Page 28 of Considering Us

“Come on, you can’t just drop that on me. Indulge me with one of those habits. I need something to make me feel more normal.” I did.

Heath looked around as if he was worried someone he knew was nearby. Given that he had grown up and now worked in the area, it was a distinct possibility. “I found out in the weirdest way that she chews tobacco,” he said softly.

“Really?” I asked, leaning in. “How did you discover this?”

“We went to go see a movie,” he said. “Top Gun Maverick. Did you see it?”

“I heard it was great. I saw the original when I was younger, but I never saw the sequel.”

“It’s awesome,” he said. “But we’re sitting there in the movie theater over by Fox Run Mall, and she’s in the aisle seat. I start hearing this noise. I look over, and she’s spitting tobacco into the aisle of the theater.”

“That is nasty. That’s how you found out she did it?”

“Yep. It was the beginning of the end between us,” he said. Our faces were much closer now, having shifted in proximity for the story. “Last question,” he began. “Who’s the last person you’ve kissed? The married guy?”

I could’ve lied and said yes, but I had already committed to the truth for the day, and I decided to stick with it. “No, not him. It was Kyle Holling. The soccer coach.”

“The guy from the hospital?” Heath asked. “Oh, damn. Are you dating him? I didn’t mean to—”

“No, not at all. We have a bit of a complicated past. We went to college together—way back in the day. Something happened then, and we didn’t see each other again for over fifteen years. So, there have been some old feelings to work out. But I am unattached right now.” I said it, and I felt good for being honest. I had deceived enough people in Boston. “How about you? Who was the last person you kissed? If it was the waitress, I hope it was before she chewed the tobacco.”

He smiled at me and leaned closer. “May I?” he asked.

I nodded, and he closed his eyes and gently touched his lips to mine. The kiss answered the question I had been asking myself all day. Heath was worth pursuing.

“You,” he said. “You’re the last person I’ve kissed.”

14

“Did you and Kyle have a fight?” Andrea asked as soon as I walked into her office. I hadn’t even closed the door behind me.

“Hello to you, too,” I said, sitting down in the chair across from her.

“I never see him in the dining hall,” she continued. “Only at The Horse.”

“I didn’t know you frequented The Horse.” I certainly didn’t those days. When I wasn’t working in the dining hall, I was either in my apartment watching the most recent season ofNever Have I Ever(an excellent show), or I was on a date with Heath. We had gone bowling and to an escape room. We made out behind a set of funhouse mirrors that we stumbled upon. It felt a lot like a high school relationship, except I didn’t have to go home to my parents. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but it was a hell of a lot less complicated than dealing with Kyle.

“Once in a while, a girl needs a five-dollar Long Island Iced Tea,” Andrea said, tapping a pen absentmindedly on her desk. I shuddered thinking of the quality or lack thereof in those well liquors. “But I hear things.”

Of course, she does.“Everything with Kyle and me is complicated. Even when we try not to let it be, it somehow still is.”

Andrea pushed a single sheet of paper in front of me. It was the latest copy ofThe Underground Stallion. “Looks like it’s gotten more so.”

There were side-by-side pictures of me in black and white. The one on the left was the shot of Kyle and me kissing that we knew would emerge eventually, and here it was. On the right was a photo of Heath and me at the pub in Portsmouth. Our very first kiss.How did someone capture that?I hadn’t seen anyone there who had looked in the least bit familiar, or even anyone under the age of twenty-one. Underneath the images—in bold, all-caps text—it posed the question:

LOVE TRIANGLE?

I didn’t bother to read the short article that followed and pushed the paper back at Andrea. “I very recently started seeing a guy who lives in town. A paramedic.”

“Yes,” she said, pointing back at the article. “Heath Davis.”

I grabbed it back off the desk. “They know his last name? I just learned his last name the other day.”

“Never underestimateThe Underground Stallion,” she said, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. “Look, you’re the least of my worries right now. Things aren’t good. As you know, there are people protesting that piece of art day and night. Usually, we get a surge of applications this time of year because people become fed up with their local public schools around October for whatever reason, and I think Admissions has gotten maybe two in the past week. Word has gotten out about all of this, and it’s fucking embarrassing.” I had never heard Andrea swear like that. The poor woman wasstressed.

“You gotta wonder about those two who applied, right?” I posed, trying to inject some levity. I turned toward the window, which was cracked open enough that I could hear a woman screeching into a megaphone about neighbors’ rights to be free of smut.

“They’re probably the next reporters for this rag,” Andrea grumbled, balling up the sheet of paper and aiming it at the recycling bin. She missed the shot. “I need your basketball player to teach me how to play.”

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