How to Love

edge of the stage. “Sawyer, take off your shirt,” called one of them from farther back, loud enough for everyone to hear, and probably she was half kidding, but still I almost choked to death.

“You first,” he shot back.

Finally I got up to pee, snaking my way through the crowd and trying to get manhandled as little as possible. When I was finished I pushed out the front door, ignoring the tight knot of people standing around a pickup in the parking lot, glass bottles sweating in their hands. I stared into the pet store window for a while, at the puppies and kitties sleeping in their tiny crates. I pulled out my phone to call Shelby.

“Domino’s,” she answered cheerfully.

“This place is full of skanks.”

“Of course it is.” She sounded amused. I could hear the TV in the background, the grisly crime shows she liked. “It’s nasty.”

“None of them are old enough to be here, though. I mean, I’m not old enough to be here, either, but at least my skirt’s not up my ass in the middle of January.”

“True,” Shelby agreed. “True, you do wait until the summer months to wear your skirt up your ass.”

“Shut up.” I laughed in spite of myself. “I’m serious. Did you know this was, like, a band that people actually come to see?”

“How would I have known that?” she asked. “You’re the one who’s going to write her doctoral dissertation on the life and times of Sawyer LeGrande.”

“I think I need to leave.”

“’Cause of the skanks?”

“I feel like a groupie, Shelby.” I kicked at some loose concrete, a little kid having a tantrum. “I like him so stupidly much.”

“I know you do.” Shelby blew a raspberry on the other end of the phone. Her patience for Sawyer was limited, I knew. For a moment I let myself think about Allie, the way we could spend an entire ninth-grade afternoon deconstructing his new haircut or the way he pronounced the letter L. It was just one more thing I missed about her, like her weird bony ankles and how much she loved corny knock-knock jokes, the shorthand and secret language of a friendship that went back a decade or more. “You want me to come pick you up?”

I sighed, pulled it together. “No, I’ll be okay. I’m a big girl.”

“You are indeed. Call me if you change your mind.”

“Thanks.” I hung up, tapped the pads of my fingers once against the pet store window, and dragged myself back inside. I’d lost my seat, so I got another Coke from Mike and contented myself with watching the rest of the show smushed against the wall, one arm crossed over my chest like a shield. They’d just announced their last song when I felt a hand on my shoulder, heard a singsong kind of lilt in my ear.

“Se-ree-na. What are you doing here?”

I turned around, flinching at the touch, and there was Lauren Werner. Of course. She was wearing designer jeans and a tank top made to look like it was weathered, a delicate amethyst pendant on a skinny chain around her neck. Already I wanted to die. Or, better yet, for her to die.

“Hey. I, um …” Pull it together, Reena, Jesus. I felt caught out, like she’d found me doing something illicit. “Came with Sawyer, actually.”

That surprised her. Her eyes narrowed, cunning and feline. “Really? Are you guys, like …,” she said, an accusation. “Dating?”

“What? No, no,” I said quickly. “We’re just—Our dads own a business together, so …”

So.

“No kidding.” Lauren looked me over. I could smell her perfume, faint and expensive. “He never mentioned that. You have that bewildered, first-time Sawyer LeGrande look, sort of. But I guess you’ve known each other since you were just little grommets?”

I squinted. “Something like that.”

“That’s cute!” she said. “He’s great, isn’t he?” I started to reply, but she just kept right on talking. “And I guess you, you know, had Allie in common and everything.”

Oh, wow. I was about half a second away from running for the door again, calling Shelby, hitchhiking if I had to, but Sawyer appeared behind me just then, slipped a hand into my back pocket by way of hello. I turned around; he was warm and damp with sweat. “Hey, Laur,” he said. “You taking good care of this one?”

“Oh, the best,” I answered for her.

“We’re old friends,” she put in.

They chatted a little about some party they’d been to a couple of weekends ago, some people I’d never heard of, before she disappeared back into the crowd, smiling her good-bye in a way that looked, frankly, like a threat. Sawyer didn’t notice. “So what’d you think?” he asked me, once she was gone.

I took a deep breath, put my game face on. “Freaking awesome, clearly.”

He grinned, and then frowned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I said, blinking. “Just a little tired.”

“You want me to take you home?”

I shook my head. “No. Stay if you want. I can call Shelby to pick me up.”

“No, don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t go. Give me a few minutes and we’ll get out of here.”

“Sawyer—”

“It’s totally fine,” he promised.

It was more than a few minutes. It was three more Cokes and two trips to the sketchy bathroom and meeting about thirty exceedingly good-looking and mostly female friends of Sawyer’s, several of whom actually said, “Oh, she’s so cute!” as if I wasn’t there and also was four years old. It was after midnight by the time we made it out the door.

I settled carefully into the passenger side of the Jeep, pressed against the door, as far away from him as that night on the patio at the restaurant months and months ago. He must have been thinking the same thing, because he rolled his eyes at me.

“Oh, stop,” he said, reaching over and picking up my hand. His calluses scraped my palm as he pulled me across the seat, until I was almost sitting in his lap. “I’m sorry we stayed so long. I didn’t realize how late it was.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s not that.”

Sawyer smiled. “You had a shitty time, Reena. You can say it.”

“I wouldn’t call it shitty,” I said.

“Then what would you call it?” He was picking at the seam on my jeans, fingers moving absently up and down my thigh.

I shrugged helplessly. “I really did like your band.”

“Good, but that’s not what I asked.”

“Sawyer …” I sighed. “I’m not your type.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What’s my type?”

Allie. Lauren. The Wiggles. “Not me.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I’m not good at this stuff. I don’t like …” Bars. Girls telling you to get naked. Feeling like a fan. “… big groups of people. I’m not, like, super social. I’m not your type.”

“Who cares? I hate my type. I want you.” He twisted the end of my ponytail between two of his fingers. “Why are you upset?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. I want you, he’d said. “I hate Lauren.” To start with.

His face cracked open into a grin. “No shit.”

“How long have you guys been friends?” I asked, as he put the Jeep in drive and pulled out of the lot.

“Since freshman year?” he said, checking behind him. “I don’t know. She dated Iceman for a while.”

“Did you ever …?” I trailed off, regretting even before the words had gotten out.

But he was smiling. “Did we ever what, Reena?”