I rifle through her bag. I’ve never looked through a girl’s bag before. Meg didn’t carry a purse, just a backpack filled with journals. And Shoshanna and the girls I used to be friends with acted as if their bags contained the secrets of the universe.
Joni’s got all sorts of shit in hers. The expected stuff: keys, wallet, phone, lip balm. But she’s also carrying a bottle of water, a large Ziploc filled with more candy than most kids score on Halloween, a book (Tempted by Lust: Book 4 of the Bahamas Bikers Series, which I hold up, eyebrows raised, causing her to just smile and shrug), an extra pair of flip-flops, an old-fashioned compass, and a tiny plastic pinwheel.
I hand the bag back to her and hold my hand out to help her to her feet. “So what’s the Bahamas Bikers series about?” I ask as we walk back to the car. “I assume you’ve read the first three already?”
“It’s a romance novel series, Ryden. What do you think it’s about?”
I laugh and shake my head. So she reads books about hot guys. Major check in the not-gay column.
A little while later, I pull up in front of Joni’s house but don’t get out of the car this time. “Say hi to your magic room for me,” I say.
Joni smiles. “Magic room. I like that.” She leans toward me. “I’ll see you at work tomorrow?”
She’s really close. She smells like fresh air and Pixy Stix and the goopy ointment from her tattoo. She licks her lips, and her mouth is so close to mine I’m surprised her tongue doesn’t graze my own lips along the way.
Holy shit. Not gay. Definitely not gay. My heartbeat speeds up, but I don’t know if it’s from anticipation or panic. This was not supposed to happen. Joni was supposed to be safe, a friend. “Yeah. Tomorrow.”
And then she does it. The thing I knew she was going to do but wouldn’t let myself believe. She kisses me. Her lips brush across mine. My body reacts before my brain can catch up. I pull her to me and drink her in. The kiss is frantic and hungry and wild. I’m acting on autopilot, doing exactly what I’ve done every other time a girl has kissed me.
And then Joni is in my lap. I don’t know how she got there. I wasn’t paying attention. But she’s straddling me, her back pressed up against the steering wheel. She takes my hand out of her hair and guides it down her body. Suddenly, it’s like the plug has been pulled on my adrenaline supply, and I’m more awake than I’ve been all night.
I break away from her, open the car door, and scramble out into the street, leaning forward, my hands on my thighs, supporting my own weight, desperate to catch my breath, desperate to go back in time and erase the last few minutes.
“I can’t do this,” I manage to get out. “I can’t do this to her.”
“Who?” Joni whispers, still on her knees in the driver’s seat. “The girl in the picture?”
I nod, because with all the guilt and regret and pain and goddamn anger inside me, that’s all I can do.
“I get it,” she says and steps out of the car, righting her clothes and grabbing her bag. “See ya, Ryden.”
I manage to collect myself enough to call after her when she’s halfway up her front walk. “Joni.” She pauses for a minute, then turns. Her face is less expressive than I’ve ever seen it. Does she really not care? “I’m…” But that’s all I’ve got.
She raises a hand in a weak don’t worry about it gesture and disappears into her house.
Chapter 10
“I’m sorry,” I say over and over again to the empty car on the drive home. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” I don’t know if she’s listening, but I hope she is. I really need her to know. “For now, for then, for all of it.” I take a deep, agonizing breath and wipe my eyes. “Meg,” I say, the name feeling so familiar yet so foreign on my lips. “I’m sorry. I love you.”
It hurts so much, but I have to say her name. Because if she is listening, I need her to know I’m talking to her. I need her to know how perfect she was, and how I destroyed everything the moment I almost sat in that wad of gum, and how I will never forgive myself as long as I live.
Chapter 11
The next morning, Joni’s waiting for me when I pull my car into the Whole Foods employee lot. Great.
“I wanted to say,” she says as I get out of the car and clip my name tag to my shirt, “that I like you.”
I groan. “I know, Joni, but—”
“No, wait. I mean, I like you as a person, above anything else. I like you the way I like Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and anything made from colored sugar and watching the roller bladers in Washington Square Park. And okay, yes, I thought I liked you the way the Bahamas Bikers ‘like’ their biker babes, and maybe you liked me that way too. But you’re still not over the girl in the picture. And that’s fine. Really. But I don’t want to not be your friend, okay?” She holds out a Tupperware.
“What’s this?” I ask, taking it.
“Chocolate pudding. One of Dad’s specialties.”
I sigh. I don’t know if I can be friends with Joni after what happened last night. But I don’t have the energy to actively avoid her either. “Thanks,” I say.