Here's to Us(What If It's Us #2)(5)

Samantha smiles. “That’s me.”

Dylan stares. “Thank God you’re not blushing. But also, my love, how dare you? Look at this beautiful man. Blush for him! Don’t let this beauty go unblushed for.”

Mario turns to me. “He’s everything you described him to be.”

“I have a way with words.”

“Indeed you do.”

How can he make three words ignite me?

I want to be so close to him right now. The kind of close that’s not allowed in a public park. Now all I can think about is how I didn’t even get a kiss from Mario when he arrived. Or a hug. It’s this little reminder that we’re not boyfriends where that stuff feels a lot more automatic. I want to be with someone who can’t keep his lips off me or whose hand always finds mine as if they were never supposed to be apart. But with Mario I can’t always tell if he even wants to be kissing me and holding my hand. Sometimes he points out cute guys on the street like he’s encouraging me to go for it. Like it wouldn’t bother him. I would totally be uncomfortable if he flirted with someone else in front of me.

Then there are the times where the energy shifts between us. These moments where we can forget that we don’t need to be boyfriends to enjoy each other.

“What’s up with the wedding?” Mario asks. “Friends of yours?”

“A friend of Ben’s,” Dylan says.

“Really?”

“Long story,” I say.

“Tell me later?”

“Tell you later.”

“Estupendo.” Mario claps. “I brought presents. But none for the bride and groom.” He reaches into his backpack and pulls out two The Wicked Wizard War shirts.

Samantha’s jaw drops. “You’re the best!” She puts the shirt on over her own.

“I had to get you one so you don’t sue me.” Mario turns to Dylan. “And I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t thinking of you.” He winks, but it’s kind of awkward. It’s more like he has something in his eye. And somehow it charms me even more than a perfect wink.

Dylan puts on his shirt. “Oh my God, I’m blushing. Look!” His cheeks are red as he breaks into a laugh. “Mario, there’s something really incredible about someone who looks like you making clothes when you should be naked every day.”

“Now you’re trying to make me blush!” Mario says.

“Oh boy,” Samantha says. “I think we’ve lost them, Ben.”

“Think so.”

Mario pulls out his phone. “I got to get a picture of you three in your shirts.”

“Only if you’re in it with us,” Dylan says.

“Yes!” Samantha says.

“You got it,” Mario says.

I wrap my arm around his side as Dylan and Samantha cuddle up with us. I really like holding him, and even after he takes the selfie, I hang on to Mario for a little bit longer. We all look at the picture together and the sunlight is working in everyone’s favor like the world’s most generous filter.

Everyone looks so happy, and I hope this is the first of many documented memories this summer. And maybe the more I share my world with him, the more he’ll want to be part of mine and let me into his.

This is every relationship. You start with nothing and maybe end with everything.





Chapter Two


Arthur

Saturday, May 16




My clothes are on the floor, and Mikey’s in my bed. Well, he’s on my bed. He’s propped against my pillow pile, wearing flannel pajama pants and his glasses and nothing on top, with a full face of finals-week stubble. Not that I’m complaining. Scruffy Mikey is my favorite Mikey.

Still, he’s a beacon of order and symmetry, and you can tell at a glance which of my boxes he’s packed. They’re the ones lined up evenly against the foot of my bed, filled with neat piles of towels and sheets, each one labeled in Sharpie. Arthur linens. Arthur textbooks. Right now, he’s taking down my photographs, lumping all my blue poster putty into one egg-sized mega-wad.

I plop down beside him. “You know what this looks like?”

“Poster putty?”

“Let me give him an eye hole.” I poke my finger into the putty and look back at him expectantly.

“Poster putty with an eye hole?”

“Mikey! It’s the blob guy from Monsters vs. Aliens!”

“Ah.” He globs another little wad of putty onto its head, like a toupee.

“Yeah, now he looks like Trump.” I quickly flatten him into a pancake and toss him onto my nightstand. “Much better.”

“Such activism,” says Mikey.

“Hush.” I lean in to kiss him. “Guess what.”

“What?”

“I’m bored.”

“Thanks a lot,” he says.

“Of packing.” I push his bangs off his face and kiss him again.

“You know, we’re never going to finish if you keep doing that.”

I just smile, because Mikey’s so thoroughly Mikey. He still gets flustered when I kiss him. Sometimes he’ll clear his throat and say, Well then. Or he’ll check the time or ask whether the door’s locked, and for weeks I thought that meant he was looking for excuses not to kiss me. But now I get it. Mikey’s one of those people who gets what he wants and then panics.