Page 8 of The Last Dance

I sigh heavily, once again flipping him the bird, as I sip my beer. We normally do tell each other everything.Notlike girls, like friends. I want to tell her but this might risk everything and I’m not sure I can take that chance.

‘I don’t kn—’ The sound of her voice shuts me up and Ben bursts out a faker than fake laugh.

‘Right? Good times!’ he says, as if we were in the middle of a completely different conversation.

‘Smooth,’ I say under my breath before the girls get back to the table.

‘I don’t know about you guys, but I am spent,’ Ben suddenly says right as Claire sits back down next to him.

‘God, you should be. You went to work at like four-thirty this morning and it’s almost midnight.’

‘I was short a guy. I had to load a truck.’

‘Did a case of beer magically fall into your truck again?’ I ask, knowing full well that they normally do when he’s there early.

‘It might be waiting for me at home as we speak.’ He grins.

Ben co-owns a small brewery with his brother, Paul, called Two Brothers Brew. The two of them have managed to get their label into dozens of bars in the pacific northwest. It’s become quite the operation. It’s not completely unusual for him to have to cover a guy who can’t make it to work.

‘Ready to head out?’ he asks Claire as he practically shoves her out of the booth. ‘I’m sure these two have loads to talk about.’

‘They always do.’ Claire laughs, having no idea what Ben and I just talked about that he’s referring to but clearly going along with his sudden need to leave.

‘You’re not gonna eat with us? It’s not eventhatlate…’ Ambri taps her phone, checking the time.

‘It’s Saturday night, you two should stay, have fun!’ Claire insists, nodding my direction but looking directly at Ambri.

By the time I glance over at Ambri, Claire and Ben have hightailed it from the bar. Ben tossing a twenty on the table as he left for their drinks.

I drop my head momentarily and move to the bench across from Ambri. ‘You told Claire about upstairs?’ It’s the only explanation for the tension now filling the air around us.

She shakes her head slowly, eventually turning the motion into a nod. A half-smile on her face. “I’m sorry. It was…I don’t even know.Whatwas that?”

‘I… uh…’ I blow out a breath as I glance down at my beer. ‘I don’t know what that was. I, I dunno.’

Our food arrives, distracting me for a moment while I watch Ambri move half of each sandwich to the other plate.

‘Are you doing OK?’ she asks quietly, trying not to set me off in case I’m not. She’s never been the quiet kind of girl. She says what she’s thinking. This last year she’s gotten a little softer around me. I keep worrying that, because of me, she’s not moving on with her life either. I’m worried I’m hurting her by needing her so much. She’s becoming someone she never was, mostly because she’s always worried about me. She’s always scared of my constantly changing emotions. I used to take care of her, and now it seems to be the other way around more often than not. I don’t like that.

I shake my head. ‘It’s coming up on one year soon. And the fifteenth is in a few days. I know we still do it every month, but I think this month will be the hardest.’

Before I asked out Rory I asked Ambri, first if it was OK with her, and second for advice on how to blow Rory away on our first date. I wanted to impress her as aman, not only as Ambri’s friend Henry. I’d been out of college for about a year and kept running into Rory when I’d least expect it.

*

‘The Rose Garden,’ Ambri says with a grin as we sit in the stands of a Rose City Rollers roller derby match. ‘At sunset. Emilio’s takeout, number four. She’ll fall before the sun even sets.’ She crunches on her second set of nachos of the evening. I swear the greasy no-good-for-you food is the only reason she comes to these with me.

‘Really? That’s pretty specific. Are you making shit up?’

Ambri laughs. ‘No.’ She rolls her eyes, finally looking away from the rink and over at me. ‘I’m serious. When we were kids our dad used to bring us to the Rose Garden and we would sit on this bench near the edge of the garden where it overlooks the city. He’d tell us stories about imaginary people and their lives. We always imagined they were watching the exact same sunset we were from another part of the world. We’d be so mesmerized that we’d have to sit and watch until the sun had completely set before we could leave. She says it’s the most romantic place on the earth that she knows of.’ She looks back to the skaters. ‘Perfect timing too because the roses are starting to bloom. It’s our favorite time of year up there.’

‘Our? Do you love this place too?’ I ask, wondering if this is something between them I should stay out of.

‘I love it there, but not as much as Rory does.’

‘Why didn’t I know this about you?’

She shrugs. ‘I dunno, I figured you did enough girly stuff with me as it is. The last thing you’d want is to trek through the Rose Garden and watch the sunset. It’s kind of… romantic, and we aren’t really like that.’

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