I still had no idea what I was going to do about my mom, or even how we were all going to make this work, but they were all here for me. When Ian and I sat shoulder to shoulder while working on calculus, or Coop and I puppy piled over the Lit assignment, or Archie pulled me over to sit with him on government, or Jake and I took turns quizzing each other on European History—I wasn’t alone.
Not even a little bit.
My best friends were right there, and for once, I didn’t want to examine that too closely. I just let them be there for me.
And I did my damnedest to be there for them.
Chapter Nine
Red light
“Pizza?” Coop suggested a little before seven. I was finishing up the last couple of paragraphs of a paper for French.
“Sounds good,” Ian said, stretched out behind me on the sofa. He’d finished his homework first, but I needed to type on my laptop so he’d settled there while I wrote.
“I could eat,” Archie groaned. The burgers and fries we’d gotten earlier had all been consumed over the course of the study session. Never get between teen boys and calories, even when they were cold.
“Jake?” Coop asked, but instead of answering, Jake bumped my foot.
“One sec,” I said, holding up a finger before typing in my last couple of thoughts. At least writing in French had gotten dramatically easier the last year or so. I could speak it with a fair amount of accuracy, but reading it had been harder until sometime in junior year, and it clicked over in my brain. As I finished the last period and hit save, I glanced up. “What?”
Chuckling, Jake said, “The guys want pizza. Do you want to stay here and eat, or ditch and go do something else?”
The weight of three other stares pressed in around me, but I studied Jake. The last couple of hours had actually been great. I’d focused on the work and not on anything else. “What do you want to do?”
“Take you out,” he said easily.
Archie snorted. “Easy answer there.”
“Okay,” Coop said slowly, pulling my attention. “But I still want pizza.”
It took a few minutes to get everything packed away, and they were all helping, which actually made it take longer. Then Coop tugged me in for a hug, and I closed my eyes as I held him tight. He kept his voice low as he murmured, “Call if you need me okay? I’m right there.”
“I will,” I promised. Then he let me go, and Ian held out his hand, and I walked right into his hug. “Thank you,” I told him. “For taking me home last night and for not pushing.”
“Always here for you. We still on for Tuesday?”
A laugh escaped. It was a little easier. The sense of doom and gloom wasn’t quite so pervasive. It couldn’t choke me out. “Yep,” I said. “Applications open next week.” We had to get his audition tape made.
He let me go with smile, and then Archie wrapped his arms around me from the back, and my whole body seemed to sigh. I could really get used to all this hugging. “Coffee order still the same for the morning?”
“Yes please, though have them throw two extra shots of espresso in it?” After the last couple of days, I really didn’t know how I’d sleep tonight.
“You got it,” he pressed a kiss right behind my ear. Then he held my backpack out to Jake who gripped it easily.
Following Jake to the door, it was kind of weird to leave the other guys, I glanced back to find them all watching me go. “We’re okay,” I said slowly, hand on the doorframe. “Right?”
“We’re fine,” Ian assured me.
“Yep,” Coop said.
“Not a problem here, babe,” Archie tacked on. “Just jealous you’re leaving with Jake.”
Coop and Ian exhaled an almost simultaneous, “yeah.” But Ian added, “We’ll see you tomorrow—but answer your texts, okay? Don’t vanish down another rabbit hole.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Jake linked his hand with, mine and then we were heading out. It occurred to me as we descended the steps that we might run into Archie’s dad, but Jeremy hadn’t warned us that he was home, so I kept my fingers crossed all the way out to Jake’s yellow SUV.