“So I’ll just invite a few of them, then. Okay?”
“Okay. We still have to figure out food,” I said, licking my way around the cone so it wouldn’t drip.
“We could always get Con to grill some chicken,” Jeremiah said with a laugh.
“He’s going to be your best man. He can’t be sweating over the grill.”
“I was kidding.”
“Did you ask him yet? To be your best man?”
“Not yet. I will, though.” He leaned down and took a bite of my ice cream. He got some on his upper lip, like a milk mustache.
I bit the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
When we got back to the house, Conrad was watching TV in the living room. When we sat down on the couch, he got up. “I’m gonna hit the sack,” he said, stretching his arms over his head.
“It’s, like, ten o’clock. Watch a movie with us,” Jeremiah said.
“Nah, I’m gonna get up early tomorrow and surf. Wanna join me?”
Jeremiah glanced at me before saying, “Yeah, sounds good.”
“I thought we were gonna work on the guest list in the morning,” I said.
“I’ll come back before you’re even awake. Don’t worry.” To Conrad, he said, “Knock on my door when you’re up.”
Conrad hesitated. “I don’t want to wake up Belly.”
I could feel myself blush. “I don’t mind,” I said.
Since Jeremiah and I had become boyfriend and girlfriend, we’d only been at the summer house together once. That time, I slept in his room with him. We watched TV until he fell asleep, because he liked to sleep with the television on in the background. I couldn’t fall asleep like that, so I waited until he did and then I turned it off. It felt kind of strange, sleepingin his bed when mine was just down the hall.
At college we slept in the same bed all the time, and that felt normal. But here at the summer house I just wanted to sleep in my own room, in my own bed. It was familiar to me. It made me feel like a little girl still on vacation with her whole family. My paper-thin sheets with the faded yellow rosebuds, my cherry wood dresser and vanity. I used to have two white twin beds, but Susannah got rid of them and put in what she’d called a “big girl bed.” I loved that bed.
Conrad went upstairs, and I waited until I heard his bedroom door shut before I said, “Maybe I’ll sleep in my room tonight.”
“Why?” Jeremiah asked. “I promise I’ll be quiet when I get up.”
Carefully, I asked, “Aren’t the bride and groom supposed to sleep in different beds before the wedding?”
“Yeah, but that’s the night before the wedding. Not every night before the wedding.” He looked hurt for a second, and then he said in his joking way, “Come on, you know I won’t touch you.”
Even though I knew he was only kidding, it still stung a little.
“It’s not that. Sleeping in my own room makes me feel… normal. It’s—it’s different than at school. At school, sleeping with you next to me feels normal. But here I like remembering what it used to feel like.” Isearched his face to see if any of the hurt was still there. “Does that make sense at all?”
“I guess.” Jeremiah looked unconvinced, and I started to wish I’d never brought it up.
I scooted closer to him, putting my feet in his lap. “You’ll have me next to you every night for the rest of our lives.”
“Yeah, I guess that’ll be plenty,” he said.
“Hey!” I said, kicking out my leg.
