The Best Laid Plans(69)

? ? ? ? ? ?

    “Did you and Andrew get in a fight?” Hannah asks me later on the way to lunch. “You guys have been acting so weird.”

Andrew is behind us at the end of the hallway with Chase, and he hasn’t called out to say hello to us, hasn’t even acknowledged he’s seen us. I feel guilty I haven’t told Hannah I went through with the Plan, but I try to push it aside.

“We’re fine.”

“Is this about the Danielle thing?”

“It’s just weird now,” I say. “You won’t tell her, will you? That he loves her?”

“Of course not!” Hannah says. “That’s his situation.” She peers back over her shoulder to where Andrew and Chase are laughing about something. “If Andrew’s in love with Danielle, I don’t know why he’d be friends with Chase.”

It didn’t occur to me until now that Andrew might have been upset at his party when Chase got with Danielle. He was so flustered when Danielle apologized to him at school. I guess Cecilia was his second choice that night. Someone else got the girl he wanted and then he got in trouble. But people don’t just stop being friends with Chase Brosner, not even over a girl.

Well, he has the girl now. Or, almost. He just has to tell her.

Danielle and Ava are already at the lunch table, matching green cups of coca-kale-a in their hands.

“That was so fun Saturday night,” Danielle says when Hannah and I sit down. “James Dean is très chic.”

“You guys hung out on Saturday?” Ava asks. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“It was a double date,” Danielle answers. “You would have been an odd number.”

“I could have found a date. I’m not a leper.”

“Hey, lepers can still find love,” I say.

“Lepers in Love,” Hannah says. “I would so watch that reality show.”

“Sure, Ava. I’m sure you could have found ten dates,” Danielle says. “That’s your specialty.” She rummages through her bag for her phone. “But not everything revolves around you. Maybe Collins and I wanted to hang out together.”

A small mewl escapes from Ava’s mouth, like she’s an injured kitten, and she leans back in her chair, crossing her arms.

“It was last minute,” I say, trying to make her feel better. “We kind of just bumped into each other.”

“But Dean got us wine,” Danielle says, her eyes twinkling. “We went to Giovanni’s.”

“Who were you on a date with?” I can tell Ava’s warring between her frustration with Danielle and her curiosity. “One of Dean’s friends? Wait, was it Cody?”

“Hey, guys.” Andrew pulls out the chair next to mine and sits down. Danielle is texting on her phone and she barely spares him a glance. I know it’s one of her tactics, one of the moves she tried to teach me when I first met Dean.

“How come you guys aren’t eating outside?” Andrew asks. “It’s so nice out.”

Great. We’re talking about the weather. Has it really come to that?

“We’re trying to keep our coca-kale-a out of the sun,” Ava answers. “It gets so gross when it’s warm.”

“It’s gross when it’s cold too,” Hannah says.

“Fair enough,” he says. He looks over at Danielle. “Hey, Danielle.”

She sets down her phone. “Oh, hey, Drew.”

“How was the rest of your weekend?”

“Uneventful.”

I think about what Hannah said—how they don’t actually know each other. In this moment, it seems kinda true. But then again, maybe they’re nervous. Maybe Andrew feels uncomfortable he admitted his secret to me, that he knows I’m watching their interaction and I know.

Ava studies Andrew for a second and then looks at Danielle and then at me, glancing between all of us so fast she looks dizzy.

“Is this the guy you went on a date with?”

“I’m the guy,” Andrew says.

Ava clicks her tongue. “Of course you are. I should have known.” She stands and picks up her empty tray and cup of sludge. “Nobody tells me anything.”

After school on Thursday I have work with Dean—the first time I’ve seen him since the double date from hell—and weirdly I’m kinda calm about it. It’s a relief not to feel nervous every time I see him now, especially since I’ve become an anxious mess around Andrew.

Now that it’s May, the weather is suddenly warmer, the air in the store heavy and stagnant. Summer is right around the corner, the end of the school year so close I can almost taste it.

Like everything else, the heat looks good on Dean. He has a fine sheen of sweat on his arms and forehead that makes him glisten.

“Does this place have any air-conditioning?” I ask, waving my arm in front of my face to cool off. I drop my backpack down on a chair in the break room and come back out, acutely aware of how sticky I am in all of the most unflattering places.

He smiles his aching, lopsided grin and shrugs.

“There’s a fan in the back room, but personally I think you look pretty good all flushed.” At his words, my face gets even hotter and I know it must look bright red. But I forget to feel self-conscious when he grabs my butt and pulls me forward into his heavy embrace. He kisses me, leaving his hand there and squeezing. I can’t believe his hand on my butt feels normal now. I feel like I’ve come a million years from the girl who was nervous when his knee touched mine.