It’s not unusual for any of the Main Desire guys to tag along with any of those things. Natalie and Morris run most mornings, these days at the campus rec center until the snow and ice clear. Rylie and Levi, obviously, can be found together at any given moment. With a shared class, Gray’s been over a couple of times as my study buddy.
Spencer… well, Spencer’s just around. Picking fights at the bar, sleeping with girls at parties, crashing on our couch.
But then there are night likes these. Girls only. Watching cheesily bad—and therefore, addictingly good—shows. Eating garbage food. Natalie nagging Rylie for specifics of her and Levi’s sex life. Rylie’s phone pinging in twenty-minute intervals with texts from her boyfriend. Me, pretending not to check my own phone with updates from Ashton. Natalie, stealing my phone when she catches me in the act.
It takes me back to slumber parties growing up, with my older sisters and their friends. They’d allowed me to tag along, though they were so much older and I had no idea what it meant when they talked about boys—or girls, in Brigid’s case—kissing them there. I’d been happy to be included, to listen to them gossip, to stay awake into the wee hours of the morning until we became slap happy.
A knot in my throat brings tears to my eyes. I swallow down the homesickness with another bite of cookie. And I remember the one good thing that had come out of today. “My sister got engaged.”
Natalie squeals, her whole body shaking. Instead of her multitude of bracelets, she’s got on a worn hoodie with Morris’s football number on the back. Her go-to comfort outfit. The sleeves droop into the glue she’s using, but she doesn’t roll them up. I have to look away, lest her chaos drive me up the wall.
“Details,” she rubs her fingers together. “Gimme details.”
I share with them, and we dive into a tangent on dream weddings. Natalie’s planning a gold theme with sequins and sparklers and a shiny, glittering dress. I have an eye on a park in my hometown that would be big enough to hold an outdoor gala for my whole family. Rylie wants a dance floor and a funky DJ.
Natalie and I glance at each other knowingly. Though Rylie hadn’t said his name, we know who she’s thinking about, since out of all our friends, Levi is the most proficient dancer.
“Who knows, Kennedy,” Natalie says when we’ve exhausted talk of party favors and bridesmaid dresses. “Maybe photography guy will work out. Then he can be your date to the wedding.”
Right. After I tell my family Ashton and I broke up. Four months ago.
“Did he say why he canceled?” Rylie asks.
“Photography emergency.” Not that I have any clue what that means. He’d wanted to try again, so I’ll give him another chance. “We’re meeting tomorrow night at Kellermann’s.”
“Good thinking,” Natalie says. “If he bails again, you can hang out with us.”
Giddiness rises in my chest, and I scoop up my hair back to hide the affectionate smile that comes from her words. I’d determined last semester to make Rylie my friend through the sheer power of coffee alone. Then, as a byproduct of hanging with Levi, we’d been introduced to Natalie. That both of them want to spend time with me, and that neither of them has called me the b-word, still sort of amazes me.
Rylie’s phone dings. I ask her, “What’s Levi up to tonight?”
“He’s at Kellermann’s with Spencer,” she reads the text. “He says ‘Spence is mad about the shower again. I think he misses me.’ Aww, Spence.”
The shower? Natalie mouths to me. I shrug, gathering my hair into a ponytail. With a free hand, I grab my elastic tie, frowning when I see the splotched red ring around the wrist it had been on. The dry winter air’s doing that more and more recently. I note to moisturize my hands an extra amount before I go to bed.
“Tell Levi to tell Spencer not to overdo it,” Natalie says, and Rylie types the message. Rolling her eyes, Natalie goes back to her project, using one of Rylie’s paintbrushes to dab a blue line on the wood. “I told Theo about him sleeping over last night, and he was not happy.”
Neither was I, I think to myself. Not for the first time, I wish Spencer Armstrong wasn’t their friend. That he was some other football player and his problems weren’t their problems. And that by association, his problems weren’t mine, either.
I grab another cookie—it’s girls night, I’m allowed to indulge—and curl up on my side on the couch. The blankets provide a cozy cushion under me, and I breathe deeply in relaxation. A rich, woodsy scent fills my senses. The same enticing fragrance that had lingered in my car long after I’d driven Spencer to class this morning. The top comforter is the one he’d used on this very couch the night before. I ran his puked-on shirt through the wash, folded it, and left it on top of my dresser as a reminder to return it to him before Monday’s biology lecture. Now I’ll have to run another load with the blanket.
I inhale again. Tomorrow, though. Laundry can wait.
“Some other football guy called Levi—Howell?” Rylie says. Natalie and I nod. I know the team players from reporting about them from the sidelines. Natalie is a superfan. “He said Spencer caught Meegan making out with another guy.”
“I’m sure that got ugly,” Natalie says.
I don’t say anything. Because I don’t care what trouble Spencer gets into.
“What happened between them? Meegan and Spencer. Their break up,” Rylie directs
