as possible this time.
“You’re sure you’re okay, right? Remember, Sophia said you can stay with her for the weekend if you aren’t comfortable.” The name Sophia feels odd in my mouth, but calling her Sophia helps me not ache at the sound of her name.
Tessa nods. “It’s okay, really. I have to work most of the weekend anyway.”
I can’t begin to guess how these next couple of days are going to go. It’s either going to be a relief, the two of them holding hands and skipping down the road of reconciliation, or one of them is going to burn the place down. It’s Hardin who’s known for burning buildings, but that’s another story for another time, and I feel like Tessa’s learned a few new tricks, so she’s not out of the running as the arsonist.
“He’s taking a cab from Newark, so he’ll be here in about an hour, given the traffic.” I close the door and look at Tessa. Panic bubbles in my chest.
It’s not fair for me to ask her to be okay with him coming here. I should have told him to stay in a hotel; there are hundreds in the city. Tessa is my best friend, and I should have made Hardin make other arrangements. Then again, the burning flames of hell can’t keep that man away from her, so why should I try so hard?
I rub the stubble budding across my chin. “I feel like this isn’t going to go well. I shouldn’t have agreed to it.”
Tessa pulls my hands away from my face. “It’s fine.” Her eyes are on mine. “I’m a big girl; I can handle a little Hardin Scott.”
I sigh. I know she can handle him. She’s the only person in this universe that can. That’s not the problem. The problem is that handling him usually comes along with a war. I try to think of this situation as if it were a battle. Tessa on one side, her sword drawn, Nora and her army of cupcakes behind her. Then there’s Hardin, stone-faced and alone, his tank ready to roll over anyone in his way. I find myself in the middle, waving a puny little white flag but preparing for carnage.
I follow Tessa out into the living room to finish putting away the rest of the clean laundry.
“Will you-know-who be around this weekend? I don’t know how that will go over . . .” I picture Robert, the pretty-boy waiter, crushed by Hardin’s tank. If Tessa is working, will Robert be there, too? If so, I’ll just keep Hardin far, far away from the restaurant.
Tessa grabs her black apron from the top of the pile. “No, he works all weekend, too.”
I don’t know if that will make things better or worse. That means, in fact, that he will be around her all weekend. Should I offer to send Robert to Mars while Hardin’s here?
Maybe.
I hate being stuck in the middle between them, but I do my best to be as neutral as possible while still being a good friend to both of them. Tessa is working all weekend anyway. Working with Robert. Oh, so maybe it is for the worse, then. They’ll be together, and Hardin will be thinking about that.
Between Dakota’s possibly cheating on me for the entirety of her life in New York, the city I moved to for her, and Nora’s storming out of my apartment, my life has turned into a teen drama. No, not teen. I’m a grown-up now. Well, sort of. So it’s a New Adult drama. Is New Adult a thing? I heard two women debating this the other day at Grind, the coffee shop where I work. One of them, a short woman with curly brown hair and a two-hundred-thousand-word manuscript, was livid that a twenty-year-old got a publishing deal writing something called New Adult.
“What the hell is New Adult, anyway?”the other one asked her, clearly intent on getting her riled up.
“Some shitty subcategory that publishers created to help put out their shittiest work. Too young for romance, but not young enough for YA,”the aspiring author barked.
As I wiped up the coffee rings on the table next to them, I thought that I would like to read some New Adult books. A lot of what I love to read is considered Young Adult, but what about those of us who want to read something a little more serious, more relatable to our actual lives? Not every underdog can save the world, and not every love is magical and life changing. Sometimes even the nice guys get the short end of the stick—myself included. Where are those books?