Page 52 of The List
That’s all we can be, I know.
But it doesn’t stop me from wishing for more. For loving the intimacy that’s formed between us and racking my brain to come up with some way to protect Junie’s heart and my own from the inevitable disappointment I know would result if I tried to turn this into something more.
“Um, Simon?”
“Yeah?” Something in her voice sounds funny, and I pick up the glasses with a spark of alarm flaring in my chest.
“I think I hit a button on accident. I’m in a different window, and the screen is showing something else. Another window you had open or something.”
I sprint into the living room so fast wine sloshes over the rim of one glass. Cassie looks up, startled. Then she glances down at the screen again. She isn’t smiling.
“What is this?”
My heart zaps frozen in my chest. God, what is it? My new interview with Forbes magazine? My profile on the Hot Swap website? In an instant, everything flashes before my eyes. She knows who I am. The money, the status, everything. All the things that have made every woman before her morph into a different person. I swallow hard, braced for it.
She looks up again, and I can’t read her expression.
“You like cheesy ‘80s flicks?” Her face breaks into a grin, and she swipes a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
I swallow hard. “What?”
I walk around the sofa as Cassie sets the iPad on the table and turns it around to reveal my movie library in all its embarrassing glory. There they are, with their familiar, campy screenshots and promotional images. Sixteen Candles. Say Anything. St. Elmo’s Fire.
All my favorite films, laid out for Cassie to see.
I set down the wineglasses and feel myself starting to grin. “Guilty as charged,” I admit as relief floods through my limbs.
Cassie grins back and cocks her head to the side. “Well, aren’t you full of surprises?”
I laugh, so happy to learn my cover isn’t blown that I start blurting out the whole story. “It started with Pretty in Pink when I was a teenager,” I confess. “A girlfriend made me watch it, and even though I’m sure I was supposed to roll my eyes and act all annoyed by it, I loved every minute of it. Still do.”
“Pretty in Pink?” Her grin widens as she picks up her wineglass and takes a sip.
“I love that era of film. Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall—the whole Brat Pack. By the time I saw The Breakfast Club, I was hooked.”
She laughs as she picks up a second piece of pizza. “Would you believe I have most of that movie memorized?”
“No way!”
She nods and makes a big show of crossing her heart with a fingertip. “Yep. My sisters and I watched it over and over again one summer until we could quote all the lines. Ally Sheedy’s character was my favorite.”
“The weird girl?”
“Yeah. Were you more of a Judd Nelson or an Emilio Estevez? The jock or the delinquent?”
“Neither,” I tell her truthfully. “I was Anthony Michael Hall all the way.”
“The brain?”
I nod and take my own healthy slug of wine. I watch Cassie’s gaze drift back to the iPad. I can tell she’s thinking of picking it up again and continuing our quest. It’s the reason we’re here, after all. To figure out the best ways to cross off all the items on The List, and to execute the plan with efficiency and a healthy dose of passion. To check things off one by one and then part company with our hearts unscathed.
But part of me wants to draw this out. To put off items number one and nine and whatever the hell else is left. Are there really only two things?
My heart is racing again, and I know it has nothing to do with the iPad scare a few minutes ago. I don’t want this to be over, but it has to end, and I hate that. I hate it.
When she glances up again, I can tell she’s a little nervous. “So, did you have a lot of girlfriends in high school?”
“Not really. More in college. Quite a few in my early twenties, but not as many these days.”
