Being Friends With Boys by Terra Elan McVoy Read Free Book Online Page A

want to hold on to this even more—the importance of tonight.
    Finally he breaks the hug, backing up a little. “Good luck tomorrow.”
    “Yeah. Could be a disaster. We’ll see.”
    “It’ll be great. Just make sure to tell me all about how bad they are. Deal?” His fingers point into a gun.
    I point mine back. “Deal. And, hey, thanks for tonight. It was really terrific.”
    “It was, wasn’t it?” His face is full of—something. But then it’s not. “Well, good night, Charlotte.”
    “Good night, Trip.”
    And though it’s chilly, and I need to go in, for some reason I don’t want tonight to be over. So I stand there in the yard, watching as he gets into the car, then pulls slowly from the curb and away down my street. I keep standing there another minute, until the warm-strong feeling of his hug dissipates from my shoulders. And only then do I go inside, humming, tucked safe in my pockets were my Hansel and Gretel crumbs .
     
    In the morning, the good feeling of my evening with Trip is replaced by overwhelming anxiety about auditions. Oliver’s nervousness when I finally get to his house isn’t reassuring, either.
    “Do you think we should have snacks or something?” he says as soon as he opens the door.
    “Don’t we usually?” I say, pushing past. “At least chips or something? Some cheese?” I drop my bag on the chaise by the front door and move into the kitchen, to his refrigerator, start pulling out half-empty containers of prepared foods that his mom gets from Alon’s and Whole Foods. There’s almost a whole platter of some kind of artichoke-covered toasts that will do fine, I think, and a thing of macaroni salad. In the freezer are some Trader Joe’s samosas I can heat up. But I also know, from experience, that we could just have a jar of peanut butter with a spoon in it.
    “They all respond?” Oliver wants to know. He’s pushing his hair back over and over. Am I supposed to notice his outfit or not? Because he does look cool in that sweater-vest and holey T-shirt, but maybe he doesn’t want to seem like he’s trying.
    “Every one.” I take out plates and serving spoons.
    “Cool.”
    I move him out of the way to get the paper cups from an upper cabinet.
    “It’ll be fine,” I say, though my hands are sweaty. “Gimme that bottle of Slice.”
    Just as he opens the refrigerator again, there are footsteps outside and we both look up. It’s like someone’s caught us at something.
    “You greet them,” I tell him, after he doesn’t move.
    “Right.”
    Watching him go, the feeling of new people washes through me. Getting up and going over to Oliver’s on a weekend is so automatic, I didn’t consider my outfit much today. And now I wish I had. At least a little. Because this isn’t going to be the normal gang. This is us trying to convince other people to be with us, and it’s stupid I didn’t think about it before. Now all I can do is smooth down my hair, tug the tails of my rumply button-down into some variation of straightness.
    But it’s just Abe coming in.
    “’Sup,” he says to me, taking one of the samosas before they go into the oven.
    I can relax, a little. “What’s up?”
    He shrugs. “Whatever, man. Last night a DJ saved my life.”
    “Okay.” I half laugh, half roll my eyes. You never know when Abe is serious or joking, or even what he really means. Except for when he is seriously serious, and then he’s so intense it’s almost frightening. But that doesn’t happen very often.
    Oliver rakes his hands up and down on his skinny, dark-jeaned thighs, looking things over in the kitchen.
    “Where were you and Whitney last night, man?” Abe asks him, reaching for another samosa and shoving it in his mouth.
    Oliver shrugs, awkward. “Had to cancel for some thing with my dad.”
    “Gotcha.”
    Abe and I swap glances. You can tell what Oliver’s not saying is that, because he forgot his dad’s event, Whitney had a huge fit and so tonight he’s going to