Page 41 of Better Than the Movies
His eyes squinted like he wanted to grin, but he gave his head a shake instead. “God, no. You’re on your own, emotionally speaking. I’m just in this for the Forever Spot.”
The smile took over my lips, whether I wanted it to or not. “Okay, good.”
He tousled my hair like I was a little kid—the jag—and then started walking toward the unattached garage in the back. His sudden physicality had been jarring—familiar and strange all at once—and it took me a minute to fully recover. I could see three people standing next to the first door, and I quickly finger-combed my hair as I followed, my pulse quickening as I-don’t-know-these-people nerves slithered through me.
I took a deep breath and there was Michael, talking and leaning against a rusted silver van in jeans and a black fleece jacket that made his baby-blue eyes pop.So, so pretty.
“Don’t be nervous.” Wes said it out of the side of his mouth and nudged me with his shoulder before immediately launching into introductions. “This is Noah, Adam, and you know Michael.”
“Hey,” I said, my face burning as they all looked at me. I was terrible with names, but nicknames would help. I committed Smirky Face (Noah), Hawaiian Shirt (Adam), and Mr. Right with the Perfect Butt (Michael, of course) to memory. Everyone was friendly enough. Hawaiian Shirt said he remembered me from middle school because we’d had the same homeroom teacher, and then he and Noah started discussing how cool Ms. Brand had been in seventh-grade reading.
It was all very bland and uninteresting, so I tuned them out and tried to look everywhere but at Michael. Tried and failed. No matter what I told my brain, my eyeballs continually searched him out and took a stroll all over his handsome face.
Wes was totally onto me, and when he made eye contact, he shook his head.
Which made me stick out my tongue.
Smirky Face tilted his head—totally saw the tongue—but Wes saved me by saying, “Are we going or what?”
We all loaded into the minivan, and just as I was about to grab a seat in the middle row, Wes pushed me toward the back and muttered, “Trust me.”
He pushed around me and plopped into the left window spot, which left me the open seat right between him and Michael. I looked at Wes as I sat down, and he gave me aGo for iteyebrow raise that made my nose get warm as Adam started the van and pulled out of the alley.
Wes started talking to the guys in front, leaning forward to talk over the second row,kind ofgiving me and Michael a tiny bit of privacy. I cleared my throat and was hyperaware of how close his leg was to my leg.What to say?My mind was a complete and total blank, sending a solidly flat EKG line as my mouth ceased to function.
Time of death: 5:05.
In all the times I’d imagined our magical first moments, I’d never once considered that I would be awkwardly staring at my knees, totally mute, hoping whatever smelled mildewy in the car wasn’t somehow me, while a terrible song by Florida Georgia Line twanged in the speakers behind our heads.
Michael was looking down at his phone, and I knew I was running out of time.Say something clever, Liz.I opened my mouth and almost said something about the party, but I closed it again when I realized that reminding him of the vomit incident—and conjuring the image of hurled-upon me for him—was a terrible idea.
Oh my God—say anything, you loser!
Then—“Liz.”
My eyes jumped up to his face, but looking at him made my stomach do wild things, and I lowered my eyes to his jacket zipper to steady my nerves. Even though my face was on fire and I was pretty sure there were tiny beads of sweat on the tip of my nose, I tried to act breezy and teasing by saying, “Michael.”
He smiled. “Can I tell you something?”
Oh God.
What was he going to say? What could he possibly say when he’d only been back for mere days? I braced myself for his confession that my perfume made him nauseous or that I had something disgusting sticking out of my nose. “Of course.”
His eyes went up to my hair for a tiny second before they landed back on my eyes and he said, “You really look a lot like your mom now.”
Was it possible to feel your own heart stop? Probably not, but there was a catch in my chest as I pictured my mother’s face and had the realization that Michael still remembered her face too. He could still picture her. I had to blink fast to keep it together, because in the whole of my entire life, that was the most important compliment I’d ever received. My voice was froggy and pinched as I said, “You think so?”
“I really do.” He smiled at me but looked a little unsure, doubtful in the way people always looked when they wondered if they’d made a mistake by mentioning my mom’s existence. “I’m sorry about the, um, the—”
“Thank you, Michael.” I crossed my legs, shifting so I was facing him a little more. The truth was, I liked talking about my mom. Bringing her up in casual conversation—putting words about her out into the universe—felt like keeping a piece of her here with me, even though she had been gone so long already. “She always liked you. I mean, it was probably because you were the only person who didn’t hide under her birdbath and trample her daisies during hide-and-seek, but it counts.”
His blue eyes sucked me in as he smiled and gave an incredibly pleasing deep chuckle. “I’ll take it. Is that what your tattoo is about? Your mom’s daisies?”
My heart for sure stopped then, and all I could do was nod in response as happy tears sprung up in the corners of my eyes.I turned my head away from him, blinking quickly a few times. He’d seen my tattoo, and without any explanation, he’dgottenit. He might not have known that my mother had loved the line inYou’ve Got Mailabout daisies being the friendliest flower, but the flowers had made him think of her. Wes looked over at me, and his eyebrows pulled together as he went to speak, but I just shook my head. For some reason, the van began slowing even though we’d only been on the road for a few minutes.
“Why are we stopping?” Wes called up to Adam.
“This is Laney’s house.”
