“That’s right. You told me at homecoming as we waited in line for pics.”
I remembered it vividly. My braces had just come off and I’d traded glasses for contact lenses. Hollis had helped me with my hair and my makeup, and I’d felt more confident than I had in years. The crush I’d carefully nurtured, hidden away from Keane, could no longer be kept from him. So as we waited for photos, watching couple after couple posing the traditional, guy’s hand on the girl’s waist, I somehow thought that was the perfect time to come out and admit that I liked Keane as more than a friend.
To his credit, he’d handled it like a champ, letting me down gently with “I think you’re the prettiest girl, Navy.” I should’ve felt elated at that, except the follow-up ‘but’ was so audible that he didn’t even have to say it. “I think we’re good as friends. I don’t wanna mess us up.”
Thoroughly embarrassed, I’d given him my first metal-less grin and had nodded enthusiastically, making agreeing noises like it was the best idea on the planet. And when it was our time to pose, we did some half-hearted Charlie’s Angels pose instead of the couple pose.
“Pretty sure I still have that photo,” he said, adjusting to grab his wallet from his pocket.
“Oh, can’t wait to see those beautiful bangs of mine,” I said less than enthusiastic.
“Here.” He produced the wallet-sized photo; its corners bent and starting to peel. Keane’s too-big suit looked comical on him and my sky-blue and rhinestone embellished slip of a dress gave me instant flashbacks to my awkward years.
“Your bangs actually look good,” he said thoughtfully, turning his head to the side as he admired it. “But you look like you just smelled a bad fart.”
“It was probably from you,” I said, instead of stating the obvious: I’d just admitted to a years-long crush and had been shot down, how was I supposed to look?
“My charm needed refinement back then, so you’re probably right.”
As he tucked the photo back into his wallet, beside the other ones from the following homecomings and proms, a memory from that night flashed in my brain like it was lit by neon lights.
“Wonder where Tori is?” Keane had asked moments after the photographer had caught our photo. If my expression was somewhat sour during the actual photo-taking, I was sure it’d taken a complete downward turn at that.
“I dunno,” I remember replying glumly.
Keane, oblivious to my mood, had grabbed my hand and pulled me through the throngs of people until he found Tori, who grinned back at him and cracked a joke that he immediately laughed at. I then had snuck off to the bathroom with Hollis in tow, cried a few pathetic tears and repaired my makeup before joining our friend group. Keane was on the dance floor with Tori, slow dancing to the same song that he’d serenaded me with on the way to the dance in the backseat of his mom’s car—Bruno Mars’s Just the Way You Are. To say it stung was putting it lightly.
Keane had always been my dance partner. My number one. He’d hip-bumped me through every middle school dance, so beginning our first year of high school—and our first dance—without him as my partner made everything come to a halt in my brain. Between what I’d admitted and what was to come, I’d need to adjust my perception of the friendship. It wasn’t a friendship that would lead to romance. It wouldn’t lead anywhere.
But I could be his friend. I could do that. As long as I could get used to seeing him serenade people who weren’t me.
Tori was Hollis’s friend, so luckily I didn’t make any terribly mean comments about Tori the way I might have. Being an awkward fifteen and jealous brought out the worst in people, and I was no exception. Besides, it wasn’t like it was Tori’s fault that she was gorgeous and charismatic and the life of the party. Keane was those things too—then and now—so it was no surprise they had gravitated toward one another. Didn’t make it hurt any less.
Now, eight years later, the sting was nothing. Keane and I had the best friendship. He was there for me the way only he could be, and he’d been right—our paths would have forked in an irreparable way, and he wouldn’t be the friend to me he was now if we’d let romance cloud a good thing. I don’t think you ever really got over your first crush. But I’d accepted a long time ago that friends were what we were meant to be.
“Where’s your brain?” Keane asked, sliding back to his seat across from me. “You look faraway.”
“I feel faraway.”
“Guy trouble?”
“You could say that,” I replied after a moment. “But I don’t want to talk about that. I want to talk about what you’re doing with your windfall of cash. Please don’t tell me you’re spending it on hookers and hard drugs.”
He laughed. “Grandpa left us the land and just enough money to actually do something with it. Not enough to get us into big trouble, but enough for me to re-insulate the cabin, get some new appliances, fix the siding and roof. Mostly cosmetic shit. That’s all it needs.”
“I can’t wait to see what you do with it.” And I meant it. It was great seeing Keane excited about a project. Unlike the rest of our group of friends, he hadn’t gone to college right after high school. He’d gotten a job, worked hard three seasons out of the year in order to spend one season having fun. And now that he’d have the rental income from the cabin once it was fixed up, he might be able to pursue other things instead of working so damn hard for the bulk of the year. “I’m sure he’d be proud.”
“I hope so. I mean, it’s not done yet. But we’ll see what it becomes. And then, with whatever’s left in my bank account after the renovations—that’ll be allocated to my hookers and hard drugs fund.”
I yawned. Now that I was more relaxed, it was easy to think about bed. I studied the clock and debated calling it a night. As fun as Keane was, my bed beckoned.
5
KEANE
I knew if I didn’t change the venue, we’d eat our pizza and part ways, leaving Navy alone to grapple with whatever thoughts were causing such a pained look on her face.
“Hey, I know we both love Rhonda but let’s bounce.”
“Yeah,” she said, crumpling her napkin onto her plate. “I should probably go home and get some rest.”
“Nah. Come on. We are twenty-three years old. We’re not about to go home to bed this early on a Friday night.” I slid out of the booth and held my hand out for her. “We’re going dancing.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no.”
I popped my fingers in my ears. “I can’t hear you, sorry, let’s goooo.” I slid the rest of the pizza slices into a to-go box and trashed our plates. “Word on the street is that that new place, Bunny’s, is hoppin’.”
She groaned. “That’s a terrible pun. And what are you even talking about, calling it a ‘new place’? Our parents went there.”
“Shit.” I stopped in my tracks. “So, that makes it retro then. Like my hair.”
“Your hair was not retro. And Bunny’s is where you go when you’re looking for ass—old ass.”