Page 58 of Kiss Me, Maybe

“Until I graduate.” Julian nods. “At this point, I’m counting down the days until I can finally get a solid eight hours of sleep. I’m exhausted all the time. I don’t know how anyone does this.”

“At least you know what you want to do with your life,” I tell him. “You haven’t had to change careers yet. I almost became a teacher until my last semester of college made me realize I had no idea what I was thinking.”

“I’ll cheers to that,” Theo calls out from the kitchen bar. “It’s a real bitch shifting careers, especially in your thirties. What’s worse is I’m not sure I’m set on coaching for the rest of my life.”

“Really?” I ask, surprised. “Do you have something else in mind?”

“A friend of mine is opening a bar in Dallas. He retired from the team this year and asked if I wanted to invest. I gotta admit, I’m tempted. If I hadn’t moved, we might’ve been opening it together.”

Krystal and I exchange glances, and for the first time in my life I experience what it’s like to have one of those silent conversations you can only have with someone you’ve known for years.

Tell him.My eyes widen at her.Tell him about your idea.

I can’t.She looks back at me like I’ve lost my mind.I barely know the dude.

What can it hurt?I slap at her knee until she shoos me away.

“Is that so?” I ask Theo.

“I minored in business finance.” He takes a swig from his beer. Huh. I didn’t even know I had beers in the house. “Not that that means I have any idea what I’m doing. There’s a lot of trial and error that goes into opening a small business, but it’s less daunting when you’re doing it with someone you trust.”

“What about someone you could grow to trust?”

“Okay, what is going on over there?” It took Theo a lot longer than I thought it would to sense the weirdness between me and Krystal, but now that he has, he raises a brow at us.

Tell him, I mouth at Krystal before slapping her knee again. She grumbles, but finally stands abruptly to face him. “She wants me to tell you that I…” She heaves in a deep sigh. “I actually want to open up my own bar one day.”

He looks at Krystal as if with new eyes. “What kind of bar?”

“I don’t know.” I kick at her feet. Apparently, the only way I know how to show encouragement is through violence. She casts me an annoyed glance before looking back at Theo. “Something unique. When I first started at Havana Bar, I loved the lounge feel to it. The dark, moody furniture. All the candlelight.”

“Her theme is a plant apothecary,” I tell him. “With cute cocktails named after poisonous flowers.”

“Or a greenhouse,” she says, like the idea just came to her. “Imagine a building with floor-to-ceiling windows that mimic a greenhouse, lots of trailing vines, bright neon signs—”

“And poisonous drink names.” His smile spreads wider. “Any ideas for a location?”

“I’m open to whatever price is reasonable, to be honest. As ideal as downtown is, I’m not sure how feasible it’d be.”

They talk through ideas for a few more minutes, until finally Theo asks to exchange contact info. When he returns to the kitchen to help Marcela, I sling an arm around Krystal’s shoulders. She lets out a flabbergasted noise into my chest.

“I think you just snagged a business partner.” Krystalshakes her head at me but doesn’t say a word. “Do you want a tour of the place?”

“Yes, please.”

The living room is sparse except for the faded couch and framed family photos. She picks up each one, asking me to name family members and point myself out to her in group photos. “You were so adorable.” She stares down at my third-grade photo. “You still part your hair the same way.” She fingers the edge of my curls, thumb trailing down my forehead. I resist a shiver at the touch.

“I tried giving myself emo bangs in sixth grade.” I shudder for a different reason now. “You won’t find that photo anywhere, and for good reason.”

Julian makes a coughing sound from the couch. I narrow my eyes at him, remembering his little hunt for embarrassing pictures. There’s no way he could’ve found them. I destroyed them as soon as the order came in over a decade ago. My parents grounded me for two weeks, but it was worth it.

I cast one last glare at him before leading Krystal upstairs. A diagonal line of even more photos greets us—a portrait of my grandparents, a smaller one of my dad and his siblings when they were my age, a group photo of cousins from my mom’s side.

“We should take pictures,” Krystal says, stunning me. “After the tour. Maybe we’ll end up on the wall one day.”

“I’d like that.” I smile at the thought, staring at the pictures on the wall again. “There are a lot of good memories here. The only trouble now is most of my family members have either moved away or made themselves out to be terrible people.”

“What do you mean?”

---