I had known Adam literally my entire life. His mom and my mom had been best friends since high school. Our dads played Parks and Rec basketball together. His younger sister Lena had learned to walk in our living room. Whitney had started her period during the annual Ducate New Year’s Eve party when she was thirteen. Our families were so intertwined that our friendship had been a sure thing. Until I decided that I would follow the route of every other silly teenage girl and fall for the most unattainable guy possible.
Because Adam Ducate wasn’t just my best friend since birth. He was the most beautiful boy in our entire school and the object of just about every girl’s—and some boy’s— fantasy. Including Whitney at one point, though she swore her case of Adamitis was down to a bad viral infection.
No female under the age of thirty was immune to Adam’s many, many charms. I had teased him about it, goading him to use his sexy smile to con extra cookies from the sour-faced lunch ladies in our school cafeteria on more than one occasion, or to flirt with the awkward cashier at the movie theater so we could get more popcorn free of charge.
Now I could only stare at him in tongue-tied horror as our friendship morphed into one-sided desperate longing.
I let out a long, pent up breath full of adolescent angst. “What if it ruins everything?” I exclaimed dramatically. I wasn’t one for extreme theatrics, but lately, it seemed I was one huge teenage cliché. The tomboy who falls in love with her hottie bestie. It was the stuff of John Hughes’ movies and chick-lit novels.
It made me want to gag.
And then die at the mortification of it all.
Whitney put an arm around my shoulder, giving me a squeeze. “And what if it doesn’t?”
My cheeks flushed, and my hands started to feel clammy. “It’s Adam. I’m not supposed to like Adam,” I reminded her.
Whitney rolled her eyes again, her de facto response to most things I said. “It’s Adam. How can you not like Adam?”
She was right. It was bound to happen sooner or later, particularly after he turned fourteen and grew five inches, and his physique started to resemble a linebacker. But it wasn’t just about his looks. I could probably ignore the twinges of desire if that were the only thing about him that I was into. But Adam was smart. He read biographies on the US presidents for fun. He could count to 100 in seven different languages. He liked George Romero movies and could recite all the dialogue from Day of the Dead. He was a kick-ass tennis player, and we made a great doubles team.
And he visited his grandparents every Friday after school without fail. He made sure to bring his grandmother a Baby Ruth candy bar, her favorite, and a bouquet of flowers he’d pick up at the corner market by her house. And he took his granddad the latest tape of baseball games he had recorded for him during the week so they could watch them together.
Adam was everything every other boy in our grade wasn’t.
Whit was right. How could I not like Adam?
The question was, did Adam like me back?
I nodded, feeling resolute. “I’m going to tell him. Tonight. At the dance.”A twinge of doubt took hold. “What if he doesn’t feel the same way? What if I ruin our friendship?”Those were the two things that had been swimming around in my head since I realized I wanted to stick my tongue down my best friend’s throat. What if this destroyed seventeen years of friendship?Because at the end of the day, that mattered more than any potential relationship.
Whitney kissed my cheek. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Meg. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. If I were a betting gal, I’d say he’s as ga-ga over you as you are over him.”
“Psh, no way,” I scoffed, but the butterflies had taken hold in my stomach. It felt a lot like hope.
“Meggie, Adam and the gang are here!” my dad called up the stairs.
“Here goes nothin’.” I grabbed my canvas tote bag covered in patches, slinging it over my shoulder.
“You can’t take that bag,” Whitney groaned, trying to pull it from my shoulder. “It completely ruins the look.”
I grinned, hurrying out of my room before she could take it from me. I may be dressed up, but I was still Meg Galloway after all. Whitney chased me down the stairs, the two of us laughing the whole way. And then I saw him.
I came up short, Whitney almost running into my back.
Adam stood at the foot of the stairs talking to my dad, his hands tucked into the pockets of his pressed trousers, his blue button-up shirt open at the base of his throat. His dark hair was freshly trimmed, falling in a wave over his forehead. He grinned at something my dad said, and the sight of that smile—one I was achingly familiar with—made my insides turn to jelly.