“I get to third period, and I’m sitting next to Hadley when the teacher announces we’re going to be working on a group project. And she matches me and Hadley together.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes. Hadley turned her desk toward mine, and then let out this horrified gasp. I turn to her, and she’s looking at my crotch. I looked down, and guess who’s peeking out the top of my pants?”
“Oh my gosh.” I have to pause because I’m laughing so hard. I can easily picture that horrified look on poor Hadley’s face. And the searing embarrassment on Rome’s. It was cringingly hilarious, and hands down was worse than every embarrassing moment of mine I could think of. “What did you do?”
“What do you think I did? I tucked myself back into my pants and didn’t say a word the rest of the period. Or to Hadley James ever again.”
“Aww, poor little Rome!” Still, I laughed. It was cute and vulnerable and just soreal. “Did you really never talk to her again? Even after you made it big in Hollywood?”
“Nope. She did slide into my DMs after my first movie. I never replied to her though.”
“Wow.” I plodded along, smiling. “You have every single one of my embarrassing moments beat.”
“Don’t think you’re getting out of this that easily.” Rome bumped companionly into my shoulder as we hiked up the path. He whistled for Pongo, who was a little too far ahead again, then turned to me. “Come on. Spill.”
I mentally run through my list of embarrassing moments. “Fine. In high school I had this huge crush on Doug Bender. He was tall, blonde, and had that whole mellow surfer vibe down. You know, that proverbial too cool for school guy? But he was nice, too. Just quiet and…”
“You’re stalling. Come on. I told you all about my awkward boner moment. Get on with it.”
“I’m setting the scene!” And maybe stalling a little. I rolled my eyes, my cheeks already heating with my remembered high school angst. “Anyways, my friend, Molly, knew I liked him—it might’ve come up at a sleepover or two. Molly thought it would be smooth if she told him that I had a crush on him, but make it mysterious by telling him someone with the nickname ‘Curly Sue’ liked him.”
“Your nickname was Curly Sue? Seriously?”
I shrugged. “My brother came up with it because of that movie with the little girl from the soda commercials. Apparently, I looked like her when I was little.”
“I can see that. All that mass of curly brown hair with the dimples. Makes sense.” Rome looked down at his feet and smiled.
I tried not to read too much into that. And failed. Did he think I was cute now? Or then? What was going on in his head?
“So… What happened with the cool surfer guy?”
I groaned. Right. Why did I pick this story again? Maybe I should’ve told him about how I got called to the principal’s office for graffitiing the sidewalk with chalk when I was ten. That story was way more charming than loser Sophia getting rejected. What had I been thinking?
“Sophia? What happened? You didn’t have aCarriemoment and torch the school, did you?”
“Nothing that dramatic.” Fine. I could tell him. It wasn’t like I still had feelings for Doug. Just get it over with. Quick like a Band-Aid. “So, she tells him someone nicknamed Curly Sue likes him, and I guess she teased him about it for a few weeks. A month before Homecoming, I finally get up the courage and walk up to him at lunch with Molly at my side, tell him that I knew what Molly had told him, and I wanted him to know that my brother called me Curly Sue.”
“And? What did he say? What did he do?”
“To this day, I don’t know if he even heard me. The whole time I was talking he was staring at Molly. I finished speaking and there was this awkward drawn-out pause. I think he might’ve saidmm hmmm. And then he asked Molly if she would go with him to Homecoming.”
“Oh. Ouch.”
“But wait. There’s more.”
“No!”
“Yes. They dated our whole junior year.”
“Wow. That’s…sucky.”
I hummed in agreement. It had been painful and so freaking awkward. I was thrilled for my friend who had her first boyfriend.
But it’d hurt so much. Not that I’d ever told Molly that.
We bumped along the path in silence a few moments, all the levity from Rome’s cute story gone.