Wrong About the Guy(60)

But would I have? Clearly, my radar sucked: I hadn’t realized that Heather liked him. I’d thought all her little secret smiles were for Aaron. And I’d also thought that Aaron liked me—it never even occurred to me for a second that he might be in love with someone else. And why hadn’t I picked up on the fact that Ben and Arianna were a couple, even though they’d driven over to my place together?

Apparently I wasn’t the sensitive and intuitive Queen of Emotional Subtleties I’d always thought I was.

But still . . . Wouldn’t George have flirted with Heather if he liked her?

Well, maybe not flirted. George wasn’t the flirtatious type. The thought of him doling out little meaningful looks and touching her lightly on her arm . . . No. Definitely not.

But he would have signaled his interest in some way, right? Like . . . you know . . . finding excuses to work with her one-on-one. Being patient and encouraging, no matter how anxious she got. Softening his voice whenever he talked to her. Smiling at her more than at me. Much more than at me.

All of which he had done. Repeatedly.

I twined my finger around one of my curls so tightly that it hurt my scalp when I tried to extricate it. I swore out loud.

And what about the bunny? That stupid little stuffed bunny? He gave her one and not me. I had forgotten about that and Heather never even knew that I hadn’t gotten one. But I bet if I told her now, she’d see it as one more sign that he liked her.

And maybe she’d be right.

Maybe the age difference didn’t bother him. Maybe the intelligence difference—because there was one; he was a lot smarter than Heather, even if it was mean of me to think it—didn’t bother him either. Maybe he just liked that she was upbeat and good-natured and easygoing and honest and sweet—all the things I liked about her.

Plus she wasn’t a spoiled, conceited, narcissistic brat. Next to me—and he’d only ever seen her next to me—she had to look even better. Nicer, anyway.

And why shouldn’t he like her? Why did it seem so wrong to me?

It was the age difference. He was just too old for her, even if neither of them saw it that way. Guys that much older only went out with girls that much younger because they wanted to take advantage of them in some way—

No, that was ridiculous. George wasn’t about to take advantage of anyone. My mother trusted him. Heather trusted him. I trusted him. He was trustworthy.

But still . . . there was an awfully big age difference. Well, not so big—less than three years. But he was out of college; she was just going in. That was weird. Not unheard of. But weird.

I wished I had gotten Heather to see how awkward it would be for them to date. Would a guy his age really want to go to a high school prom? Of course not. And would she want to go to parties where everyone else was over twenty?

Yeah, she probably would. I would. I often did, with my parents.

Not that that was the point. The point was that it would be a mistake for the two of them to date. I couldn’t even imagine it. Heather was so clearly wrong for George. I could see why she had a crush on him but not how he could crush back.

Wait a second—could I see how she could have a crush on him?

I fiddled with another curl as I thought about that for a moment, absently stretching it across my upper lip, mustache-like.

George was sort of cute, if you liked the hipster-nerd type (minus the hipster). There was nothing actually wrong with him. He was no Aaron Marquand—no bronzed, blue-eyed young Adonis—but Aaron was a bit of a cliché. There were tons of guys like him on TV with their flat abs and white teeth—Generic Hollywood Dudes.

And George had a better smile than Aaron: Aaron’s was mischievous and general, a grin that announced his good humor to the world, but George’s was rarer and more personal—if you got a smile from George, it meant something.

I knew this better than anyone; I’d worked hard for some of those smiles.

I’d earned every one I’d gotten.

And that, I decided, was why I didn’t want Heather to go out with George: He and his smiles belonged to me. He was my tutor. It was my mother who had hired him. We’d already spent a lot of days working together before I invited Heather to join us, and we had walked on a beach together in Hawaii.

He couldn’t belong to Heather instead of to me. He was mine. My tutor. My friend. The brother of my stepfather’s production company president . . . or whatever the hell Jonathan’s title was.

The point was, he belonged to me and to my family, and not to Heather.

But you can’t go around telling people not to go out with other people because they “belonged” to you in some weird way.

So I was just going to have to let whatever was going to happen between the two of them happen. No matter how wrong and unfair it felt to me.





twenty-nine


Aaron let me know by text that he wanted to stay over again at our house that night, but he came back pretty late. I ran out into the hallway when I heard him on the stairs—I’d given him a key and the gate code that morning—and he said, “Hey. Hope I didn’t keep you up.”

“It’s fine.” I raised my eyebrows. “I smell Crystal’s perfume.”

“Nose like a dog. The police should adopt you.”

“Where did you see her?”

“My house. I had to pick up some clothes.” He raised the duffel bag in his hand. “I tried to get in and out quickly but she was home and wanted to talk.”