“But?”
“But, you know, it’s just one afternoon.”
“There’ll be other afternoons.”
“I know. And believe me, I don’t have fun with anyone like I do with you, but I can’t go around having fun all the time. I have my serious side too.”
“Hey, I’m serious. I’m one hundred percent serious about not being serious. Now, that’s a commitment.”
“I know you are.” There’s just the slightest upward curve at the corners of her mouth. “But you know how it is with Marcus—he has a plan. He doesn’t just talk about making a difference in the world, he does something about it. It’s just that sometimes it’s too much. I mean, he already has this whole plan for where our relationship is going and how I can go to New Mexico to college with him, and after a year we’ll start living together and then get married right after we get our degrees.”
“Married? He’s already talking about getting married? After what, two weeks? Does this guy not know the definition of creepy?”
“And sometimes he makes me feel like we’re responsible for fixing every homeless, poor, starving, downtrodden person in the whole city. And you know me. I do care about those things too. I do. You’ve heard me talk about them a million times. But I can’t think about it all the time. Sometimes I have to let loose, forget about everything else, and just live in the right now.”
“Of course, you do. Everyone does. You go around worrying about that stuff all the time and next thing you know you’re giving yourself an aneurysm. You have blood spurting out of your ears. Doctors are wheeling you into the emergency room, yelling ‘stat’ and ‘code blue’ and everything. You don’t want that, do you?”
“No, I don’t want that. But I don’t want just Thursday afternoons either. I don’t want just moments. I want a whole life.”
“Cassidy, don’t you know—life is made out of Thursday afternoons. You just keep having them one after the other and let everything else take care of itself.”
She opens her eyes and gives me a warm smile. There’s love in it, but not the kind that sticks. “I wish it could be like that,” she says. “You don’t know how much I wish it could be like that.”
“It can be. You just have to believe.”
“I guess that’s my problem,” she says. “I’m too realistic.”
I can see where this is going—and it doesn’t end up in Happily-Ever-Afterland either. The best thing for me to do is head her off and get there first.
“That’s all right.” I kiss her on the forehead and pat her shoulder. “You and I’ll just be friends, then. You come to me when you need a laugh. You can have your real life with Marcus.”
She reaches up and strokes my cheek. Tears stream into the corners of her smile. “You really are magic, Sutter. And I wish that was enough. I really do.”
I want to tell her it is. I want to swear to the king of the king of the kings it’s enough. But this afternoon the magic has all run out.
Chapter 36
Friday night I get drunk with Jeremy Holtz and Jay Pratt and break stuff. Nothing big. Lawn ornaments, bird baths, flower pots. Mainly, they do the breaking, but I kick the shit out of a couple of shrubs. It feels pretty good.
Saturday night there’s a motel party. About once a month you can count on someone renting a couple of adjoining rooms at some local motel for a birthday bash. This Saturday it’s for Bethany’s friend Courtney Lane. They play softball together. I don’t know her all that well, but Ricky invited me to tag along with him and Bethany. Finally. I was beginning to wonder if he didn’t really want me around her. Of course, maybe he just felt sorry for me after I told him what happened with Cassidy on Thursday.
Personally, I always thought Courtney was kind of boring, but the party’s at one of the nicer motels by the airport, so there is an outside chance it could still be fun. At least it’s interesting to finally get a chance to really study Ricky and Bethany as a couple.
On the drive out to the motel, they try to make me feel included at first, but that only lasts about five minutes. Then Bethany starts in on the subject of how her parents are adding on an extra room to their house and how they’re planning to decorate it in an early French style or something like that. You know—the kind of boring topic that girls like to talk about but that makes a dude’s eyes glaze over.
Funny thing, though, Ricky jumps right into the conversation. He’s all about how he’d design his own house and what kind of furniture he’d put in it, and Bethany comes back with her own ideas. I can’t believe it. It’s like they’re practicing for the day they buy a home together.
To me, this seems like a big rookie mistake on Ricky’s part. Any time a girl starts to talk about the FUTURE I try to change the subject pronto. I don’t do conversations about homes, weddings, careers, or kids anymore. Topics like those are quicksand. They’ll pull you under before you know what happened.
One time, when I was dating Kimberly Kerns, she dragged out the what-kind-of-house-do-you-want topic, and I said I’d like to live in a tree house. For some reason, that made her mad, like I was being disrespectful or something. It was ridiculous. I mean, have you ever seen some of those cool tree-house condos they’re building in Costa Rica?
Anyway, it’s like Ricky and Bethany have completely forgotten that I’m even in the backseat. They’re going through each room of their imaginary house, describing everything from wall hangings to coasters. As Ricky’s best friend, I figure I better head them off before they get to the nursery.