“I have no time for this shit. I need advice.”
“Advice?” Kate asks, walking over, a glass and a bar towel in her hand as she dries it.
“Zander. He just came to my house. He wants to go on a fucking road trip.”
“I’m sorry, what?!” Sadie says in a shriek, forcing eyes our way.
“Sadie, shut up!” Jordan says.
I love Jordan.
She wasn’t around when I was in love with Zander as a kid, but she is a girls’ girl through and through and can always read a room.
“What?!” Sadie repeats, quieter this time. “Why?”
“Because when we were kids, I told him he had to take me on road trip when he got his license.” Eyes go wide.
“How old were you?” Kate asks.
“Twelve.”
“And he still remembers that?” Hannah questions, shocked. I sigh, frustrated.
I have no time to figure out these tiny details.
“I guess. I have no idea, but I’m freaking the fuck out. We’re leaving tonight.”
“No fucking way,” Hannah whispers. I nod.
“You’re going, right?” Luna asks, and I look at her, slightly confused.
She should be confused.
Or shocked.
Or anything but . . . cautiously optimistic.
“I mean. He told me I was too Type A to want to go—”
“Valid,” Kate says, and I glare at her.
She smiles.
My friends suck.
But I don’t have time to bring up just how uptight she was before she settled back in town and got with Dean.
“So, I said yes because I was kind of offended. Still, I figured, you know. I have a week to try and be more fun, to live life a little less . . . safe before I start any new job.”
“You mean boring,” Sadie says.
“You’ve been perpetually single since you were twenty. You wanna dig into that one?” Hannah asks with a raised eyebrow.
“We don’t have time to talk about both of our trauma!” I say in a quiet whisper. “Zander is taking me on a fucking road trip for no reason right now!”
“What if there is a reason?” Luna asks, keeping her eyes away from mine.
What does she know?
“What on Earth could the reason be?”
“You are single . . . ,” she says.
“And how would he know that, Luna?” I ask, and her cheeks go pink.
“I mean, your dad works with him. He could have mentioned it. Or Tony. Tony has a huge mouth.”
Tony does not have a huge mouth.
I glare.
“Did you do this?” I ask, and she instantly gets a stern look, shaking her head
“No, this is all Zee, promise.” She lifts a pinky in one half of a pinky promise, but I don't have to complete it—we made the rule that even implying a pinky promise is legally binding as kids.
Silence covers our group.
“What do I do?”
“Well, you go,” Sadie says, taking a sip of her drink. “Duh.”
“Well, yeah. I can’t back out now. But like . . . what do I do.”
Luna stares at me and her eyes go soft.
“You don’t play it safe, Zoe.” I know what she means. She was there for my mental breakdown, after all. “Remember what we were talking about, Zo.”
“I have a job interview in a week.”
“Zee knows?”
I nod. “He said he’d have me home before that.”
“Then you go. You go and you live life. Let it be . . . your taste of freedom. What it would be like without the confines you’ve set up for yourself, A time to be . . . you. Or figure out which version of you makes you happy.
“I don’t have versions of me.”
Jordan chokes on her drink and we all look at her as she coughs, a finger in the air telling us she has some kind of commentary.
“Look, as someone who has been multiple people for the cameras and then another person behind them, you so do have multiple versions of yourself. Sorry, babe.” My gut drops.
Have I been this obvious all along?
“But you need to find the version that makes you happy, Zoe.”
Having good friends really, really sucks.
“Trying out versions of you while you’re young is normal. Trying to balance who you were as a kid, who you’re going to be in the future, who your parents want you to be? It’s a process. But eventually, you’re supposed to land on a version that you can be happy with. You’re not supposed to settle on the version that you think will be the most impressive,” Luna says, and I bite my lip.
She knows me too freaking well.
She also knows me well enough to turn her serious face into a smile and nod like the conversation is already over.
“Alright, let’s get you a shot for the road,” Luna says with a wink, seeing the anxiety on my face undoubtedly.
And with that, I circle back to loving having good friends.
NINE
NEW YEAR’S DAY
-ZOE-
We leave the bar at eleven and after two more shots. Zander stayed away from where I stood with the girls, didn’t drink anything but water, and never once asked what I needed when I walked out empty-handed.
And barely even thirty minutes into the drive, I start to feel that sleepy haze take over me.
I’ve always been a car sleeper, and my normally regimented routine means I’m usually in bed by nine, asleep by ten at the latest.
I’ve always been a morning person, up with the sun and ready to accomplish my task for the day once I roll out of bed.
God, how did I never notice how regimented and boring my days were?
I shake my head, trying to knock out my overthinking and the exhaustion that’s slowly consuming me.
“I’m so tired,” I say with a yawn. “Should we stop? Or maybe we should go back and start tomorrow.” Zee laughs and shakes his head.
“Not a chance we’re turning back until we have to,” he says.
I didn’t think he’d go for that.
In fact, I don’t think anyone could ever talk Zander out of anything when he has an idea in his head.
“We should stop. Get coffee or energy drinks or something.”
“We will eventually. Taking the long way, I’m sure we’ll find some places. But you sleep,” he says, his voice soft.
Soothing.
“What?”
“You sleep. I’ll drive.” I shake my head in the negative.
“That’s not fair, Zee. That’s not how road trips work.”
“They do when I’m driving.”
“You’re driving my Jeep, though,” I say, feeling myself getting unintentionally self-righteous. He smiles, reaching over and grabbing my hand.
God.
I like that.
His hand in mine.
He squeezes it, once, twice, three times.
A reassurance of sorts.
“I work nights, babe. It’s all good. You think I’d put you in any kind of danger?” I look at him and know the answer, of course.
“No, you wouldn’t want to deal with my dad if something happened to me.”
He looks at me, staring for a long moment despite the moving car.