Jason looked thoroughly amused at my distress and allowed himself to be led away.
Huffing, I turned to Josh, who was smiling after his insane wife.
“You know there’s no stopping her when she gets an idea,” he said.
“And what idea are we talking about, Josh?”
He took a swig of his beer. “I’m not telling you shit. I have to live with her.”
I stomped to the kitchen to make the damn potato salad. Ten minutes later, as I was moodily squeezing mayo into a bowl and chopping celery, Jason and Kristen reappeared, laughing and chatting like old friends.
Jason sat on one of the leather barstools, sliding his half-empty beer on the counter. I glared at Kristen, then gave Jason a long look, trying to figure out if we were still dating or if he’d decided against it after spending a few minutes alone with my best friend.
“Kristen was just telling me about the time you won Miss Canoga Park,” Jason said. “I didn’t know you’d done beauty pageants. Why didn’t you ever mention it?”
I stopped chopping and looked back and forth between them in disbelief. “This is what was on the tour? The scrapbooks didn’t come out? No sleepover photos of me in headgear?”
Jason’s eyes smiled as he lifted his beer to his lips.
Kristen scoffed dramatically. “Now why would I spoil those?” she said, cocking her head. “I’m saving them for the calendars I’m handing out at Christmas.”
Jason laughed so unexpectedly he had to put a hand under his chin to wipe up beer. I slid my eyes back to Kristen and narrowed them.
“What?” she said. “I showed him the pictures of us at Coachella three years ago.”
I stared at her. Seriously? The Coachella pictures? I was wearing a white macramé bikini with cutoff denim shorts and had flowers in my hair and I looked amazing.
Well, I’ll be damned. She was wingmanning me. Unbelievable.
“I played Coachella last year,” Jason said, still chuckling a little. “I wish you would have gone. I would have seen you from the stage. We could have met sooner.”
I snorted, scooping celery into the bowl. “There are like two hundred thousand people at Coachella. You wouldn’t have noticed me.”
He looked me in the eye. “I would notice you in a crowd of a million.”
He held my gaze and I could feel the weight of Kristen’s stare as she watched the two of us look at each other.
The sliding glass door opened and Josh popped his head inside. “Hey, Jason, want to help me with the grill?”
“Sure,” Jason said, flashing me a smile that said he remembered my prophecy of a grill-side interrogation, and he dutifully followed Josh outside.
“Have fun,” I said after him before he slid the door closed. He gave me a confident two-fingered salute and disappeared into the yard.
Kristen looked at me and mouthed, “Oh my God.”
“I know, right?”
“He is like seriously into you. I think he’s in love with you. I’m not even kidding. It’s all over his face. He’s whipped.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Have you had sex with him yet? Was it amazing? Tell me everything.”
I shook my head. “No, we haven’t had sex. But I slept at his place last night.”
He’d snuggled me so hard. He never let me go once. I actually started smiling down at the potato salad thinking about it.
He’d also put a pillow between us at one point. That made me smile too.
“So third-base stuff, then?” she asked.
“Actually, no. We haven’t done anything other than kissing.”
She looked at me like I had two heads. “You haven’t even touched his penis yet? Why?”
“Lower your voice!” I whispered, shooting a look at the door.
“I swear to God, if there isn’t penis touching in the very near future, this friendship is over. That’s what I want for my birthday gift.”
“For me to touch Jason’s penis?”
“Yes.”
“Darn. I got you some lotions from Bath & Body Works,” I said, turning out my lower lip in a mock pout.
The truth was, keeping my hands off him was getting harder and harder to do. The struggle was real. I didn’t even want to admit to myself how quickly I’d decided to go to Nordstrom’s lingerie department instead of Walmart to replace all the underwear Tucker chewed up. And I definitely didn’t want to own up to how much red I’d bought.
“I like him,” Kristen declared.
I went back to chopping celery. “I like him too.” Then I set my knife back down. “Kristen? I really like him. Like, a lot. Oh,” I said, remembering, “and he’s officially my boyfriend by the way.”
She reared back. “You have a boyfriend you’ve known less than a month? Wow. Does Jason know he’s making history here? How did he get you to agree to that?”
I narrowed my eyes. “There was a lot of wordsmithing. It was all very confusing.”
She grinned. “The flash-bang chaos campaign. My favorite. It’s how Josh got me to marry him.”
I snorted.
She picked up a piece of celery and waved it over my body. “Well, it works. You even look like a rock star’s girlfriend.”
I smiled. “I made him dinner last night. And breakfast this morning.”
Her eyes flew wide. “You did? You’re cooking again?”
“I am.” I wrinkled my nose. “I sort of have to or we’ll end up eating camping food every morning.”
She laughed and she looked genuinely happy.
I took a deep breath. “I’m trying, Kristen. I really am trying.”
Her eyes went soft. “Good. Keep doing it. And fall for him. And when you do, make sure you swing from every fucking branch on the way down.”
* * *
At dinner Jason reached under the table and laced his fingers in mine. I wondered what had happened outside. I hoped Josh’s questions hadn’t been too invasive. It appeared my boyfriend still liked me, but the night was young.
Kristen tossed me a small bag of Doritos and I opened it and poured them onto my plate. But when I went to flatten the bag, she scolded me. “Uh, uh, uh. That’s not how we do it.”
I glared at her.
She dumped her own bag and then turned it inside out on her hand like a foil mitten. She waved it at me, waiting for me to do the same.
Ugh.
“If Jason can take you at your best, he can take you at your bag of Doritos,” she said.
Josh snorted and went back to his corn on the cob. Jason eyed me and I let out a sigh. Technically Jason had never seen me at my best. Why start now, I guess, right?
I put my bag inside out on my hand and waited for Kristen to start. The least she could do was kick off the ridiculous practice. We’d been doing this since the sixth grade. It was kind of a tradition. When she began licking the bag, I started licking mine too.
“The inside of the bag’s the best part,” I said to Jason, lamely. “And it’s her birthday. I have to.”
He laughed and took my hand again, kissing it this time in front of everyone.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” Kristen said, holding up her bag hand like an idiot. “We have an activity tonight. Karaoke!” She looked back and forth between Jason and me with her “yay” face.