The Unexpected Everything(115)

Right. Totally!

Talk to you guys later.

“Andie?” I looked up to see Clark standing by the hostess, with menus tucked under her arm, and I dropped my phone in my bag as I hurried to join him. We were seated at a table just one over from where we’d been on our first date, and I had a feeling that Clark had done something to arrange it.

“So where was your dad tonight?” Clark asked, as I glanced at the menu and then set it aside, knowing I would get the exact same thing I’d gotten before. “He wasn’t lying in wait and telling me that he knows people who know people. Is he feeling okay?”

Clark clearly meant this as a joke, and I gave him a small smile. “He’s good, actually,” I said, making my voice much more upbeat than I was currently feeling. I didn’t really want to go into it, telling Clark how it had felt seeing Peter standing in our kitchen, seeing my dad slip back into his old mode like it was nothing, like our summer hadn’t even happened. If I told Clark about it, it became the truth in a way I wasn’t sure I wanted, not tonight. So I smiled at him brightly across the table. “It turns out that he’s going to get cleared of any wrongdoing. So he should be back to running for reelection in the fall, everything back to normal soon.” I took a sip of my Diet Coke, needing to avoid Clark’s eye and the way he always seemed to be able to read me.

“But . . . I thought he wasn’t going to run again. I thought he told you that.”

“Well, it seems like he changed his mind.”

“I’m sorry, Andie,” he said, his voice low and soft. He leaned toward me, and I felt myself, without meaning to, draw slightly back.

“It’s fine! It’s what was probably always going to happen, right?”

Clark just looked at me for a long moment, his brow furrowing. “Are you okay?” he asked softly. “You seem . . .”

“What?” I asked, not meeting his eye as I folded up the top of my straw wrapper.

“I don’t know,” he said after a long moment. The waitress came and took our order—Clark got his Reaper-ito again—and when she’d left and the menus had been cleared away, Clark looked at me across the table, his eyes searching mine.

“Anyway,” I said, looking around for the chips, “that’s what happened to me today. How was your day? What did you do?” I was trying to get back to where I’d been just a few minutes ago, but I could hear that my voice wasn’t quite right—it was a little shrill, and I was talking faster than usual.

“It was okay,” Clark said. “I worked this afternoon, and then . . . um . . . got things ready for tonight.” He smiled at me, and I looked down at the table and wished, more than anything, that I was back in that same place with him.

“Neat,” I said, my voice coming out too high. “Awesome.”

“Andie.” Clark leaned across the table and took one of my hands in both of his. “If you’re nervous about tonight, it’s okay. And—”

“No,” I said, wishing I could shake this off once and for all. It wasn’t Clark’s fault my day had gotten so totally derailed. “I’m not. I mean, a little bit. But it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

I looked at him and realized that while I knew I didn’t have to tell him about Bri and Wyatt, I wanted to. I didn’t want to keep something that big from him. And maybe if I talked about it, the thoughts that had been swirling around in my head ever since I left Bri’s house would settle down a little and I could enjoy what was supposed to be one of the most important nights of my life.

“Okay,” I said, letting out a breath. “But you can’t tell anyone. All right?”

“Of course,” Clark said easily.

“I mean it,” I said, not breaking eye contact with him.

“Yes,” Clark said, his tone growing more serious, clearly picking up on how I was feeling. “What’s going on?”

I took a breath and started to tell him. By the time I was through, our chips had finally arrived, but neither one of us had touched them yet.

“Jeez,” Clark said when I’d finished, letting out a low whistle.

I winced. “I know.”

“This . . . I mean, this can’t end well, right?”

“Well,” I said, letting go of his hands, “I mean . . . Bri and Wyatt have been keeping it together all summer. So if they can get through this until he goes back to school, they’ll be fine. That’s what I told her to do, actually.”

“Wait, what?”

“It just makes sense,” I said, breaking a chip in half, not even because I really wanted it, but because I wanted to have something to do with my hands.

“Why were you telling her to do anything?” Clark asked, sounding mostly baffled.

“Because it was going to wreck everything,” I said, hearing myself get defensive, “and it was the logical thing to do.”

Clark just looked at me. “So is Bri just going to keep this secret from Toby forever? Are you?”

“Do you really think they’re going to be able to make a long-distance thing work?” I asked, knowing full well that I wasn’t just talking about Bri and Wyatt. “Especially since they haven’t even talked about it?”

The sentence seemed to hang between us for a second, and I pressed my nails into my palms, not even sure what I wanted him to say.