Page 23 of Better Than the Movies
I also wasn’t sure why it wasn’t pissing me off.
I remained tethered to Wes’s left hand as he and Michael shared a goodbye bro handshake, exchanging words I couldn’t hear over the noise. Once they broke apart, Michael gave me a little SOLO cup raise and a sweet smile before he turned and walked away.
“Bye,” I whispered under my breath, watching him disappear into the revelers.
“Come on, Buxbaum.” Wes hitched my handbag over his shoulder, passed the handful of my pants to me, and led me up the stairs. “Let’s get you home before you flash anyone else.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“You’re not as vile as I thought you were.”
—10 Things I Hate About You
“So?” I looked out the windshield as he pulled away from the house, where cars lined both sides of the street. It occurred to me at that moment that Wes and his friends totally lived theSuperbadlife. “Did he say anything about me when I was changing?”
“He did, actually.” He flipped on his blinker and turned the corner. “And it’s probably going to piss you off.”
“Oh God.” I looked at Wes’s profile and waited for the awful news. “What?”
He accelerated and switched lanes. “It’s just very clear that he still thinks of you as Little Liz.”
“What doesthatmean?”
His mouth curved a little, but he kept his eyes on the road. “Oh, come on.”
“Seriously. What? Like he still thinks I’m in grade school?”
He smiled an I-shouldn’t-be-smiling smile and said, “Like, he still thinks you’re a nice little weirdo.”
“Oh my God—are you kidding me?” I stared at his grin andwanted to punch him. “Why would he think I’m a weirdonow? I was charming as hell until your girlfriend puked on me.”
“It’s not that.” He reeled in his smile and shot me a quick glance. “It’s just that he assumes you’re the same person you used to be, because he’s been gone.”
“I wasn’t anice little weirdo.”
His smile was back. “Oh, come on, Buxbaum.”
I thought back to the old days in the neighborhood. “I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were. You made up songsconstantly, about everything. Terrible songs that didn’t even rhyme.”
“I was creative.” True, I was less athletic and more dramatic than the rest of them, but I wasn’tweird. “And that was my theme music.”
“You lied about boyfriends all the time.”
That was true. “You don’t know they weren’t real.”
“Prince Harry?”
Oof—I had forgotten about that one. “He could’ve been my boyfriend; there was no way of knowing for sure.”
He chuckled and pressed harder on the gas. “And the plays, Liz. Remember all the plays? You were a one-woman Broadway show every damn day of the week.”
Wow—I’d totally forgotten about the plays, too. I used tolovecreating plays and getting the whole neighborhood to act them out. And yes, I might’ve been the instigator, but the rest of them had always played along, so they had to have enjoyed it too. “Theater is a noble calling, and if you guys were too uncultured to recognize that, then I feel sorry for you.”
His chuckle turned into a laugh. “You begged Michael to be Romeo to your Juliet, and when he wouldn’t, you climbed a tree and fake-cried for an hour.”
“And you threw acorns at me, trying to knock me down!”
