The Best Possible Answer(48)

They are out the door before I can protest or offer to join them or figure out some excuse for not being left alone here with Evan.

Thankfully, they leave the door wide open. The hallway is packed with the laughter and running of all the weekend visitors, but in here it’s dark, and it’s relatively quiet. It’s just Evan and me, and I’m not sure what to say or do.

Evan puts away his guitar and then he sits on the floor next to me. “May I?”

I nod. He’s so close, I can feel his warmth, hear his breath, smell his clothes—a perfect mixture of fresh dampness from the rain and fabric softener. He’s familiar and comfortable, and yet I feel like I should maybe get up and run far away from him.

But I don’t.

He looks at me. “How are you?”

I laugh. “You’re always asking me that.”

“Am I?” He smiles. “Well, I guess it’s because I want to know.”

“I’m okay, I guess.”

“That’s not very convincing.”

“It’s been a rough summer,” I say. “A very rough summer.”

He hangs his arms over his bent knees and nods. “Seems like it. Want to talk about it?”

“Not particularly,” I say. “But thank you.”

I don’t feel like telling him, but I do feel this strange desire, this need to lean against him, to rest my head on his shoulder.

So I do.

He leans back against me, and then he kisses the top of my head.

“You’re so nice to me.”

“I try.”

“I do remember,” I say finally. “Anne Boyd’s party. Seven Minutes in Heaven.”

“You remember?”

“The last fifteen seconds? You were my first kiss. Of course I remember.”

He laughs. “Oh no! I was your first kiss? I kind of want to apologize or something. I hope I didn’t ruin you for life.”

“No way.” I shake my head. “Not at all. If anything, you set the bar high. And, I mean, nothing’s hotter than making out on the uncomfortable edge of a cold bathtub. Nothing has compared since.”

He laughs. “Seriously. What could be better than shower curtains and shaving cream?”

“Wait a minute. So I wasn’t your first kiss? You were what, twelve?”

“Thirteen, thank you very much. And I’ll admit: I’d played Seven Minutes in Heaven before. In fact, I was drafted into the minor leagues at the end of eighth grade.”

We both crack up.

“In all honesty,” he says, “you were my second kiss.”

“Really?”

He nods.

“And you set the bar high, as well.”

All of this talk about kissing really makes me want to kiss him.

I think we’re about to, when a group of kids runs down the hallway screaming, which startles us both.

“You’d think they’d never been away from home before,” Evan says with a laugh, which breaks the weird intensity of the moment.

“They probably haven’t,” I say. “I mean, my parents rarely let me go anywhere, so I kind of get it.”

He looks at me. “They’re pretty protective, huh?”

“Well, they were. Now they don’t know what to do with me.”

Now there’s not much they can do with me, I think.

“Viviana—”

I look up.

“Vivana, is that you?”

“Oh no.” Standing at the edge of the open door is Dean. Dean of the HushDuo legacy. Dean of the Biggest Ass on the North Side of Chicago legacy. Dean—the guy who ruined my reputation and broke my heart.

Evan looks at me. “You two know each other?”

“I’m Dean.” He steps inside the room and puts out his hand. He’s holding a red cup that smells like some kind of hard liquor and his eyes are glazed over. He’s plastered. “I knew Viviana in a past life.” He says this with a creepy, drunk smirk on his face. My heart drops to the pit of my core. “We used to go to school together, before I transferred out of that hellhole of a place.”

“Um … okay,” Evan says before releasing Dean’s hand.

Dean looks at me. “Are you applying to St. Mary’s?”

I stumble over my words. “No—I mean, I’m not sure—I mean—”

“I never took you as a local girl. I thought you had bigger and better dreams, like Stanford or Harvard or some snotty place like that.”

What an ass. Which is what I want to say. But I’m too shocked or hurt or confused by the fact that he’s standing five feet in front of me to articulate anything of value. Plus, the last thing I need is to explain all that to Evan.

My phone dings. It’s a text from Sammie: If you haven’t started sucking his face, make it happen now, because we are on our way back.

I ignore her message and throw my phone back into my bag.

Dean’s still standing there, staring at me. “After everything that happened, I’m shocked, and frankly somewhat appalled, that you still have a phone. That you’re still willing to take that risk again.”

Oh no.

No, no, no.

I look at Dean, and then Evan, and I think about everything else that Dean could say right now that could ruin this—whatever this is—between Evan and me.