Forever for a Year(102)

“No,” I said, but didn’t explain why. Trevor was brewing hotter than usual. I needed to get this done before he blew. I got to the point. “So, you two know me about as well as anyone. Who do you think I should thank?”

Carolina shouted out first. Of course she did. “Your wife, obviously! She’s smart and beautiful AND she’s your soul mate and this is about soul mates!”

“This is about soul mates who break up, Carolina!” Trevor said. “So he should only thank her if they get divorced.”

“Trevor!”

“Okay, my wife. How’s Thank you first to Danica. You provided a foundation that gave my creativity the freedom to fly.”

Trevor hated that. “So cheesy.”

“It’s adorable! But also tell her you love her.” (I love you, wife.) “Fine, whatever. Just move on to the next person.”

“Your parents. You have to thank your parents, B. Your mom made you love books and your dad loves your books even though he doesn’t love any other books, and of course, they made you,” Carolina said.

I nodded. “Yep, yep, so, To my parents—”

Trevor interrupted, “And your sisters, Pam and Lindsey, because Lily would be super mad if you didn’t mention your sisters.”

I started again, “To my parents and my sisters for their unconditional love and unwavering support even when they thought I was crazy.”

“That’s funny,” Trevor said. He almost smiled too. Almost.

Carolina tapped the table with inspiration. “You have to thank Jessica Brody; she totally mentored you through every step of writing the book and finding an agent and everything.”

“Perfectly said, Carolina.”

“Man, wow,” Trevor said, “talk about your agent. A lot. Because no offense to your wife, but come on, without Jill Grinberg, you would be nowhere. She’s the best agent out there, and for reasons I still don’t understand, she chose to represent you. And she gives great notes, and she’s nice, like, cool, and she calls you back super fast, and she even liked your sci-fi crap that was never going to sell.”

“I like his sci-fi stuff!” Carolina shouted. “And so did Jill’s assistant, Katelyn Detweiler, so you have to thank her too.”

“So how’s: To Jill, the first gatekeeper who believed I was worth holding open the gate for.”

Trevor shook his head. “That’s sounds like you’re trying to show off. But I don’t care. Let’s get this over with. I have somewhere to be.”

“Where do you have to be?” Carolina asked.

“None of your business.”

“WHY WON’T YOU BE MY FRIEND, TREVOR?!” Oh boy. Carolina cracked first.

“YOU KNOW WHY, CAROLINA!”

“OH MY GOSH, YOU BROKE UP WITH ME!”

Trevor stood to leave. I spoke up. “Trevor, sorry, I know this is hard. But we’re almost done. A few more minutes?” He didn’t say yes, but he didn’t leave either. Just turned and leaned back against the wall. The glare he leveled at Carolina would have knocked over a lesser girl.

Carolina was not a lesser girl.

As they spoke to each other in their heads, I said, “I should mention Jennifer Hunt—she encouraged me to concentrate on character voices, not plot concepts. And Jessa Zarubica for reading the first draft in two days and getting me excited about you two.”

“Cool,” Trevor said, mostly because he wanted to get through this.

Carolina winked at Trevor. Winked! When did she learn to wink at boys? She then turned to me. “B! You should start talking about your editor, Kate Farrell. She made the book better without making it worse.”

Trevor said, “That makes no sense.”

“Kate will know what I mean because she is obviously so amazing!”

“You’re only saying that because she was the only one who liked you as much as me.”

“Which makes her a genius! In fact, I think she liked me more. Can you ask her if she liked me more?”

“She liked you both the same,” I said. “How about I thank her like this: To Kate, for believing Carolina and Trevor were worth showing to the world.”

“Amazing!”

“Yeah, awesome, but I would have shown the world who I was on my own eventually.”

Carolina stood up from the table. “Trevor, you can’t do everything by yourself.”

He ignored her. “Are we done?”

“I think so.”

“Oh my gosh, you have to thank your baby, Axel! He’s sooooooooo cute!”

“Yeah,” Trevor said, “you’re totally going to screw him up like all parents screw up their kids, so you should thank him for loving you anyway.”

I laughed. “You said it better than I could have, Trevor.”

“Trevor…” Carolina stood up. She inched toward him. He wanted to look away. But he couldn’t. He was still in love with her. “I’m still in love with you too,” she said.

“You have a boyfriend, Carolina!”

“You have a girlfriend!”

“We broke up six months ago.”

“I didn’t know,” she said.

“Which just proves you know nothing about me. Are we done or what?” Trevor asked me, but to Carolina.