Page 31

That time and distance changed him, and it changed me. Here was a man whom I used to know so intimately I knew him better than myself, and now he was little more than a familiar stranger.

We stood awkwardly until it became unbearable for Van.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you,” he said, beginning to put in his earbuds again. And I realized I’d have to start counting seagulls again or—

Maybe …

I spun around to Van. “Wanna get that ice cream?”

His eyes lit up. “Absolutely.”

So we dipped into the ice cream shop, where Van got his bacon-flavored one, and guessed that I’d still get my usual—pistachio. I was just surprised that he remembered. Then again, he was good at remembering little details. I’m sure that was what made him good at his job.

“Would you like a cup or a cone?” he asked, reaching for his wallet in his back pocket.

I shook my head. “Let me pay for it.”

“C’mon, my treat?”

“I invited you, it’s my bill!”

“Yes, but I invited you first,” he pointed out. “It’d be rude to make you pay.”

“Let him pay, bird. He’s trying to impress you.”

I didn’t quite believe that. He’s being nice.

“No, nice is holding the door for you. Which he did do. Impressing you is holding the door open and paying.”

“So, cup or cone?” Van asked, probably taking my silence for indecision rather than my secretly communicating with a pop star trying to talk my disastrous ass through an impromptu … what was this? A date ? No, just ice cream. That was all.

“Chocolate cone with two scoops of pistachio,” I replied, and so he repeated the order to the high schooler at the register, and then ordered himself the fabled bacon ice cream, though it surprised me that he took it in a cup. “Not a sprinkle cone?”

“Next time,” he said, and we left the shop. Without asking each other, we both turned toward the pier, because this path was well-worn. We’d walked it as friends in high school and sweethearts during college breaks.

The sun was bright today, not a cloud in the sky. Days like this made it feel impossible that there was a storm on the horizon.

“Okay, moment of truth,” Van said, taking a scoop of ice cream—they’d even sprinkled some actual crumbles of bacon on the top and drizzled it all with a healthy dose of maple syrup—and having a bite. His face lit up. “Oh man, excellent. Are you sure you don’t want to try?”

“I don’t have another spoon—”

“You can just use mine,” he supplied, offering it up.

I opened my mouth, and he fed me a bite. It was sweet and vanilla-y at first, then salty and maple covered and …

“Yeah?” he asked, excited.

“It’s meaty,” I said, not quite sure if I enjoyed it.

He laughed. “What a way with words.”

“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” I joked.

We gently strolled down the pier. This was strangely nice.

A little more comfortable than I thought it’d be.

I had forgotten just how tall Van was, especially after being around Sebastian.

Tall and clean-cut and handsome. The kind of guy you wanted to take home just to prove to your parents that you did make good decisions sometimes. Even when you really didn’t.

I used to imagine something like this—well, not this , but meeting him again when I was older and wiser and beautiful—so many times, I’d lost count.

And now I was here with him, and I wondered if I was any of those things.

“You are all those things, bird. Older, wiser, and beautiful.” Then, quieter, Sasha said, “I wish you could see yourself the way the rest of us do. The way I do.” There was something rough around the edges of those final words. Something a little too tightly wound.

Surprised, I glanced around, though I don’t know why I thought he’d be close by. When I left the Rev, he’d gone the other way. Said he wanted to find some Italian ice place he’d read about online. He wasn’t here. Not really.

“Is everything all right?” Van asked, glancing over at me.

“Sorry, yes,” I replied, pulling myself out of my thoughts. “It’s just—I’m not used to this.”

“It’s been a while since we’ve talked,” he agreed.

“Not just that. I’ve been working so much that I just haven’t had time for myself. To do anything fun—like go to concerts, or get ice cream, take a vacation … anything, really.”

He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Well, that makes two of us. This is my first vacation in years—and it’s to help my parents move.”

“Seriously? No world travel? No hiking the Appalachian Mountains? Skiing in Switzerland?”

“I work too much,” he replied with a shrug. “It’s always some sort of crunch time for a video game.”

That surprised me, somehow. And saddened me.

“How about you?” he added, taking another bite of his ice cream. He was almost done with his, and I had barely touched mine.

“No world travel. No hiking. No skiing. Just LA and here.”

“Mom said you come back every summer?”

I nodded. “Every summer.”

“Bet your parents love that.”

“They do.”

He finished off his ice cream, but kept tapping his spoon into the bottom, as if he was trying to dig for the right way to say something. Finally he settled on, “I heard about your mom. I’m sorry. Wyn was— is —one of the coolest people I know.”

“She is,” I agreed.

“If there’s anything I can do …”

I began to nibble at the edge of my cone, and then stopped. “I think I just don’t want to talk about it. If that’s okay?”

He nodded. “Yeah, no, I get it. That’s okay.

I can …” And he racked his brain. “Oh! I can tell you about my first apartment in Boston and all my roommates.” Wordlessly, he held out his hand to take my ice cream, sensing that I was done—and I was—so I gave it to him to throw in the next trash can that we passed.

“Oh no, how many roommates?”

“Over a hundred”—he replied with an expectant pause, his eyes glimmering in that boyish way they always did when he had a secret—“ rats. ”

For the next thirty minutes, Van and I chatted about his life in Boston and my life in LA, picking things up again like we hadn’t been separated by nine years, and that old and withered spark deep in my heart flickered to life like a long-lost friend.

It didn’t make me want to create, but it made me feel lighter all the same.

I liked the feeling of being in someone’s eye.

We walked to the end of the pier and back again, and by the time we were nearing the beach, I had gotten up enough courage to ask what he was doing the rest of the night, but just as I started to, he said, “Next time, we’ll have to do dinner.”

And the courage evaporated in my chest. “I—yes.” Was I too fast to reply? Did I sound too hopeful?

He smiled. “Great. Next week? Say, Wednesday night? The Rev is still closed on Wednesdays, right?”

“It is.”

“Cool. I’ll text you the details,” he said. Then he bent to me and pressed a kiss on my cheek. He smelled new—it was a cologne I didn’t recognize. “Until next week, Joni,” he murmured against my ear.

“See you,” I echoed, wondering if he was going to kiss me, if he’d taste like bacon ice cream, but he simply took off in a jog again, and I watched him dodge tourists down the boardwalk, running out of sight.

“And look at that,” Sasha said, his voice neutral and cool, “you got yourself a date. You look happy.”

I do?

“You’re smiling, at least.”

I was? I touched my mouth—I was. I hadn’t even realized. Wait, if Sebastian could see me, then did that mean—

I looked around the boardwalk, seeing only tourists and a magician setting up in front of a magic-themed bar, until my eyes settled on a man in a garish Hawaiian shirt with sunglasses sitting on a bench facing the beach, two empty Italian ice cups at his side.

I moved them to sit down beside him. “You’ve been busy. ”

He shrugged. “You were right about the shirt.”

“You’re welcome,” I replied smartly.

“And it’s comfortable, too. Maybe this is my new style. What do you think—could I land Sexiest Man Alive with it?” And he struck a hammed-up pose, cheeks sucked in, shoulders angled.

I laughed, and then tried to school my face into a serious nod. “Oh yes, absolutely.”

He snorted and relaxed back onto the bench. “I think we should take tomorrow off, bird.”

That surprised me. “Really?”

“Yeah.” He looked back out toward the beach. The sun was beginning to sink lower and lower in the late-afternoon sky. “I think it’ll do us good.” Then he grabbed his two cups as he stood and told me goodbye.

It was only after he was gone that I realized he had probably followed me to the boardwalk after I’d left so abruptly, and I wondered why.