“No,” I said, struggling to get up, only to have Clark tighten his arms around me. I could already hear him laughing as he held me back. “He’s doing it again,” I protested, turning to look at Clark.
“I know,” he said, smiling down at me.
“You promised. After last week’s twelve-minute original composition, you said you’d let me shut him down the next time.”
“I said that,” Clark admitted as, across the water, Wyatt started to strum a chord.
“How is he going to learn this isn’t okay?” I asked, giving up and letting myself fall back against Clark, who kissed the top of my head.
“Next time,” he promised. The music started to drift toward us. It wasn’t bad, though I’d never admit it. Clark held me a little tighter, and I leaned back against him, threading my fingers through his. “Next time for sure.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it,” I said, leaning my head back against his.
Clark kissed my neck, and I felt a shiver run through me. “So you’re free tomorrow, right?” he murmured, his lips close to my ear. “For your surprise?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, trying to make myself focus. Clark had asked me last week to make sure the day was clear, but he’d refused to tell me any more of what we were going to do. I’d kind of been hoping it would involve Clark’s empty house, the two of us, and an uninterrupted afternoon, and had let my mind drift toward this possibility more than it should have. “No clues?”
“Don’t worry,” Clark said, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close. “I think you’re going to love it.”
? ? ?
“I can’t believe you went mountain biking.” Toby laughed as she shook her head.
I raised my head slightly, but every muscle in my body protested, and I lowered it again. It was two days since Clark’s big “surprise,” and now, in Toby’s bedroom, I was still feeling the aftereffects. I’d spent the night before—when everyone else had been playing a very high-stakes game of chicken in the pool—sitting in the hot tub. “Clark’s from Colorado,” I explained. Even talking hurt. Even breathing. Needless to say, I had not been a fan. It was a sport for crazy people, and I was never going to do it again. “They think things like that are normal.”
“I wouldn’t do it,” she said definitively.
“You totally would,” I said, mostly to her ceiling, since it hurt too much to lift my head. “Don’t you think you would in a second if Wyatt asked you?”
When she didn’t respond after a moment, I forced myself to sit up, inch by painful inch. “Tobes?” I called before I’d sat all the way up, hoping she was still in the room and I hadn’t just been talking to myself. But she was there, twisting her hands together, in the way I’d learned long ago meant she was upset about something. “You okay?”
Toby bit her lip, then came over to the bed and flopped down next to me. “I talked to Wyatt,” she said, her voice quiet as she pulled at a loose thread on her comforter.
“Oh,” I said, my heart sinking as I realized from her tone that this wasn’t good news. Otherwise, I would have heard about it immediately, with lots of big-smile, star, clapping-hands, and heart emojis.
“Yeah,” Toby said, pulling at the thread harder now. “I figured that you guys had been telling me to forever, and what’s the worst that could happen? So I asked him if he wanted to hang out sometime, just the two of us.”
“And?”
“And at least he didn’t pretend not to understand what I was talking about,” Toby said with a sigh. “He just said that he thinks I’m great, but he’s interested in someone else.”
This made my sit up straighter, and a second later I regretted it immediately, as my abs felt like they were on fire. “I’m so sorry, T,” I said, trying to reach out to hug her but giving up when I realized it wasn’t going to happen.
“Yeah.” Toby sighed as she gave me a sad smile.
“What did Bri say?”
“Just that it’s better to know. And she’s right. Now maybe I can start to get over him.”
“Who’s this girl?” I asked. This honestly had shocked me, and I figured it had to be someone he worked with, since Wyatt was hanging out with us every night. Unless—and this seemed like a real possibility—it was just what he’d told Toby to let her down easier.
Toby rolled over onto her side and looked at me, her expression anguished. “I don’t know. I didn’t really feel like I could ask. So then we had the world’s most awkward hug, and I pretended I was getting a text and told him I had to leave.”
I took a breath, to suggest getting ice cream, or coffee, something to take her mind off of this, when I realized maybe she didn’t want to be distracted from it. That maybe this wasn’t something she wanted me to try to fix. Maybe she just wanted me to be here. “Hey,” I said, nudging her with my foot, which was one of the few things I could move without searing pain, “so what are you thinking?”
Toby gave me a slightly trembly smile, then took a breath and started to talk. I just lay there next to her, as the afternoon light starting spilling across the room, and listened.
Chapter TWELVE