“Why don’t you come with us?”
I froze.
The invitation wasn’t shocking in and of itself. It was the person who’d made it.
Adam’s dad.
Somehow that made my eyes sting more. I rapidly blinked the sensation away before turning to face them.
“What?” Jeremy’s reaction was the one I’d been expecting. He stared at his dad looking somewhat put out. I’d also been prepared for the shocked way Adam’s mouth fell open. But their dad... I knew he’d invited me only to try to get Adam to thaw toward him, but I couldn’t understand why he was looking at me. Worse, the smile on his face, the one that was nearly identical to Adam’s a moment before, was focused directly on me without so much as a glance at the audience he had to have been playing for.
“Sure. You gotta eat, right? I know a good cheesesteak place around the corner. And I like to try to get to know the people who are important to my sons.”
I blinked. “I—”
“See, Dad,” Jeremy said. “She’s not hungry.”
I really didn’t like Adam’s brother, but I was grateful for his presence and general turdness that day. It was familiar and normal, and I clung to it.
“If you mean Sonny’s, I’m in.”
Jeremy groaned and his dad laughed. Adam still hadn’t closed his mouth.
Jeremy brushed past all of us, checking his brother in the shoulder. They exchanged a look that seemed to communicate volumes. “Whatever. Whoever is going, let’s go.”
We all went.
“How uncomfortable should I expect this to be?” I asked Adam as we trailed behind in the hallway. “Jeremy’s always been super subtle, but I have picked up on the fact that he might not love having me around.”
Instead of laughing like I’d wanted, Adam locked his jaw. “If he pulls any more of that tonight, I’ll shove his cheesesteak down his throat.”
I clasped my hands under my chin. “My hero.” Then I pulled a face and shoved Adam ahead of me.
Halfway down, we ran into Guy. I smiled, getting ready to introduce him and Adam even if that meant giving Adam a massively abridged version of the events surrounding how I’d met Guy. But then Guy did something weird—or, maybe not weird, just unexpected. He completely ignored me.
My smile slipped, making me feel embarrassed that it had ever been there at all.
“Hey, Paul. How’s it going?” Guy said to Adam’s dad.
“Good. Just heading out to dinner. You haven’t met my sons. This is Jeremy and Adam. And this is Adam’s friend Jolene. Everyone, this is Guy from across the hall. Adam, Guy is the film critic I was telling you about.”
Adam brightened. “That’s so cool. Jolene is really into movies, too.” He glanced at me as if expecting me to take over the conversation, but before I could say anything, Guy gave us each a dismissive nod, acted like he’d never met me before, and turned back to Adam’s dad. “Hey, did I hear you’re getting the elevator fixed this month?”
They went on like that for several minutes, having a totally normal conversation about totally normal things. There wasn’t a single thing wrong with what they said, but each word jostled nauseatingly in my stomach.
Seeing Guy talking to Adam’s dad like they were friends—peers—was super weird. He shouldn’t be friends with my friend’s dad, but watching him in that stairwell made it obvious that he was. Which in turn made it very obvious that we weren’t friends, no matter what I’d thought the other night.
We’d spent my sixteenth birthday together, eaten a carton of ice cream, then shared a Hawaiian pizza, and talked about movies. Guy had written reviews for tons of magazines and websites. I hadn’t worked up to mentioning the film program or asking him to write a letter of recommendation for my application, but he’d been cool on the whole and hadn’t peppered me with invasive questions about why I’d been crying when he found me. I’d thought we’d had fun, and considering how not fun my birthday had started, that was saying something.
It wasn’t like I’d been down in the lobby waiting for a glimpse of him like I did with Adam or anything, but a smile? An acknowledgment of any kind that we weren’t perfect strangers? I’d kind of expected that.
His ignoring me just felt off.
Jeremy settled against the wall and crossed his arms, impatience clear on his face.
“One of yours is ready to eat,” Guy said, nodding at Jeremy. “Looks like you’ve got your hands full with all these kids, so I’ll leave you to it.”
Guy didn’t glance at me at all, and when Adam asked me why I hadn’t said more to Guy considering he was the film critic I’d been wanting to meet for months, all I did was shrug.
ADAM
The cheesesteak place was small, but fortunately not packed. We ordered, then claimed one of the round tables in the corner. The place smelled enticingly like roasted meat, and my mouth was watering before I could unwrap my cheesesteak.
I watched Dad as he asked Jolene a few polite questions. I knew he wanted to show me that he cared about what I cared about, that he was trying. It was kind of working. Ever since I’d found out that he had in fact been trying with Mom, at least a little, it had become harder to keep my anger focused on him alone.
Plus, I liked seeing him with Jolene. I liked seeing him talk to her, show her that another person was interested in what she had to say even when her answers were...blunt.
“You know, I don’t think I’ve met your dad yet. What does he do?”
“Commercial real estate.”
“Oh.” Dad let his voice convey that he was impressed. “Guess that’s why we don’t see much of him.”
Jolene opened her mouth, but I pressed my foot down on top of hers to get her attention and subtly shook my head. Jolene didn’t understand that my dad was the kind of dad who wouldn’t be able to hear that she hadn’t seen her dad in months and not do something about it. He’d get involved, and neither of us would thank him for the outcome.
“And what does your mom do?”
“Alimony,” Jolene said, then caught my pained expression and gave me a what-did-I-say look before adding, “I mean, I guess she’s a stay-at-home mom?”
“That’s kind of like every job at once.”
“Ah,” Jolene said with a touch more sarcasm than I thought was necessary.
“She must miss you a lot when you’re over here.”
Jolene choked on her soda. “Yeah. Probably why she spends so much time at the gym. Sometimes I think she’d live there if she could. Her goal this year is to get her body fat down to 21 percent.”