“You with someone?” Rob asks.
I can’t bring myself to lie to him. “Yeah, I’m…kind of busy right now. What’s up?”
A second of doubt passes between us. “Right. Hey, really sorry to bug you over the weekend. I just had a thought about that meeting we’re having on Monday and I wanted to run it by you.”
The tension on the line fades. Okay. I think we’re fine.
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure thing. What’s up?”
My phone call with Rob doesn’t last too long. When it’s over, I turn to look at Chloe. She’s sitting slumped on the sofa, the pint of ice cream untouched on the coffee table in front of her.
“I don’t think he figured it out,” I say, walking up and squeezing her shoulder.
She nods. But she doesn’t look as relieved as I’d hoped.
“Austin…” she says, then sighs. “Oh, God. I really don’t want to say this. But…I think the universe is trying to tell us that this is a bad idea.”
“Look, I know this seems like a big deal right now, but it’ll be fine.”
“Maybe. I’m notjusttalking about the phone call, though. There have been other things, too. You saw the way people looked at us tonight at the restaurant. And…well, I didn’t want to mention this, but my schoolwork has been affected, too. We’ve been talking so much on the phone and I’ve been thinking about you so much that I’m falling behind.”
Shit. “First of all, screw anyone who cares about our age difference. I don’t care. Do you?”
“No.”
“And as for your schoolwork…we’ll cut back on the phone calls.”
“It’s not just that. I think about you all the time. It’s like I can’t concentrate on anything else.” She chews the inside of her lip. “I don’t know, Austin. I just don’t know.”
I pull her into my arms and hug her for a long time.
I leaveChloe at the end of the weekend without much clarity about our current state. Everything feels so damn up in the air. The whole flight home, I work it over in my head, trying to figure out what to do.
Maybe there reallyaretoo many things stacked against us.
I can’t let her go, though. I just fucking can’t. And while I might not be able to make everything easy for us, there is one thing Icando. When I get into work on Monday morning, the first thing I do is ask Rob if the two of us can go out for coffee and talk about something.
“Of course,” says Rob, pulling his eyes away from his computer and giving me a curious look.
We head down to the coffee shop and grab a table. Rob settles down in the chair across from me. “Hey, if this is about our presentation—”
“It’s not,” I say.
“Oh. Okay.” He raises his eyebrows and waits.
I sit back and cross my arms, ready to defend myself. “It’s about Chloe.”
Rob raises his eyebrows. “Chloe? What about her?”
“I don’t know any easy way to tell you this, Rob. So I’m just going to say it. I have feelings for Chloe. She has feelings for me. It started over Thanksgiving break. We’ve been talking ever since, and…well, this weekend, I flew down to see her. I know she’s your sister, man, but…she’s special. She’sincrediblyspecial. And I don’t want to keep sneaking around behind your back. It’s a shitty thing to do, and I’m not going to do it anymore.”
God, does it ever feel good to get that all off my chest.
Now, though, comes the tough part, of course. Rob’s reaction. I brace myself. It’s not like I expect him to fly across the table and punch me or anything, but…you never know.
I look up and focus my eyes on my best friend. He blinks at me, opens his mouth, and then closes it again.
“Fuck, man,” I say. “Saysomething.”
