“So I’m not disparaging theirlifestyle,” I add. “But I am saying, I don’t think I want to use the dating apps until I figure out how tonothave that happen again.”
Alex snorts as he guns it through a yellow light. “Good for you. I, however, don’t plan to use the dating appseveragain.”
“What about your… loneliness?”
“Oh, that won’t be a problem for quite some time,” he says. “Kate made sure of it. I think my balls hid so far from her groping hands, they’re somewhere up near my tonsils. Who knows if I’ll ever get them back. They might be lost forever.”
A laugh bursts out of me. I slap my hands over my mouth as I blink over at Alex.
He peers my way, a crooked smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His Thea smile. Part exasperation, part affection, all love.
Friendlove, yes. But it’shislove forme.
That’s all I need. All I want from him.
And I’ll hold on to it with both desperate hands, until the shock fades, until the loneliness comes back, until Alex once again realizes he wants more than what we share, more than I ever want to take a chance on us becoming, all therightit could cost us if being more than friends went wrong.
But I won’t think about that down-the-road day today, or tomorrow.
I won’t think about it for as long as I possibly can.
CHAPTER 27THEN
July 17, one summer ago
For the first time since I met him, Alex gets bad haircut.
He walks through the back door of his parents’ house into the open-concept kitchen and dining room, where his mom and I sit, blowing up birthday balloons for her party tomorrow. Lydia doesn’t seem peeved that she’s the one filling her house with hot-pink helium balloons for her own party, and when I asked her why, she told me, “It’s what I want, and I don’t mind making sure I have it.”
I filed that away. Something to aspire to. Something that, in addition to her long hard hugs, her delicious homemade birthday cakes, her fierce love of Mia, and a hundred other little things she’s done and been since I met her last Thanksgiving, makes me love her even more.
Lydia and I pause, mid–balloon tying, staring at Alex.
“Madonna Mia,” Lydia mutters, crossing herself.
Alex sighs and heads straight to the fridge, pulling out a beer. “Thanks, Mom.”
“What did he do to you?” she says. “And on the day beforemybirthday!”
“He gave me a bad haircut,” Alex says flatly.
“It’s notthatbad,” I tell him.
Alex levels me with a look that says,Liar, then takes a long pull from his beer. “It’s that bad,” he says. “I’m aware of it.”
“Is this your first time?” I ask. “Getting it cut… wherever you went?”
“No,” Alex says calmly. “I go to Ray’s once a year, to get a trim.”
“Atrim!” Lydia yells. “You look like a lamb shorn in the spring. By a drunk, senile grandpa who has no business cutting hair anymore!”
I nudge her foot under the table. Lydia throws me aWhat? It’s the truth!look that’s a dead ringer for Alex, then swivels back to her son.
“Why are you still going to Ray?” she demands.
“He’s still alive,” Alex says.
“A miracle,” Lydia mutters. “No, a curse.”