Here's to Us(What If It's Us #2)(39)

“Then maybe you shouldn’t meet him,” Samantha says.

“But Arthur met Mario,” I say.

“Because you also thought Mikey was going to be there. And you had us.”

I mess around with the leftover ice from my lemonade. “I want to be a good friend. And Arthur showed up even though he knew Mikey wasn’t going to be there. I just think backing out now makes it look weird.”

“Just lie and say you’re working on your book,” Dylan says.

“I mean, I am working on my book.”

“Cute little lemonade break you’re having.”

I shift slightly, so that I’m face-to-face with Samantha. “I just don’t think it’s fair if Arthur can spend all night with my people and I can’t meet Mikey.”

Samantha nods. “Maybe you’ll prove yourself wrong and Mikey won’t make you feel inferior at all—not that I think he should.”

“Definitely not,” Dylan says. “I’ve written poetry about you. You think I’m writing poetry about Mikey?”

“Do you plan on writing any for me?” Samantha asks.

“Do you plan on letting a poet breathe? Everything in good time.” Dylan hides behind his hand and mouths, “Help me write a poem.”

“Write your own poem,” I tell him. “Between us, Arthur said that he and Mikey haven’t said ‘I love you’ yet,” I add.

Dylan’s eyes widen. “But they’ve been together forever in gay years.”

“Please find me a calendar with gay years.”

“You would love that, wouldn’t you?” Dylan winks.

Samantha sighs and turns to Dylan. “I’m powering you down for two minutes.” She pulls out her phone and sets a timer. “Any last words?”

“You’ll regret this,” Dylan says.

“I always do.” Samantha kisses his cheek and presses start on the timer. “Ben, we don’t have much time. I wouldn’t spend so much energy obsessing over what Arthur and Mikey’s deal is. That’s for them to figure out and not for you to worry about.”

She’s right. Arthur could be telling Mikey ‘I love you’ this very second.

“I think I wouldn’t be obsessing over this if things were clearer with Mario. But it feels like this unspoken agreement where we don’t want to ruin a good thing by defining the relationship. It’s just hard,” I say.

Between his tightly sealed lips, Dylan murmurs, “That’s what he said.”

Samantha adds another thirty seconds to the timer. “Ben, you need to figure everything out with Mario. You deserve to know how someone feels about you. Dylan made his feelings really clear.”

“The future wife business,” I say. “Right in this very shop.”

Samantha laughs. “Maybe he says too much sometimes. But at least I know what he’s thinking.” She turns to Dylan and twirls her necklace. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Dylan says.

He kisses her and adds another thirty seconds to the timer.

This is what I want in a relationship.

Now I need to figure out what I want in a friendship with Arthur.

What I don’t say aloud is how much I miss Arthur. It’s been months since I lost sleep over that, but not having him in my life has been weighing on me. There was a time when we were able to talk about little things, like what he was getting up to in college. But I kept my business to myself because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Even stuff like noticing how cute Mario was when I started college. Maybe I shouldn’t have held back—Arthur never did. And even after I muted his Instagram profile, I still had to dodge “How’s Arthur?” questions from my parents. It’s why I wrote our old love out of my book. It was all too much.

But I don’t want to be scared of Arthur and his life anymore. And I don’t want to bury him away like he has no place in mine.





Chapter Fourteen


Arthur

Friday, May 29




The escalator keeps churning out people who aren’t Mikey. There should be a rule against that, something in the bylaws requiring one train-rumpled boyfriend for every dozen pantsuited strangers.

Nothing to do now but hang beneath the Arrivals/Departures sign, cradling a bouquet of impulse-buy bodega flowers. I should have gotten him something useful, like sunscreen or a MetroCard, but how was I supposed to resist two dozen roses for twelve dollars?

My phone buzzes with an incoming text, and I scramble to check it.

Sounds good, see you soon!

A perfectly normal text to receive from my almost-here boyfriend.

But it’s not from my boyfriend.

I stare at the words, stomach fluttering faintly, until—

“Hi, sorry, I’m looking for Chad from corporate?”



Mikey’s face, but he’s not on my phone screen. I fling my arms around him so fast I almost smack him with the roses. “You’re here!”

“I know!”

“I can’t believe it. You were in Boston.” I hug him harder. “Mikey!”

He laughs, short and breathless. “Long two weeks.”

“You’re telling me.” I draw back to look at him, and his cheeks go instantly pink.