Daydream (Maple Hills, #3)(48)

It’s annoying how smug she looks right now. “I’m your friend and you’ve never kissed my forehead or held my hand.”

Fucking Mattie. “That’s your own fault. Grow six inches and then we can talk about it. I’m not bending over to be nice to you.”

She flips me off and huffs. “I’m just saying. Special rules for special friends and all that. I would love for you to have a girlfriend. I worry about you when you’re being slutty.”

“I haven’t even kissed anyone in more than a month, so you can stop worrying. Were you worried about yourself when you were being slutty?”

I don’t know why I haven’t kissed anyone, so I don’t have an answer if Anastasia asks. I could come up with tons of excuses about stress and hockey. I wouldn’t admit to her that I’d feel weird kissing someone in front of Halle, and we’re together a lot. I don’t even want to kiss someone. Maybe I overdid it in the summer, and now I’m in a different phase. Maybe I like the idea of kissing the same person. I don’t know.

She rolls her eyes and plucks a grape from the bag in front of her, waving it about as she talks. “I dispute I’ve ever been slutty, but the point is, sex is fun—”

“I know you think that. I’ve heard you do it tons of times.”

She launches the grape at me. “—and if you’re doing it because it’s fun, great. But you start running through women when you’re lonely.”

“I wish I hadn’t told you that.”

“Well, suck it up because you did. It would just make me really happy if you could have both. The companionship as well as the other stuff. You like her, right? Even if you’re not officially dating.”

“I like her, but I don’t know how to or want to date someone. What if it ruins how good things are?” It’s something I’ve thought about a lot since Halle’s emotional outburst. All I wanted to do was hold her and look after her. I hated having to leave because I had other commitments. I’ve also thought a lot about how the idea of her hooking up with someone makes me unhappy, even though she was joking. And how I want to watch her have friends and be confident that she’ll keep them.

Anastasia plucks another grape and pops it into her mouth. “How would you feel if she dated someone else?”

“Don’t know… I do know. I’d feel unhappy. I don’t understand why, though.”

Anastasia raises her shoulders and smirks at me, like she’s somehow just easily unraveled a great mystery. She hasn’t; I’ve already considered all of this. “Because you like her, Hen. Which is amazing, but I get why it’s hard to process if you haven’t liked anyone before. If the idea of her being with someone else makes you unhappy, make a move before someone else does.”

“You’re not being as helpful as you think you are,” I groan.

“I am helpful, you’re just stubborn. Don’t fucking procrastinate with your feelings, Henry. If she’s so great that you want to be around her all the time, someone else is going to think she’s so great and want to be around her all the time.”

“You should come to Santa Monica today and meet her,” I say, not bothering to answer the stuff she said. “Make your assessment in person.”

“Nice deflection, but no. The pier sounds like a nice place for a first kiss, though. Very romantic.”

“Definitely more romantic than pressed up against a door.”

This time a handful of grapes fly in my direction.



* * *



“DEEP BREATH. YOU’RE FREE,” HALLE says to me quietly as we wait for everyone to get out of their various cars in the parking lot.

“I don’t feel free.” She nudges me with her hip and shushes me, so I lower my voice. “They’re not riding with us on the way home.”

Kris and Bobby said a group date was discrimination toward single people, i.e., them, and demanded to be invited. Mattie said he was happy to be discriminated against because his fear of seagulls makes him strongly anti-pier. I also think he’s seeing his ex again. To balance things out, because apparently that’s a thing we need to do, Halle invited her work friend, Cami, and Cami’s roommate, Ava.

Bobby and Ava are both from California, so on that basis alone, despite the fact they’re from totally different places in California, Aurora and Halle assumed they’d be a good match. They’re not. I’ve just had to listen to the two of them arguing about sports teams for the entire ride here.

“I still think they’re a good match. All that rage toward each other has got to go into something.”

“That’s like saying they’re a good match because they’re both blond. It makes no sense.”

“Love doesn’t have to make sense.”

“The only thing Bobby loves is happy hour and free food.”

Halle nudges me again with her shoulder, but she’s suppressing a laugh. We watch the pair of them continue their argument, now on basketball instead of baseball, and I clearly don’t see what Halle sees. By contrast, Cami isn’t talking to Kris at all, instead choosing to talk to Emilia and Poppy.

“I assume you’re ditching us,” Robbie says as soon as he joins us with Lola.

“That would be correct,” I say, unsurprised when I’m met with an eye roll.