Page 21 of This Changes Everything

“Sounds like my kind of girl.” Zoë nodded approvingly.

“Are they single?” Lucas asked curiously.

“Hannah is single. Kara is taken,” I answered cautiously.

Ben popped his chin down onto my shoulder. “My birthday is in March, too. Do you want to do a joint thing?”

“For sure.” I grabbed my drink and spun around to face everyone as Ben stepped back.

“Okay, good. I’m glad. Now I can start to forgive you.” He reached over me to grab his drink.

“Forgive me? For what?” My eyes narrowed.

“You brought another guy into my bathtub, McCain.” His dark, woodsy green eyes pierced mine.

“I told you about his washer and dryer. I’m simply doing the best I can to save us from another laundry day. It’s all for you, Ben.” I smiled playfully and poked his stomach.

“She makes good points,” Ben said to Lucas.

Zoë stepped forward to take my hand and smiled smugly. “What else is yours in that apartment, Benjamin?” She arched her eyebrows beneath her thick curtain bangs like a tricky little pixie and led us toward a table next to the band.

Chapter 8

VANCOUVER 15 years old

RORY AND I WERE WAITING AT THE CURB FOR MY MOM TO PICK ME up. There was a black bear on the course that had somehow traversed bodies of water, highways, and suburbs to get to Juniper. Even though my sister, Blair, and Orson decided to keep playing, once the conservation officers showed up with rifles, I power-walked off the course and called my mom to pick me up. Luckily, the timing worked out. I needed to duck out after the fifth hole to get to an audition for a jeans commercial.

“Are you going home?” I asked Rory, turning my attention to the road, looking for my mom’s SUV to pull into the long driveway.

“Nah, I have to wait for Blair to drive me.” Rory bent down to sit on the curb below me and stretched out his legs. He leaned back on his hands. It was a relaxed position I couldn’t pull off without looking like a gangly skeleton.

“Did you know he got Hannah cupcake-shaped earmuffs last Christmas?” I tapped my shoe on Rory’s hand.

“Who? Blair?!” Rory barked. He cranked his neck to look up at me, and his mouth opened with a gasp.

“Yeah.” I laughed. “They showed up at our door, out of nowhere, with a card.”

“Blair bought Hannah a Christmas present?!” Rory blinked about five times, baffled.

“No, Rory. Blair bought Hannah . . . Cupcake. Shaped. Earmuffs.” I stressed each word, trying not to laugh.

“What was he thinking?” Rory fell back onto the cement.

“We have no idea,” I said as deadpan as possible, which made Rory laugh.

It had been months since Junior Night, since Rory told me he’d missed me, but since then, we had resumed our friendship as it had always been. There was no more leg pressing. There were no more declarations of anything. I tried to convince myself that it was better this way, us just being friends, even though “us just being friends” still strangely felt like we belonged to one another.

“You think he likes her?”

“Yes! Of course! You know he kissed her, right?”

Rory sat upright like he was a marionette doll and someone had just yanked on his string. “That’s a joke, right?”

I sat down next to him on the curb and picked up a twig. “That is not a joke,” I said, smiling at Rory’s reaction.

“Are you kidding me?” Rory stared at me, shocked.

“Why does it matter?” I asked, testing him and wanting to see what I could pull out of him. I wondered if Rory didn’t like the idea of Hannah and Blair for the same reasons that I didn’t like the idea of Hannah and Blair. That was supposed to be us kissing, and they bloody well beat us to it. Our siblings weren’t allowed to touch each other. They weren’t meant to belong together. That was our thing!