“Dog walking,” I said immediately. Topher just stared at me. “Some cats, too, but mostly dogs. Walks and hikes.”
“Are you serious?” he asked, a laugh somewhere behind this. “You’ve really been walking dogs all summer?”
“Yep,” I said, nodding. I knew that a month ago I would have lied, or at least spun it, told him that I was working in an assistant capacity in a small independently owned business, in the service sector. But the last thing I wanted to do was to diminish what I’d spent the summer doing. “It was actually really great,” I said, realizing it was true as I said it, seeing, all at once, Clark and Bertie, and Maya and Dave, and walking with two leashes in each hand and the sun on my shoulders, driving back with a dog on my lap and a head sticking out of every open window.
“Well,” Topher said, looking a little discomfited by this, like I’d just gone off script on him. “I’ll take your word for it.” We lapsed into silence again, and before I could think of something else to say, he asked, “So it’s finally over with Clark?” Topher asked, putting a snide spin on his name.
“Uh-huh,” I said, not saying it, but really thinking that people named Topher weren’t exactly in a position to throw stones.
“So what happened?”
I shook my head, then made myself shrug, trying to force myself back into this role I’d played so often before. Totally over whoever it was I’d been dating and ready to move on with Topher. “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s over.”
Topher took a sip from his Sprite bottle, eyes still on me, like he was trying to figure something out. “That lasted a while,” he finally said.
“Well,” I said, giving him a smile I didn’t even partially feel, “now it’s over.” I looked at him for a moment. Even though we were sitting on outdoor furniture by a pool, Topher looked, as always, beyond cool and composed—like he could have been in an ad for cologne, or Adirondack chairs, or Sprite. “You?” I asked, hoping I knew the answer. I had a feeling Topher wouldn’t have told me about the party if he was seeing anyone, but I wasn’t entirely sure. “With anyone?”
Topher’s smile widened as he shook his head. “Not at the moment.”
I nodded and gave him a smile in return. This was why I’d texted him, after all. “Want to get out of here?”
? ? ?
The bottom bunk of the little brother of the host—I still didn’t know what his name was—was not the most romantic spot in the world. But when Topher had done a quick recon around the party for our options, this was all that was left. He’d suggested his car—which I knew from experience was a massive SUV with a middle row of seats that folded down, allowing plenty of room to stretch out—but I somehow found I didn’t want to leave the party with Topher, didn’t want to feel the fresh air against my skin as we walked to wherever he’d parked, waking me up and making me think about what I was doing. So the bottom bunk of a room that seemed decorated in some kind of dinosaur-space mash-up was what we were left with. It also wasn’t totally dark—when Topher hit the lights, dozens of glow-in-the-dark constellations and a T. rex night-light came to life.
And as Topher eased me back onto the astronaut sheets and we started kissing, I told myself that this was what I’d been missing all summer. This was who I was, like I’d told Clark, and I never should have veered away from that. I should have stuck with the routine, the one that had been working for me for years now. Trying anything else just hurt that much more when it invariably ended.
And I tried to tell myself this was good as I tangled my fingers in Topher’s hair, trying to lose myself in our kisses, which could normally make everything else in the world totally disappear. But it was like I was too aware, somehow, of everything that was happening, unable to shut off my thoughts, which were spiraling, the opposite of what I wanted them to be doing.
I slipped my hands under Topher’s shirt, and he broke away and looked down at me, and in the night-light glow, I could see his surprise that I was breaking my rules. I tried to pull his shirt up, only to have him say, “Ow!” and realize a second too late that he was wearing a button-down.
“Sorry,” I said, stretching up, starting to undo his buttons, fumbling with them in the dark. “I’ll just . . .”