Jolene took it and raised an eyebrow. “The play your ex-girlfriend Erica is also in?”
“Trust me, she is completely over all that. Last night at dinner, she and Jeremy were—”
“She’s eating dinner at your house now?”
“Just a few times so far, but we’ve talked and we’re good. She’ll tell you the same thing if you come to the play. Will you?”
Jolene looked at the ticket without saying anything.
“I know it’s not the same as a whole weekend, but you could come for dinner and go to the play with my family.”
She bit her lip.
“Or, you don’t have to come to dinner if you don’t want. My mom will be crushed but she’ll understand.”
Jolene’s eyes were a little shiny. “What about you, will you be crushed?”
“Completely.” That made her laugh, though I wasn’t remotely kidding.
“I’m glad Jeremy went with you,” she said, referring to Guy. “It has to be a big-time brother bonding moment to beat up a sexual predator together, huh?”
She meant the comment lightly, but she wasn’t wrong. Things with Jeremy and me had changed that day for the better. I could actually see a future where we were friends as well as brothers. With an odd but not unpleasant ache in my heart, I knew Greg would have been happy to see our relationship shifting. “Yeah, I think so.” I glanced over at her. “I guess things are pretty different for you now, too?”
“You could say that.”
“But things are better with Shelly, right?”
“Actually, Shelly’s gone. I don’t think she even left my dad a note.” There was a touch of bitterness in her voice when she said that last word, but it was gone the next second, replaced by something that sounded almost sad but couldn’t have been, because she was talking about Shelly. “Anyway, she’s gone and, just like she predicted, my parents’ lawyers went for each other’s jugulars.”
“Who won?”
Jolene was gazing down the hall toward her dad’s apartment and frowning. “I guess I did.” She shook her head. “Or at least, neither of my parents did. My mom’s lawyers initially tried to go after my dad for negligence, but then his lawyers got Tom to divulge a bunch of stuff about my mom, and it ended in a stalemate. It would have all come down to Shelly, except when she left my dad, she promised not to help my mom, as long as he agreed to do three things for me.”
I mirrored Jolene’s earlier frown.
“Yeah, that was me for a straight week,” Jolene said, noting my expression. “I hated her for so long, you know? I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about her now, since she helped me when she could have so easily helped only herself. I’m still working through it.” Then she sighed and smiled at me. “Well, aren’t you going to ask me?”
My brain was tripping over that turn of events, but something about the way Jolene’s eyes were boring into me kicked the right question to my lips. “What did you ask for?”
“Just so you know, Shelly didn’t get me a blank check. I had to keep my requests within reason. The first thing was so much easier than it could have been, because Shelly’s mom found her for me before she left—”
“Who?”
Jolene grinned wide. “Someone has to stay with me at my dad’s, and since even he doesn’t rebound that quickly, I got him to hire Mrs. Cho. And he can’t fire her, no matter how many future girlfriends parade through the place.”
Then my smile came, easy and as full as hers. I caught her up in a hug that nearly tugged her into my lap.
Jolene made a fake grunting noise. “I think you’re almost happier than Mrs. Cho was.”
“Good,” I said, still not letting go. “She should be happy to get you back. She was, wasn’t she?”
“Yeah, she was. I guess you were right about my mom lying.” Jolene squeezed me tighter, strong enough that I almost didn’t have to fake a grunt. Then she released me suddenly and leaned back, cool as ever, a smile playing at her lips.
“Ready to hear about wish number two?”
“I’m still really happy about wish number one.”
Her smile grew. “It’s the money and the time away for the film program.”
“Jo—” My own smile started to spread but then dimmed. “What about the letter?”
Her smile slipped, but not all the way. “Venomous Squid wrote me one. It’s not the most cohesive recommendation letter since they traded off between paragraphs, but they talked about the music videos I made for them and basically credited all of their success to my artistic brilliance. Like, that’s an actual line from the letter.”
I grinned. “I still don’t love their music, but I’m totally buying their first album.”
“It was actually Cherry’s idea. We had a chance to talk when I dropped off the music video last week. It started off a little rough and we’re not 100 percent back to how things were but I’m starting to think we might get there.” Jolene drew her knees up and hugged them. “She broke it off with Meneik. She and Gabe have been talking a lot since my birthday. And her mom. And her dad. And her grandmother. And they got through to her.”
“And you,” I said, bumping her shoulder.
“And me,” she agreed. “I told her, not everything, not yet anyway, but she immediately thought of having the band write me a totally unconventional letter. It’ll have to be enough. It will be enough. And if it’s not, then I’ll find another film program, and another after that if I have to. I’m not giving up. Maybe I won’t win an Oscar by the time I’m twenty-five, but I’m going to make movies.”
“I know,” I said without missing a beat.
“You really believe that, don’t you?” She inhaled and exhaled, her smile returning in full force. “Are you ready to hear about wish number three? I got my Lexus back! Not the exact same one, obviously, but...” She dangled her keys up high in front of us. “And my mom can’t make him take this one back. My dad had to up her alimony to ensure that, but I don’t care. Anyway, if I’m going to have to drive half an hour to see you all the time, we can split the gas.”
“Fifteen minutes,” I said, finally throwing her off balance for once. I shifted to pull my wallet out and I held my brand-spanking-new driver’s license out to her.
“You got it!”
“Your complete shock is doing wonders for my self-esteem.”
Jolene pulled her own license out and had me mirror the way she was holding hers under her chin. Then she laid her head on my shoulder and mine dropped against hers as she lifted her camera out in front of us. “Okay, this is better.” I slid an arm around the small of her back and breathed in the subtle honeysuckle scent of her hair.