Every Other Weekend(122)

“Good,” I said, still not letting go. “She should be happy to get you back. She was, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah, she was. I guess you were right about my mom lying.” Jolene squeezed me tighter, strong enough that I almost didn’t have to fake a grunt. Then she released me suddenly and leaned back, cool as ever, a smile playing at her lips.

“Ready to hear about wish number two?”

“I’m still really happy about wish number one.”

Her smile grew. “It’s the money and the time away for the film program.”

“Jo—” My own smile started to spread but then dimmed. “What about the letter?”

Her smile slipped, but not all the way. “Venomous Squid wrote me one. It’s not the most cohesive recommendation letter since they traded off between paragraphs, but they talked about the music videos I made for them and basically credited all of their success to my artistic brilliance. Like, that’s an actual line from the letter.”

I grinned. “I still don’t love their music, but I’m totally buying their first album.”

“It was actually Cherry’s idea. We had a chance to talk when I dropped off the music video last week. It started off a little rough and we’re not 100 percent back to how things were but I’m starting to think we might get there.” Jolene drew her knees up and hugged them. “She broke it off with Meneik. She and Gabe have been talking a lot since my birthday. And her mom. And her dad. And her grandmother. And they got through to her.”

“And you,” I said, bumping her shoulder.

“And me,” she agreed. “I told her, not everything, not yet anyway, but she immediately thought of having the band write me a totally unconventional letter. It’ll have to be enough. It will be enough. And if it’s not, then I’ll find another film program, and another after that if I have to. I’m not giving up. Maybe I won’t win an Oscar by the time I’m twenty-five, but I’m going to make movies.”

“I know,” I said without missing a beat.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” She inhaled and exhaled, her smile returning in full force. “Are you ready to hear about wish number three? I got my Lexus back! Not the exact same one, obviously, but...” She dangled her keys up high in front of us. “And my mom can’t make him take this one back. My dad had to up her alimony to ensure that, but I don’t care. Anyway, if I’m going to have to drive half an hour to see you all the time, we can split the gas.”

“Fifteen minutes,” I said, finally throwing her off balance for once. I shifted to pull my wallet out and I held my brand-spanking-new driver’s license out to her.

“You got it!”

“Your complete shock is doing wonders for my self-esteem.”

Jolene pulled her own license out and had me mirror the way she was holding hers under her chin. Then she laid her head on my shoulder and mine dropped against hers as she lifted her camera out in front of us. “Okay, this is better.” I slid an arm around the small of her back and breathed in the subtle honeysuckle scent of her hair.

“Say ‘bikes are for chumps!’”

The camera flashed but even after she lowered it, she kept her head on my shoulder.

“We don’t have to send pics to my mom anymore.”

“Maybe they can just be for us now.”

I’d been so afraid of seeing her today, having to look at her when I told her I wasn’t coming back. I didn’t know if she’d try to brush me off or if she’d let me glimpse any of the pain I was expecting to inflict on her. I didn’t think I’d get to hold her while she absently traced the edges of my license and teased me about how I probably now had my picture framed at the DMV for bestest test taker ever.

I never thought I’d be laughing or that my heart would feel so full.

When she finally lifted her head, she loosely linked her arms around my neck, and there was a hint of pink flushing her cheeks. “I would have driven half an hour.”

“And I would have biked five.”

Jolene smiled at me, and the gap in her teeth did all kinds of wild stuff to my heart. I didn’t mean to stare at her lips, but after not seeing her for two weeks, I couldn’t seem to help it.

“You really want to kiss me, don’t you?”

Heat danced up my neck, and I was glad that she saw it, because she smiled wider.

“Yeah. Constantly. Always.”

She stiffened slightly and pulled back until she was sitting on her heels. When she reached for her hair in that nervous way of hers, I covered her wrists with my hands before she could start braiding it.

“Hey. Where’d you go?”

She lowered her hands to her lap and squinted hard at me. “You can’t just say you’ll always want me. I mean, it’s gonna be different, you know that, right? We’ve been fine seeing each other a couple weekends a month—okay, we’ve been more than fine,” she allowed when I started to say the exact same thing. “But now you want me to meet your mom, and what happens when you realize that you only like me in small doses and—”

I kissed her. I mean I seriously kissed her. My hands went to her jaw and sealed her mouth with mine. I didn’t have to worry if it was the right move, because her hand came up to curl around my wrist, holding on to me. My pulse exploded and my heart raced. We were both gasping when we broke apart.