If I'm Being Honest(69)

Easy.

Focusing on the road helps. But for the first time in Los Angeles history, there’s no traffic, and we hit every green on Wilshire Boulevard, a street I thought I could depend on for endless bumper-to-bumper purgatory. I’m dreading our arrival. I don’t know how to act on this decidedly non-date, and the question has me on edge.

Before I’m prepared, we’re entering downtown. Of course we find parking immediately. On the street, too. We don’t even have to use one of those inconvenient eight-dollar public parking lots with peeling paint on the fences. We get out of the car in front of a cheap electronics store, the cluttered, nondescript kind with ten-year-old cell phones and blinking lights in the windows. I’m about to force a conversation when Brendan’s phone pings with a text. While we walk, he types a reply, grinning.

“Is that Paige?” I ask, curiosity getting the better of me. “Say hi for me.” I try to keep my voice disinterested and fail.

“No, it’s Eileen Roth,” he says. “Do you know her? I started tutoring her in Computer Science.”

“Eileen doesn’t take Computer Science.”

He looks up, a hint of wariness in his eyes. “She’s doing independent study. She wants to take the AP exam without being in the class. I didn’t know you kept tabs on random junior girls’ schedules, though.”

I bite my cheek, fighting the irritation gathering in my chest. I know I should drop it. But the words fly out of me before I can contain them. “Come on, Brendan. She’s flirting with you.”

He blinks, bewildered. “No, she’s not. We’re just scheduling a tutoring session for Saturday night at her house . . . Ah.” His eyes widen with understanding. “Clearly, I’m bad at interpreting signals.”

CLEARLY, Brendan.

We’re walking past rows of mirrored skyscrapers with escalators and marble staircases in their street-level lobbies. “What are you going to do?” I ask, no longer holding the impatience from my voice.

“Do?”

“Are you going to this ‘tutoring session’?” I form air quotes with my fingers.

He drops his eyes. I’m certain it’s because he knows I like him and he doesn’t want to hurt my feelings. “What do you think I should do?” he asks delicately.

“I don’t know, Brendan!” I can’t believe this. We haven’t even gotten to the place for this not-date, and already we’re discussing Brendan’s other romantic prospects. “If you like her—if you want to hook up with her—then go. It’s none of my business.”

We round a corner cluttered with bicycles. “Did I . . .” He begins again after a pause. “Did I piss you off somehow?”

“What could you have done to piss me off?” I fire back.

“I don’t know,” he replies. I wrack my brain for ways out of this conversation while Brendan ushers me into the warehouse-looking building on our left, under an open metal garage door.

Whatever I was about to say, it’s instantly forgotten.

I find myself in the front of a huge, high-ceilinged room crammed with tiny restaurants, food counters, and people. I’m overwhelmed. Not only by the smells and sounds—the hot, baked aroma of egg-biscuit sandwiches, the sweet-sour spice of Thai noodles, the clatter of cooking pans and sushi knives—but by the signs, the lights, the letters. While hipsters holding gelato cups and old women carrying fresh bread pass me and Brendan, I study the rows of dozens of vendors packed into the warehouse, noting my favorite details. The fishtail logo over the sleek, modern seafood stand. The trendy coffee shop’s handwritten menu. The bold red-and-white lettering of the pupuseria—whatever a pupuseria is.

Brendan’s voice is gentle beside me. “It’s great, right? I knew you’d love it.”

“It’s amazing,” I breathe. I walk into one of the aisles, pulling my phone from my bag instinctually. I begin to take photos, then turn, finding Brendan watching me, smiling softly. I feel my breath catch. Everything about this feels like . . . not a not-date. It has me beginning to question if it might be more.

“Paige showed me one of your designs,” Brendan says, walking up next to me. “You’re really good, you know. Like, professional.”

“It’s just a hobby,” I hear myself say automatically.

“It could be more than a hobby,” he insists. “If you wanted.”

For the first time, I don’t shake off the thought. I’ve enjoyed design, I’ve just never let myself wonder if it could be more. I’ve kept myself focused on Econ, on the path that would lead me closer to my dad’s life. I didn’t want to consider other paths, other places I could go. I didn’t want to consider whether other things could fit me better.

But here in this place, with Brendan looking encouraging beside me—looking like he believes in me—I’m considering it.

It would mean giving up the connection to my dad I’d hoped and planned for. It would mean giving up a world of chances to be closer to him. I don’t know if I’m ready to do that.

“Do you want to get food?” Brendan asks.

I’m suddenly starving, at the mercy of the incredible smells surrounding me. “Wow, yes.” I put my phone away. “Is there anything you can eat here?”