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“Jacob, this Hunter and Erin,” I say. “And you remember Matty, the guy who vaguely threatened you in Crosswire’s motorhome

the other day?”

“Hey!” Matty complains. “I was defending you, asshole. That’s what a good bro does.”

“Okay, please don’t ever use the word ‘bro’ again,” Erin says. “You really can’t pull it off.”

“Like you and the word ‘girl,’ you mean?” Matty shoots back. Then, in an exaggerated falsetto, “Hey, girl, call me later,

okay? We can sip prosecco and play Call of Duty !”

Hunter snorts. “Is that what you think women do?”

“That’s what Erin and her sister did all last night!” Matty says.

“Can we eat now?” I cut in. “Jacob and I haven’t eaten all day.”

“Whyever not?” Heather asks innocently.

I pretend I don’t hear her. We all find seats around the kitchen island and descend on the pizza. It’s insanely delicious,

even the piece of Hunter’s vegan pizza that I take by mistake, but there’s a certain awkwardness to the silence as we take

our first bites.

I shoot Heather an imploring glance, and she sits up a little straighter. “So—Jacob.” She smiles at him. “On a scale of one

to never, what do you think the chances are you’ll break up with Travis again?”

I nearly choke on my pizza. “ I got you, babe, ” my ass.

“Heather,” I snap.

“What?” she says sweetly. “I broke the silence.”

“It’s okay,” Jacob says. “I’m not going to break up with him again.”

“Good answer,” Heather says.

“Can we get that in writing?” Matty asks.

I raise my eyes to the ceiling. “You two are the actual worst.”

“We’re just looking out for you, babe,” Heather tells me. “Well, that, and we don’t want to have to listen to you pine after

him again. Months and months of this very sad, very self-indulgent obsession—honestly, Jacob, you should probably run away

while you still can—”

“Ha, ha,” I say flatly. The tips of my ears are hot.

Jacob squeezes my thigh under the table. “I can’t imagine Travis obsessing,” he says. “Are you sure it wasn’t someone else?”

He looks over at Matty. “Didn’t you chase after a contract with Crosswire for, like, twenty years?”

There’s a sputtering noise. Erin’s snorted into her wine.

“He totally did,” she says, laughing.

“Uh, it was two years, fuck you very much,” Matty retorts. “See, Jacob, I knew I didn’t like you. Travis, break up with him

immediately. Go on.”

Everyone’s laughing, and Jacob’s hand is still on my leg. Heather shoots me a little wink across the table. The atmosphere

is much more relaxed, now.

Talk turns to everyone’s jobs—Erin’s got a photoshoot coming up in Alaska, and Hunter tells a funny story about one of his

coworkers. Matty asks Jacob how things at Crosswire are going, and Jacob tells us a bit about the testing they’re putting

him through.

“You’re all good from the crash now, though, yeah?” Hunter asks.

“Mostly, yeah. My hip gets kind of sore sometimes where I broke it, but it’s nothing major.”

“Physio must’ve been a bitch,” Matty says. “I had trigger finger last year, and the physio was a nightmare.”

“Yeah, his accident was exactly the same as your trigger finger,” Heather says, rolling her eyes.

“It was kind of brutal, yeah,” Jacob says.

Hunter takes a sip of wine. “Heather said you were living with your parents in the States?”

“Uh—yeah.” Jacob’s smile looks a little forced.

“They must be excited about your fancy new F1 job,” Erin says.

Jacob tears a piece of pizza crust in two. “Maybe,” he says. “I’m... not really talking to them right now.”

I look at him. I haven’t heard this yet. He hinted at how awful living with his parents was, but we didn’t talk about how

they left things.

“Why’s that?” Heather asks.

Jacob hesitates a moment, looking around the table.

“Circle of trust here, babe,” Heather says. “Nothing leaves the island.”

He clears his throat. “It’s not a big deal. They just aren’t okay with the whole”—he waves a hand between me and him—“dating

thing.”

“Oh yeah,” Matty says. “Travis told me they were being little shits at the hospital.”

I glare at Matty. “I didn’t use those exact words.”

“Didn’t have to,” he retorts.

“It’s fine,” Jacob says. “It’s not wrong.”

I can hear the tension in his voice. “Did something happen?” I ask.

Jacob glances at the others again. “Ah—sort of.” He lowers his voice a bit. “You know how you went to my house?”

“We all know about that,” Matty says.

“I packed his suitcase,” Heather adds cheerfully.

Jacob manages a tiny smile. “Yeah, well, my mother didn’t even tell me you were there. The neighborhood kids told me, and

when I confronted her about it... it got kind of ugly.”

“Shit.” My stomach tenses. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jacob says. “They... aren’t very good people.”

“They’re your parents, though,” I say.

“Yeah, but does that mean I have to pretend all the shitty stuff they say is okay?” He lets out a humorless breath. “My dad

said dating you would turn me into a laughingstock.”

“Oh, hell no,” Heather says.

“Fuck that asshole,” Matty adds. “Seriously, that’s total bullshit. If you and Travis ever go public, there will be, like,

a hundred million girls falling all over both of you. And a hundred million gay guys. And at least fifty million bisexual

guys. Or are there more bisexual guys than gay guys? Hang on, let me Google it real quick.”

“I know it’s bullshit,” Jacob says.

“It still sucks, though,” I say, watching him closely. “You were always so close with your family.”

Jacob shrugs. “Was I, though? I feel like they were only happy with me because I never shared any of my actual feelings with

them. Like, as long as I acted like this perfect cardboard cutout of a good son, they felt like we were one big happy family.

I don’t think they ever really knew me at all.”

“Hear, hear,” Erin says, raising her wine glass. “Matty has amazing parents, so he has no idea what you’re talking about, but trust me, I get it. If they don’t like you for you, you shouldn’t feel guilty for not wanting them to be a part of your life.”

“I don’t feel guilty,” Jacob admits. “Like, I know I probably should, but... I don’t know. I mostly just feel relieved.”

“I get it,” Erin says again. “You and I should really have a bottle of wine sometime. I feel like we would get along.”

“It’s fifty-fifty,” Matty announces suddenly, looking up from his phone. “At least according to this study. Although, I feel

like these statistics are kind of nonsense, because if you’re in the closet, you’re not exactly going to tell some random

survey person that you’re gay, right?” He frowns. “Although maybe if they tell you it’s anonymous, or if it’s, like, a secret

internet survey poll—”

“Put some more pizza in your mouth, Matty,” Heather says. “Stop the words from coming out.”

Matty tosses a chunk of pizza crust at her. “For real, though, that sucks about your parents,” he tells Jacob. “If you ever

want to borrow mine, just let me know. They love other people’s children. They’ve already adopted Erin and Travis, but I’m

sure they’d love a third child.”

Jacob chuckles. “I’ll remember that.”

Erin asks everyone if they want more drinks, and the conversation turns to something else. I lean closer to Jacob and touch

his hand under the table.

“I’m really sorry,” I say quietly. “I didn’t mean to mess everything up with your family.”

“You didn’t,” he says. “It’s their issue.”

I squeeze his hand once, and he presses his shoulder against mine.

He stays like that until we all get up and migrate to the living room, where we sit and chat awhile longer.

Jacob and Matty get into a passionate and extremely boring discussion about track limits at the Austrian GP (they’re both shocked I don’t have a strong opinion on the subject), Hunter tells me about the great new guy Thomas is dating, which makes me feel a lot better about that situation, and Erin shows me some pictures she took in Canada for some nature magazine.

Everyone takes Jacob’s cell phone number before we leave, and Heather says she’ll text us all to set something up again soon.

Jacob is quiet as we walk back to my car. He didn’t drink anything except the old-fashioned Heather made him, but he’s got

a jittery, nervous sort of energy about him.

“Was that alright?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “It was fun.” He hesitates a moment, then adds, “Do you think your friends like me?”

I grin. “I do.”

He lets out a little breath, and some of the tension slips from his frame. “Good,” he says, as we reach the car. He clears

his throat and adds, “Kelsie will like you, too. She thinks you’re super hot, which is a good start.”

I laugh and pull open the driver’s-side door. “That is a good start.”

Jacob gets into the passenger seat beside me. There’s a beat of silence, then he says, “I’m meeting up with my friend Nate

next weekend, too. You could come with me if you want.”

I go still, just for a moment. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. I think you’d like him. And he’s bringing his fiancée, so.” He leaves the sentence unfinished.

“So... you want me to come as a friend?” I ask, carefully.

He looks away from me to fiddle with his seatbelt. “I guess. Or you could just come as my boyfriend.” He clears his throat

again. “I mean, if you wanted to. I know we haven’t really talked about it.”

He gives me a small, slightly nervous smile, and a rush of fondness swells up in my chest.

I wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling this way.

I don’t think so. He’s as firmly rooted in my heart as he was that first week in Scotland.

And as awful as I felt sometimes during the past ten months, I can’t bring myself to regret it.

It brought me my own family, Heather and Matty and Hunter and Matty’s parents and Mrs. Costa.

And it brought me this new version of Jacob, who’s exactly like the boy I already loved but with all the layers of uncertainty stripped away.

He said that he’s in this, a hundred percent, and I believe him.

I lean over the handbrake to kiss him.

“Your boyfriend,” I agree.