Her feet come back to earth and stay steady against the floor. “I was thinking . . . is it okay if Brent comes bowling with us? I want him to meet you guys.”
“What?” Frieda nearly screeches. Patrons look up from their meals and stare. She raises her hand, no doubt ready to flip them all off, but I smack it back down. Then she says, lowering her voice, “We don’t bring temps to the bowling team. What if you two break up? What then?”
“But I’m the fifth wheel,” Ginny says, and I swear, she deflates right in front of us. “You guys are all couples, and then I’m—”
“Will and I are not a couple.” I’m a broken record, but c’mon.
Ginny sniffs. And then sniffs some more, her lower lip tremulous. Frieda backs down off of the Bitch High Horse, like she always does when she goes too far with our sweet friend, and digs out a lace handkerchief from one of her pockets to pass over. It’s bedazzled with an F and then a U. “Calm down, will you? Fine. He can come and bowl with us. There. Stop this shit now. No crying in the diner.”
The image of Frieda becoming a mother someday and soothing one of her children in just such a way makes me want to laugh, but it also sobers me, too, because I’ve got one of the worst moms on record. She and my dad informed me last year that they wanted nothing more to do with me.
Well, they got that wish.
I wonder if they even know I’m gone. Or care.
“Tell me what high school was like for you,” Will says as we cheat on the Moose during our break at a nearby coffee shop.
“High school sucked.” I groan, thinking about it before picking up my cappuccino. “I was a cheerleader.”
He hoots in laughter. “Are we talking about the kind of cheerleader with pom-poms and teeny skirt?” He mimics a rah-rah, go team motion.
Shoot me now. I nod, tugging on my knit hat until it lowers past my ears.
“That’s fantastic.” He tears off a corner of his scone.
I cock an eyebrow up. “Should I be offended?”
“It’s just, I’ve always seen you as the girl sulking in the back of the cafeteria, writing morose poetry.”
“For your information, I never wrote a single poem outside of English class.”
His grin is lazy.
As I do often with him, I roll my eyes. “Your turn. Tell me what it was like for you.”
He stretches his long legs out in front of him; they tangle with mine under the table. “I was rubbish at school, especially in Glasgow. Barely graduated, and only then because once we moved here, I was able to pick my grades up a wee bit.”
“Really?” I’m surprised. Will is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.
“Yeah.” He sips his espresso. “I ditched a lot, pre-America and all.” He’s thoughtful. “Often with Grant, but mostly Becca.”
He seems okay talking about them today—no anger, no sadness. So I say lightly, “Don’t tell me. Did you and Becca ditch so you could have sex in the janitor’s closet?”
He laughs and then blushes, prompting me to squeal too loudly for the small joint, “SERIOUSLY? At school?”
The nearby barista shoots us a warning look. She’s a taskmaster at keeping voices below stereo levels.
Will pays her no mind. “Once even,” he adds, “in the head master’s office.”
Oh, I’m laughing now. Real laughter, the kind that feels like flat-out chortling. In fact, I’m laughing so hard I’m actually crying. It’s taken five long months, but I’m finally, really, truly laughing. “No. Way. You’re lying to me.”
“I wish I were. We got caught, mid-coitus. Jesus, was that embarrassing.”
I crack up even harder; now my sides hurt. And he laughs, too. For once, a Becca memory makes him lighter, not heavier.
For the third time in ten minutes, I turn around and leave the bustling office only to come back in. What am I doing here? Am I really this big of an idiot?
“Can I help you?” the guy behind the desk asks. He’s been eyeing me ever since I walked in, no doubt wondering if I’m already a student or just some stalker who likes to hang out in admission offices of public universities.
“Um . . .?”
A couple of girls wearing sorority gear laugh loudly nearby. Clearly, I am an idiot. I have no idea what inspired me to come down here on my day off.
No, that’s a lie. I know exactly why I’m here. I was denied a true college experience in Annar, and I’m here to rectify it. Only, I’m low on cash (okay, not exactly low, because I still have a ridiculous amount that I’d stolen from my fiancé before I ran last year hidden away in my bedroom, but using it makes me feel like shit, so I don’t) and without transcripts. Moving in with Will and Cameron was bad enough for somebody who’s terrified to put down too many roots in one area; enrolling in college? It’d be even more of a reason to stay.
“Are you . . .” He gives me a look over. “A student here?”