“I’m so sorry.” I hate that she’s crying and that I don’t know what to do about it. I touch her shoulder and then her hand. “That cop’s an idiot.”
“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe I’m the idiot.”
“Don’t even,” I say. “You’re the smartest person I know. At work you’re this total professional.”
“So are you,” she says, and I realize our hands are still touching.
“I’m an idiot, too,” I say. “If it makes you feel better.”
“Definitely,” she says, and we’re making eye contact again. And still hand contact.
“So I was convinced I wouldn’t get the Lemonberry internship,” I start because it feels unfair to have Jordi’s words out there and not mine. “I know Maggie had a ton of applicants, and as I’m sure you can guess I was kind of goofy and rambly in our interview. My mom was being extra understanding about it—which isn’t really her thing—and said she had a big project for me with Eat Healthy With Norah! And I honestly think I’m better at social media than my mom is, but, you know. She’s on TV. She has a lot of followers. So even though it’s not fashion, I started to get excited. I’d get a ton of experience with a huge audience, and maybe that would lead to … I don’t know. Something actually involving fashion, or a job, or just something really good to put on my college applications to make me stand out.”
Jordi sighs loudly. “That’s all every advice site says. Find a way to stand out.”
“Right? If we’re all standing out, aren’t we all just …”
“Blending in?” She smiles at me. “I don’t think you could blend in if you wanted to.”
“I feel like you could, because you’re stealthy,” I say, and I laugh because it sounds so silly and so honest at once and somehow our hands are still touching. I’m afraid to overthink it or even look at my own right hand, but I’m pretty sure our hands might be doing more than touching. There is a very real chance we are holding hands right now, but I don’t want to jinx it.
“Anyway. I come up with all these ideas for my mom. I even wrote sample posts for her and developed these stupid hashtag ideas about nutrition. ‘#NoCarbsNoProblem’? ‘#BetterDeadThanBread’? But Mom looked …” I have to give myself a moment while I remember Mom’s expression. “She looked like I was an adorably stupid puppy who’d peed on a rug or something. Her big idea was that I’d be the before, and then I’d document eating her food all summer—which obviously I do anyway because that’s all we have at home—and then I guess I’d theoretically keep a food diary on her blog, and it would all be about me documenting my weight loss journey. And Mom said …”
Great! Great. Now I’m crying, too. Except Jordi’s stopped crying, so I’m just crying on my own.
“She said I’d finally be happy and pretty.”
“Abby.” Jordi slides her arm around me and squeezes me, and I can’t believe the words are actually out of me. “You know that’s bullshit, don’t you?”
I nod through my tears. “Sure. I’m happy enough. And being pretty’s … it’s not my goal anyway. And it’s not about my size.”
“Shut up,” she says but with a smile. “You’re beautiful.”
“You shut up,” I say, laughing even though my nose is all snotty and I’m sure I’ve smeared mascara down half my face and Jordi just called me beautiful. I don’t want to think about it—about anything.
I don’t even decide to do it.
I just do it.
I lean in and kiss her.
CHAPTER 11
I convince Maliah to add another person to the carload home and also to leave in time to get Jordi home at a semi-reasonable hour. It’s a tight fit. Jordi’s in the middle, but only sort of, because Mini Cooper backseats barely have middles, and one of Jordi’s legs is propped up over mine. It’s ostensibly to save space for Zoe on the other side, but also we spent an indeterminate amount of time kissing on the floor of Denny Nuckles’s parents’ bathroom and it doesn’t feel fair not to be touching at all right now.
Jordi threads her fingers through mine, and I think of how only minutes earlier her hands held my face the way her hands hold cameras. There’s strength and concentration in her grip.
She just had me in her grip.
“Where am I going?” Maliah asks. “I have no idea where Jordi lives.”
“Just down the street from me,” I say. “On Glenfeliz.”
I think Maliah sighs in a huffy manner but I don’t care because Jordi’s head is on my shoulder. Jordi’s head is on my shoulder. Her hair is soft against my jawline.
“I feel like you have to pull back on pushing Jax on Gaby,” Brooke tells me from the front seat. “You need a new tactic. Or—and I’m saying this with love—Jax needs a better hype woman.”
“Is Jax even real?” Jordi asks.
“Oh, he’s real,” Brooke says. “A real piece of work.”
We all laugh because it sounds like something someone’s mom would say. Also because it’s true.
“You can pull over here,” Jordi directs Maliah just as I have a genius idea.
“Mal,” I say, “switch shirts with Jordi. Your parents won’t notice it smells like beer.”
Maliah’s parents are both doctors, and when they’re home, they sleep like the dead.
“What? No.”
“You don’t have to,” Jordi says.
“You’re the only one who’s the same size,” I say. “Please.”
Maliah huffs a bit more but takes off her seatbelt and maneuvers out of her lacy white shirt before tossing it behind her.
“Close your eyes,” Jordi tells me, and I obey even though I want to peek. I’d do anything Jordi
