares daggers at me, cleaning the spilled wine and shifting their picnic blanket away from the wet spot. I try my best not to make any sudden movements, since that seems to anger the headache even more. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
Miles takes a few moments to respond, as though picking his words carefully. “It was one of the nights you didn’t pepper-spray me,” he says. If it’s an attempt at levity, I’m not laughing. “We were both at Zeta Kappa. There was… some flirting. And dancing.”
“I danced with you?”
“You danced with a lot of people.”
I groan. “Great. Did I kiss all of them too? Was I drunk?”
“Not that I saw,” he says seriously. “You were having fun, but I don’t think you were drinking. I never would have guessed you had… the history that you do. From high school. Because you were talking to everyone, making them all laugh.”
Figures. The one time I’m the life of the party, it’s in a parallel universe. Who among us hasn’t been there?
“We started talking,” he continues. “You—you told me you liked my khakis. In retrospect, I can see that was probably sarcasm.”
I want to tell him that it wasn’t, but how the hell do I know? I don’t know who that person was, who danced and laughed and kissed a near stranger.
“Was it, like…” I mash my hands together in an attempt to illustrate what I’m trying to say. “Just a peck? Or a full-on make-out?”
