Golden Boys (Golden Boys, #1)(68)

He laughs. “You texting the group chat at all would throw them off.”

“I’ll be better about that. If I go back, it’ll be twenty-hour weeks, max.”

He helps me pack up, then we turn off the lights and slide into bed. He puts his arm around me, but I don’t push it further. I just enjoy his closeness, and I wonder if we’ll ever fully be able to pull off a normal friendship.

Or maybe this is our normal, and this is okay.

“Before I go, I want you to know this.” I turn to him and smile. “You were always amazing. And I’m sorry if I ever fed into your insecurities or anxieties or made you feel like you needed to change. You never needed reinventing, you know that now, I hope. The person you were tonight, the person you’ve been all summer? He’s perfect.”

It’s dim, but I see his eyes start to tear up.

“The only time I felt confident was when I was in your arms,” he says. “I loved what you brought out in me. Not just the sex stuff, though that was fun. I liked myself more when I was with you. And I think I needed to be away from you to figure out how to like myself all those other times.”

“But that was you, that wasn’t me. I need you to remember that, and maybe we won’t fall back into this so easily next time.”

I bring my forehead to his, and I feel his breath on my lips. But for once, we don’t give in. We don’t lean into each other. After that, we don’t have much else to say, so we fall asleep like this—forehead to forehead, pinky in pinky—for the very last time.





CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

GABRIEL

Though I’ve gotten the hang of canvassing on the street for donations, one thing is for sure: I still absolutely hate it. A hugely high percentage of people treat you like the scum of the earth when you try to get their attention, and though I don’t take each rejection as a personal attack anymore, I still find it impossible not to let it wear on me after a while. Thank god for therapy.

That’s why this Monday, on our seventh week of this internship, I am thrilled to be back in the office for some sort of meeting with our quasi manager, Ali. We’re back in the training room where we had orientation, though that feels like ages ago. Just like those early days, Matt surprised us all with iced coffees as we arrived.

“You are a godsend,” Tiffany says as she lunges for the drink.

Art grabs their drink as well. “So, anyone know why we’re here?”

Matt takes a seat next to me, and our closeness gives me that same rush it always does. I feel it every time he’s around, whether we’re at dinner, passing by each other in the hall outside our dorm rooms, or walking to our designated canvassing areas.

But things aren’t the same with us, which infuses this purely amazing feeling with this frustration. At myself. At Sal. At everything that led to things being awkward for us. I still try to show him I care, but Matt says he needs time, and I’ve respected that. Even if it’s eating up the last weeks we have together, I’m willing to wait.

It’s obscene how quickly Sal and I fell into our routines, and how quickly I gave up the promise of something new for the familiar comfort of what we had. But that’s firmly behind me, for now at least.

“Art and Tiffany can’t do dinner tonight,” I say. I let the fires of embarrassment run over my face as I form my next sentence. “Would you want to do something instead?”

He considers this, and there’s a hint of sadness in his expression that makes me wonder if his mind went right to the picnic he planned with me, because that’s definitely where mine went.

“Sure,” he says. “We haven’t done a one-on-one thing in a while. Maybe no picnic this time, since it’s a hundred degrees?”

“I may have something planned,” I say with a cringe, “and we may just have to sweat it out.”

“Wait, really? You’re planning something?”

I shrug. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

“Well, it won’t be hard to beat me breaking multiple plastic forks and having to resort to eating a steak with my hands.”

“I promise that whatever happens, you’ll have appropriate silverware.”

A smile comes over his face, even as his gaze falls. He looks like he wants to say more, but Ali comes in and welcomes everyone back into the training room.

“Hi, everyone!” She’s impossibly perky again, but this time I think we’re all a little more awake than before. I guess getting up early to get yelled at by strangers has recharged us. That or we’ve had so much coffee it’s built up a caffeine reserve in our bodies.

“I wanted to thank you all for your help. In the past six weeks that you’ve been out on the street, together you’ve raised more than twenty thousand dollars for Boston’s Save the Trees Foundation. So give yourselves a round of applause.”

We do, and for a second I feel super energized that I was a part of that. That Tiffany and I were a part of that.

“As you might know, our Summer Gala is coming up in a month, which will coincide nicely with the end of your experience here. We wanted to let you know that each one of you will get a ticket, as our way to thank you for all your help. We’ll even bring you onstage and talk about the program, but I swear we won’t embarrass you too much.