“Lord of the Rings.”
I made a face.
“What?”
“It’s just so long. And all the songs?” I made a gagging sound in my throat. “I gave up.”
Adam came to an abrupt halt. “Wait, you haven’t read Lord of the Rings?”
“I started to read Lord of the Rings and decided I would rather do literally anything else. Okay, you look like I just kicked you in the nuts.” He was pale, even for him. “Oh, come on. I saw the movies, okay? Apart from Peter Jackson’s penchant for endless close-ups, I liked them.”
“The movies are great, but they’re nothing compared to the books.”
“Well, I didn’t like them.”
“You said you started and gave up. When did you stop? Was it before Return of the King?”
I gave him a blank expression, in response to which he growled a little.
“The third book.”
I would have laughed if he wasn’t being so serious. “More like the third chapter of the first book.”
That kicked-in-the-nuts expression was back on his face. To his credit, he recovered quickly and started walking again. “I’m bringing you my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring next weekend. We’ll find somewhere quiet and I will read more than the opening chapters to you.”
There was so much determination in his voice that I didn’t argue with him. I liked the idea of listening to his voice for a few hours. Even if he was going to be talking about elves and wizards. “You know, I’m afraid to ask you what your favorite movie is. We almost just killed our friendship over a book about trolls.”
“I know you know they’re called hobbits. But yeah, I’m never telling you my favorite movie.”
I bit back a smile.
We walked for a little while after that, frowning at passing cars that weren’t ours. “Oh, I got one. Do you have a girlfriend?” As I predicted, the question made Adam blush. But his answer shocked me.
“Yeah.”
My entire body flash froze in place, even my heart stopped beating. “You do?”
He stopped, too, and his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “Yeah. Is that weird for you?”
“No.” It totally was. My heart started up again, but it was beating too fast, too hard. “You never acted like you had a girlfriend.”
Adam swallowed again but he was clearly trying to act like our relationship hadn’t just undergone a huge, monumental shift, which my hammering heart insisted it had. “How does someone with a girlfriend act?”
“I don’t know.” We were walking again, my limbs moving jerkily as I tried to hide how unsteady the ground suddenly felt to me. I trailed behind him and stepped into the footprints he left behind, aware of how much bigger his feet were. “Does she know about me? That we hang out for seventy-two straight hours twice a month?”
“We only just got together. She knows I visit my dad, but I haven’t specifically mentioned you. It’s, um, Erica, the girl I’ve been working on that school project with.”
I remembered our odd text conversation when he told me about her. He’d been weird, and then he’d left me hanging. I thought he’d been excited about doing homework, but it had been about seeing her. I shivered, and my lungs hurt when I breathed deep. “It’s going to be weird now.”
“Only if you make it weird, weirdo.” He tried to bump my elbow with his but I surged ahead, letting my feet break the snow first.
I was being weird, but I couldn’t help it. My insides didn’t know what to do with this decidedly unwelcome information. “No, it’s going to happen. You’ll tell her about this amazing girl you spend your weekends with, and she’ll get jealous, and you’ll end up having to choose between us and of course you’ll choose the girl who kisses you over the one who stuffs snow down the back of your jeans.” Adam had no clue that I was spiraling and not just playing up the drama for effect. I mean, I was a little, but my heart still felt inexplicably wounded.
“That is her best and your worst selling point.”
My stomach sank at the thought of him kissing her. “What was her name again?”
“Erica.”
“Erica. When you tell her about me, tell her I hate her.” I turned, walking backward in front of him. “Not her specifically, just what she represents.”
Adam laughed. “I’m sure she won’t care.”
“And I’m now sure you’ve never had a girlfriend before.” She was absolutely going to care. Adam wasn’t even my boyfriend, and I felt a choking jealousy for this girl who got to claim the parts of him I’d never really thought about. And now, suddenly, it was all I could think about. “Hey, what about our pictures? Does your mom know about Erica?” I stopped walking again, this new thought stampeding over the rest. “Now you’ve got me thinking not-nice things about your mom. We sent her a picture of us yesterday!”
It was really cute, too. We’d set the timer, then hung upside down off my couch so that our heads were inches from the floor and our legs were bent over the backrest. And he was ruining it. I couldn’t get my eyelids to close, and my pulse had to be scarily high based on how twitchy I felt.
Adam was in chest-poking range, so I poked him. “Is your mom fine with you having girlfriends at every port?”
“Hey, ow. You have a really bony finger.”
I kept poking him. “Answer the question.”
“No, she doesn’t know about Erica. Now quit it.” He stepped away; otherwise, I’d have kept on poking him. It was either that or hit him. And I couldn’t do that, because he hadn’t done anything wrong. Not technically. I hated technically.
“So you lie to all the women in your life?” I was sort of playing with him, but sort of not. He usually enjoyed my dramatics, and I was feeling particularly inspired. What choice did I have?
“No, but I’m going to now. Hey, did I tell you about the girlfriend I don’t have?”
I let out a breath that sounded wounded when I meant it to sound insulted.
“Look who’s the sensitive one now. Why are you making a big deal out of this?”
“I’m not.” I was. How could he not see that it was a big deal? Wasn’t it big to him, too?
“For all I know, you have a boyfriend.” His voice sounded ever so slightly off when he said that, and his gaze shot to my face as though he was searching for a reaction before I answered. That made my stomach twist tighter.
“I would have told you. I would have said something like ‘Hey, Adam, I know we don’t kiss or anything, but I have a guy that I kiss now.’”