Josh and Hazel's Guide to Not Dating(57)

At least, that’s how I’m choosing to interpret it.

“What about you guys?” Sasha plops down next to the mostly prone Tyler, jostling the glass of wine balanced on his chest. He lifts it to avert a spill, and uses the opportunity to pull a few long swigs into his mouth. I take a seat on the arm of the couch.

“Craze made dinner,” he says, and then burps into his fist. Josh and I exchange a brief confused-by-this-nickname glance, and his eyes narrow a fraction of a second before Tyler reaches up and slides his burp hand into the hair at the back of my head, massaging. “Lasagna. We’re just chilling at home, catching up.”

At this, Josh’s left eyebrow arches significantly and I cut in quickly, rolling over Tyler’s awkward use of home with a bursting “I also made garlic bread and a bag of salad!”

Knowing exactly what I’m trying to distract him from, Josh turns his full attention to me. I see it in his face: So this is a thing then, huh? You and Tyler? Hangin’ at ‘home’? Ripping bags of salad open for your man?

I return the glare, trying to convey my thoughts right back to him. Did I misunderstand you the other day? Didn’t you want me to explore this with Tyler? Or was that a way to get me to stop inviting you into my vagina? It’s just dinner, anyway!

Will you be driving him to his AA meeting later, as well?

Maybe!

He’s still staring at me, but his expression has morphed from that perplexing possessiveness into amusement, as if he is enjoying my obvious mental bender. I scowl at him, and he laughs.

“So, hey,” Sasha says, draining her glass and standing, presumably to get another. “I have these tickets to Harvest Fest. Four, actually.”

Tyler bolts up, eyes wide. They are very bloodshot. “Seriously? We should totally all go.”

Josh stills with his bottle of water against his lips. “What’s Harvest Fest?”

“An all-day concert at Tom McCall Park,” Sasha says and adds more slowly, as if this hasn’t yet been enough to clear it up for Josh, “A music festival.”

Tyler looks at each of us, surprised that he doesn’t have immediate consensus. “Dude. Metallica will be there.”

Sasha gives a smug nod. “Yup. We could totally all go together.”

I mentally stab a fork through my eye.

Tyler wipes an incredulous hand over his mouth before exhaling a reverent “Limp Bizkit, dude.”

Across the room, Josh lets out a tiny whimper of pain.

I scratch an eyebrow. “Are we going to be the youngest people there?”

Josh guffaws at this, but I give him a skeptical eye roll. He doesn’t get to play cool kid here. This is a man whose car radio seems glued to KQAC, All Classical Portland.

“Oh, there’s way more than that,” Sasha says from the kitchen, raising her voice against the glug-glug-glug of the wine bottle. Her words and the glugging are followed by the cacophonous crash of the empty bottle into the recycling bin. Two glasses. She took down a bottle of wine in two glasses. I can’t decide if this is impressive or concerning. “Three Days Grace, Simple Plan …”

Josh and I exchange pained looks again.

“My Chemical Romance,” Tyler says, having looked it up on his phone. “Three Days Grace—”

Sasha waves a hand, swallowing a sip of wine. “I said that one already.”

“I’m just reading the list.” Tyler turns back to his phone. “Um, oh! Julian Casablancas will be there. And Jack White.” He looks up at me and I admit, the last two have fluffed my interest somewhat. “Outdoors. Lots of happy people.” He pauses, and smirks at me. “Hippies everywhere, dancing with their eyes closed.”

My interest is officially piqued. From across the room, I can see Josh’s shoulders slump in resignation.

“We’re in,” I tell them.





NINETEEN


JOSH


Dave has the exact response I expect when I mention that we’re headed to Harvest Fest on Sunday: “What’s Harvest Fest?”

“See?” I slap my hand down on the table and look at Hazel, who seems primarily interested in arranging the long grains of her wild rice into even rows. “Even Dave doesn’t know what this is, and he knows music stuff.” I look over at him, explaining, “It’s some all-day concert with a bunch of bands from the nineties and early two thousands.”

“Oh, okay.” He takes a bite of his dinner, chews, and swallows. “Actually, now that you mention it, I did know about it. I just didn’t … care.”

I smirk at Hazel, whose response is to turn and try to engage me in a staring contest. I cup my hand over her eyes and look away.

“Who’s going?” Dave asks.

“Hazel, me, Sasha, and Tyler.”

“Tyler again, huh?” Emily asks, and her tone makes me go limp all over. I drop my hand from Hazel’s face.

She blinks across the table at my sister. “Yeah. He’s probably more excited about it than any of us.”

A strand of her hair catches on her lip, and I reach to free it, but she beats me to it. I find myself pulling my hand back, awkwardly and abruptly. Emily catches my eye across the table, and I offer her a little whatever shrug before looking away and reaching for the enormous platter of meat Dave has grilled for us.