“I say this as someone who thinks you’re amazing—I fucking envy you your metabolism.”
“Sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t really. “I tend to eat my feelings.”
“Truth. You can eat and talk though.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how I feel. It’s all been so messy. At the same time…” I took another spoonful of the ice cream. “I don’t know how to do this. The first guy I ever dated was Mathieu, and that was all of one and a half dates, one of which was me cooking in my kitchen, and then the guys were all asking me out, and I didn’t feel about him the way I do them.”
“How do you feel about them?”
That was the ten thousand dollar question. “They’re my best friends. I miss them when they’re not around. They’re the first people I talk to in the morning and the last ones at night…” I adored them. “Not talking to them over the summer was like carving out a piece of myself, and it was lonely as hell.”
Sighing, I closed my eyes.
“I don’t mean to dump all of this on you.”
“Dump away,” Rachel said without an ounce of sarcasm. “I meant it when I said you needed a friend. This right here…” She motioned to the ice cream and the snacks. “This is what friends do. You’re so locked in your head all the time. They’re the only people you talk to, and your feelings for them are complicated—are you supposed to talk to rich boy if shit for brains upsets you, or with dickhead and asshat?”
“Really?”
“Hey, I’m doing my best. My point is that when you start dating—friends isn’t always so easy to go back to. What happened when you guys fought in the past?”
“Is it rude to ask if this has ever happened to you?”
“Nope,” Rachel said before taking a mouthful of ice cream. “I’ve dated, sure. Never four people at once—that’s hot, by the way—and never dudes. First, gross. Second, everyone says girls are the emotional ones, but we’re just emotionally different.”
“I don’t know, Coop’s got really great emotional availability.” I think that was the word. “He always seems to know what to say.”
“To you,” Rachel added. “He knows you. He’s available to you. That whole cradle to grave thing you two have going on, it works for you. But back to me for a sec so I can answer your question. I dated a girl in junior year. You might remember her, Hannah?”
I frowned. “Tall, dark hair, glasses…had an accent?”
“She was from New England. Her parents moved down here when her dad got transferred. Anyway. She was a senior, good looking, funny as hell, and damn could she kiss.” Rachel paused, a slow smile creasing her lips.
The depth of warmth and affection on her face pulled a smile to my lips. It was weird to see Rachel happy. The fact it was weird? Yeah, that said something. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who needed a friend.
“Anyway, we hooked up like day three of junior year. I don’t to this day know what she saw in me, but it was awesome. She was my first, not that you asked.” She let out a little sigh, then seemed to shake herself. “But we were never friends. I didn’t realize that until right around Christmas when she was gone for three weeks. Didn’t call, didn’t text, didn’t email, and when she came back, it was like, pick up right where we left off and I’m all—wait, you ghost me, and suddenly, we’re still dating?”
Another dollop of ice cream, and she stared out into the growing darkness. The sun had long since sunk on the horizon, but the lights scattered around the area left us with some illumination and fortunately attracted all the bugs away from us.
“She didn’t get why I’d be upset. Told me I was being ridiculous. She’d been away with family. But now she was back and wanted to see me. The thing was…we did date and make out and do all that fun stuff, but it was different. It was like not seeing her all those weeks showed me what we didn’t have when we were together. She was hot. She could kiss like a goddess, and the things she could do with her tongue…”
“Might be TMI,” I suggested, and Rachel threw me a wicked grin.
“If it’s TMI, remind me to have a chat with your boys about what they are or aren’t doing with their tongues.”
Oh. My. God.
Pretty sure my face caught on fire, and I went icy hot and then laughter bubbled up. Putting a hand over my mouth I said, “They do great things with their tongues. Leave them alone.”
Rachel threw her head back laughing and gave me a fist bump. I was still giggling, embarrassed and amused. Taking another bite of my ice cream, I tried to glare at her, but she kept laughing.
Finally, after wiping some tears from her eyes, she said with a big grin on her face, “Anyway… Hannah and I didn’t work out. The more I realized it was just sex and just kissing and just a little bit of fun…the more I realized I wanted something else. I also had a crush on this other girl who does not go to our school. Her name was Reese. She and I had been friends for a long time. You know, the kind you can call up and whether it’s been two minutes or two months, you just pick right up where you left off?”
“Yeah.” I had that with the guys. After the summer, and when Coop decided he wasn’t letting me wander away, and they all made a concerted effort. It hadn’t been hard at all, even as I struggled with everything else, I wanted it to work.
“Reese was—a lot of work. She’s more bi than lesbian. That’s okay. I’m not that picky. I’m not bi, but I don’t mind it.” She waved her hand before scraping down to the last bit of the pint. “We could talk about anything and everything. We did. It was—everything Hannah and I couldn’t be. Reese and I were great, except she started liking this other guy and liked him a lot.”
“Oh, Rach…”