Leah on the Offbeat(16)

She sighs. “Okay, what if—”

“I’m not getting brunch with your boyfriend.”

“Leah, don’t be like this.”

“Don’t be like what?” I narrow my eyes. “How are we at the family brunch stage? You’ve been dating him for, what, three months?”

“Six months.”

“Okay, you’ve literally been dating him for a shorter time than Simon and Bram. I know people who had longer relationships than that in middle school. Simon and Anna dated longer than that.”

Mom shakes her head slowly. “You know, you’d never talk to one of your friends the way you talk to me. Can you imagine if you went up to Simon and said stuff like this about Bram?”

“Okay, that’s—”

“You wouldn’t. You would never do that. So why do you think it’s okay to talk like that to me?”

I roll my eyes so hard my eyebrows hurt. “Oh, okay, now you’re going to make this about Simon and Bram?”

“You’re the one who brought them up!”

“Yeah, well.” I throw my hands up. “Simon and Bram are actually legit. They are literally so in love. How could you even compare that to Wells?”

“You know what? Just stop talking,” she snaps.

For a minute, it throws me. My mom’s normally so mellow. I sputter, “Yeah, well—”

“No. Just stop. Okay? I don’t want to hear it.”

For a minute, it’s silent. Then Mom turns on NPR and pulls onto Roswell Road. I lean back against the headrest and tilt my head toward the window. Then I squeeze my eyes shut.





7


I WAKE UP TO A blast of overhead lights. Mom pries the pillow off my face.

“What day is it?” I mumble.

“Saturday. Come on. Wells is on his way.”

“What?” I sit up straight, pillow sliding to the floor. “I said no to that.”

“I know. But I looked up the soccer schedule, and we’ll be back by then anyway. Wells has tee time at two.”

“What the fuck is tee time?” I rub my face and tug my phone out of the charger. “It’s not even ten a.m.”

Mom sits on the edge of my bed, and I tuck my legs up instantly, hugging them.

“I’m not going,” I tell her.

“Leah, this isn’t a question. I want you to do this. It would mean a lot to him.”

“I don’t care.”

“Well, it would mean a lot to me, too.”

I glare up at her.

She puts her hands up. “Look, okay. I don’t know what to tell you. He’s coming over. It’s his birthday, and I already made the reservation. So you can start by putting on a bra.”

I flop backward on my bed, yanking the pillow back over my face.

An hour later, I’m tucked into a booth at a steakhouse in Buckhead, next to Mom and across from Wells. A steakhouse. It’s not even noon.

We put in our drink order, and Wells jumps right into the forced small talk. “So, your mom tells me you’re in a band.”

“Yup.”

“Nice. I used to play the clarinet.” He nods eagerly. “Good times, good times.”

I don’t even know how to respond to that. Like, I’m in an actual band, Wells. I’m not saying we’re the Beatles, but we’re not exactly honking our way through “Hot Cross Buns” in the school auditorium.

“Wells is a huge music fan,” Mom says, patting his arm. I cringe every time she touches him. “What’s the name of that singer you like?” Mom asks him. “The one from American Idol?”

“Oh, you mean Daughtry?”

Daughtry. I’m not even surprised. But wow—Mom should know better. If she wants me to respect this guy, she should have kept that detail under wraps.

“Have you heard of Oh Wonder?” I ask, even though I know he hasn’t. It is physically, chemically impossible for a person who likes Daughtry to have heard of Oh Wonder. But I want to see if he’ll admit it. Maybe I’m a dick, but this is how I test people. I never judge someone for not knowing a band. I only judge the ones who try to fake it.

“No, I haven’t. Is that a band or a singer?” He pulls out his phone. “I’ll write that down. Oh Wonder—two words?”

So he’s honest. I guess that’s something.

“They’re a band.”

“Are they anything like Stevie Wonder?”

I bite back a laugh. “Not really.” I glance up at Mom and catch her smiling.

Confession: I think Stevie Wonder rules. That’s probably not cool to admit, but whatever. Apparently, my parents used to play me “Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” on their old-timey CD player, even before I was born. I think my mom read somewhere that I’d be able to hear it in utero. And I guess it worked, because I used to sing it around the house and in the grocery store. And even now, that song makes me calm in a way I can’t explain. My mom said they picked it because it was the one song she and my dad agreed they’d be willing to listen to over and over, every day, for the rest of their lives.

The rest of their lives. Look how quickly that blew up in their faces. Just thinking about it hurts in a way I can’t quite pinpoint.