Here's to Us(What If It's Us #2)(72)

I keep thinking about last December. Arthur and I were flirting so much you’d think we never got the memo that we broke up. Arthur was begging for a TWWW sequel, and around Christmastime, I was really thinking about a sequel of our own. I was willing to do the long-distance thing, especially after seeing how we were still so connected.

I was so close to telling him how I felt.

And then Arthur chose Mikey before I even stepped into the ring.

Now I don’t even trust myself to know what’s in his head. If he really was upset at the open mic night, would he even reach out to me?

If he did, I’d run out of this flower shop.

I’d skip the Pride parade, even though it might be my last in New York.

I’d even tell Mario someone important needs me.

But I doubt I could make Arthur smile the way I used to. I don’t even know if it’s my place to try.





Chapter Twenty-Eight


Arthur

Friday, June 26




“He’ll come around,” my mom says. I picture her in her swiveling office chair, holding the phone up like a walkie-talkie. “I’m sure he just needs a little space to process everything.”

“A little? He soft-blocked me!”

“That’s very . . . I don’t know what that is,” she says. “Why is it soft?”

“It’s not. It just means he made my Instagram account unfollow his account. And he’s on private, so I can’t even see his pictures!” I stare dazedly at my bedroom ceiling, hands pressed to my cheeks. Of all the things I thought I’d miss, who knew it would be Mikey’s terrible Instagram photography. It’s mostly random bodies of water and overexposed shots of his sister’s cat, Mortimer, who has a bowel condition that Mikey references frequently in the captions, because apparently he’s the world’s first nineteen-year-old boomer.

And I’m not saying I miss the bowel updates. I just miss Mikey. I miss talking to him and teasing him and making him laugh, and I wish I could say sorry for real.

Once my mom hangs up, I sprawl on top of the covers, holding my phone aloft to stare at my under-eye bags in the selfie camera. I’ve slept like garbage all week, and it shows.

A week ago, Mikey was on a train to New York.

I can’t wrap my head around any of this. I’ve barely told anyone about the breakup, which means it barely feels real. Yeah, Mom’s called me every single day this week, and my dad keeps trying to FaceTime me at work. And Taj knows—he guessed it the minute he saw my face on Monday. But the only other people who know on my end are Jessie, Ethan, and Bubbe. And Bubbe’s book-club friends and the guy at the deli counter at Bubbe’s favorite grocery store and some woman named Edie from shul whose bisexual grandson is premed and single. But I haven’t told Musa. And I definitely haven’t told Ben. I don’t even want Jessie to tell Samantha, because it would get back to Ben, and I’m not ready for that. I’m just not.

I tap over to Mario’s Stories again, just to ride that misery spiral all the way down. Why the fuck not, right? It’s Pride Weekend Eve, and crying in my boxers about my ex’s hot boyfriend is a deeply valid expression of gay culture.

It’s only my fourth time watching this particular sequence of videos—tiny consecutive clips strung together, with the song “Hollywood Swinging” playing in the background. In the videos, Mario’s drumming on cardboard boxes and sealing them shut with packing tape, and every so often he looks up to mouth the lyrics directly into the camera. His excitement’s so infectious, it makes my heart hurt. The whole thing is filmed by someone offscreen, who says the word wow partway through the second clip. At least I know it’s not Ben. I’d recognize Ben’s voice in any universe, even from one syllable.

My phone rings, and I’m so startled, I almost drop it on my face.

It’s Ethan. Love the guy, but I’m not in the mood, so I let it ring and head straight back to Instagram. But before I can even tap back into Mario’s Stories, it rings again. This time it’s some random number with a New York area code.

“Hello?” My heart’s pounding.

At first, it’s nothing but static and street noise, but after a moment, a muffled voice says, “Oh! Hi!”

My brow furrows. “Hi?”

“Um. Sorry! I’m outside. Can you hear me?” A horn honks in the background. “Oh, it’s Ethan!”

“Sorry, what?”

“Ethan Gerson? Remember me? Your best friend since elementary school?”

“I’m not—you’re where?” I peek at my phone screen, and it dawns on me: this isn’t a random New York number. It’s the someone-wants-to-get-buzzed-into-the-lobby number. “Outside, like—New York outside?”

“Exactly like New York outside. Want to let me up?”

I give a startled laugh. “Holy shit. Yeah! Buzzing you in—no, wait, I’ll come down and—no, God, sorry, it’s hot out. I’ll buzz you in, but just stay in the lobby. I’ll come down and get you. I just need to put on, uh. Clothes.” I glance down at my boxers and yesterday’s T-shirt.

“I know how to use an elevator. You’re 3A, right?”

“I can’t believe you remember that!”

“I didn’t,” he says. “I had a spy on the inside—”