I finally finally hear from Maliah on Tuesday. Pool at Trevor’s. Wear your freaking suit. Bring my shirt if Jordi gave it back to you. See you soon.
Sure, this sounds fun.
I want things to be okay and normal, so I do pull on my new nautical-themed one-piece, a fluttery yellow cover-up, and step into my gold sandals before leaving my room. Mom and Dad are sitting side by side and looking at Mom’s laptop in rapt interest.
“Kiddo, look at this,” Dad calls to me. “Your mom was listed on HuffPo as one of the top ten nutrition Twitter accounts to follow. Her follower count’s going through the roof!”
“Oh … cool. Anyway, I’m going to Trevor’s. Maliah’s demanding it. See you later.”
They sort of mumble good-byes to me, but at least I’m free to leave without any further questioning. The walk takes a while, but the June Gloom has finally turned into, well, just plain June. It’s sunny and the sky is bright blue and I’m happy to be out in it.
I walk up to Trevor’s just as Jax is. This is great news because now I don’t have to awkwardly figure out how to get in without bothering Maliah. It really feels like it’s not the day to bother Maliah.
“Finally,” she greets me as I walk in behind Jax.
“I literally got your text, changed, and walked over,” I say. “I paused for about ninety seconds so Mom and Dad could tell me a thing about Twitter.”
“Why don’t you learn to drive?” she asks.
“Because anywhere I can’t walk usually someone will take me to,” I say. “Also, it’s scary. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing just anyone should be allowed to do. Like, seriously, can you believe someone said that legally Jax should get to operate a motor vehicle?”
Maliah laughs. “You’re way more responsible than Jax.”
“How did I get dragged into this?” He tosses me a beer and runs off to join a circle of bros. It’s only ten-thirty in the morning, so I walk the beer back over to the cooler and trade it for a can of fancy blood orange soda.
“I have your shirt,” I tell Maliah.
“Good.” She takes a sip of lemonade. “How’s that going, anyway?”
“Jordi, you mean?” I want to appear exhausted with Maliah’s attitude, but the problem is that I haven’t mastered saying Jordi’s name without smiling. “It’s good. Really good.”
“Be careful,” she says.
“You can say that a thousand times, but it’s still going to sound stupid to me.”
“Abbs, I care about you.” She gives me a look I think she thinks is wise and knowing. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Well, I don’t want you to get hurt either,” I say. “But I never said anything when you first started going out with Trevor. I was like, a thousand percent supportive.”
“Trevor didn’t have a record,” she hisses.
“Neither does Jordi,” I say. “Why won’t you believe me? When have I ever lied to you about anything, Mal?”
“Well,” she says, “you apparently had a crush on Jordi and didn’t even bother to mention it to me.”
“Oh my god,” I say. “Seriously? That’s a thing you think is reasonable to say after how you’re acting?”
She’s wearing her hugest pair of sunglasses but I can still feel her eyes on me. “Okay. That’s fair.”
“Did I just win an argument with you?” I ask. “For the first time in the history of anything?”
“Oh, Abbs, shut up,” she says but laughs. “That benefit was terrible, by the way. They had pictures of people with whatever this disease was, and by the time we left, I was convinced I had it, too.”
“Your parents should know better than taking you at this point,” I say.
“I know! They love to look like the perfect family—”
“You are the perfect family,” I say, because, oh my god, the Joneses. They’re all good-looking and fashionable and smart. Once Mr. Jones played tennis with George Clooney, and the paparazzi snapped pictures of him. A gossip blogger posted a pic with the caption Who cares about Clooney? I want to hear all about this bangable hot black doctor, and I tried to show Maliah but she says she’ll never look at anything related to her dad that contains the word bangable. And Mrs. Jones had her photo in Los Angeles magazine for being the first female cardiologist to perform a particular surgery. (I’m sure she was also written about in medical journals, but my family doesn’t have a subscription to any of those.)
“Then I went home and Googled—”
“Mal, you know better than to ever Google,” I say. “Please tell me you didn’t go on WebMD.”
“I’m only so strong,” she says, and we both laugh.
“I don’t want things to be weird with us,” I say.
“I know.” Her tone is easy. “Me either.”
CHAPTER 14
The week goes faster than I want it to. I would have been living for Saturday, but now instead of carefully planning our second date, I’m home with my parents while Jordi’s in the midst of the world of fashion. Maybe by next week, we’ll work into each other’s schedules better; organizing time isn’t a romantic or sexy activity but I guess it’s weirdly important when it comes to dating. But Tuesday I hung out with Maliah and Co. for most of the day, and Thursday Jordi had to entertain her brother.
Work’s off-limits but also it’s funny how it isn’t. Maggie might step into her office and then I get to gaze at Jordi for a moment or she might run her fingertips down my arm. And then on the way home, we’ll turn off Glendale Boulevard where it’s quieter and shadier and I’ll just say that there are approximately five thousand more spots to stop and kiss from that intersection to Jordi’s gate than I could have guessed.
But tonight’s not about kissing. Tonight is about counting out stacks of twenty-five
