Page 13 of Bloom

He drapes his arm around my shoulders. “I want to hear more about this ex-boyfriend of yours,” he says.

The whole thing with Ryan, surprisingly, doesn’t hurt, and I really thought it would. We dated the entire year, and though I initiated the break-up, it was his douchebaggery that precipitated it. We’d been good together, but not perfect. “What do you want to hear?”

“Just what he did wrong,” he says. “So I know what not to mess up when we’re a couple.” He throws up his hands in response to James’s raised brow. “I’m kidding. But seriously, what did he do? So I’ll know once we’re a couple.”

“We had different thoughts on fidelity,” I reply.

“Oh my God,” Max cackles. “He cheated on you? What a moron.”

“I like how you emphasize the word ‘you’” scoffs Ginny. “Like it’s okay to cheat, but not on a girl who’s hot.”

“He didn’t cheat on me,” I reply. “But it was clear that a summer apart was going to be an issue.”

“So he couldn’t go for one summer without it, and lost you because of it,” concludes Max.

Ginny snorts. “Right, like you could? You wouldn’t even make it a week.”

“I could for the right girl, Gin Gin,” he purrs. “Why don’t you dump that tool you’re dating and find out?”

She rolls her eyes. “Please.”

“Oh, what’s that?” asks Max, holding a hand to his ear. “Did you fail to write me into your 10-year plan? I think you might have forgotten the following bullet point: ‘sexual awakening that occurs once I suspect my high school boyfriend sucks in bed’.”

James just laughs. His eyes are softer, almost liquid, in the moonlight. Sprawled out in the chair he’s too big for, an easy smile on his face. It’s impossible not to be drawn to him in moments like this.

Ginny and Max are consumed by their bickering, which I get the sense they both secretly enjoy.

“They’re going to do this all summer, aren’t they?” I ask James.

“Yep,” he sighs. “Makes that internship in Boston look a little more appealing.”

“You don’t mean that,” I smile.

“No,” he says. “Nothing could be worth working there again.”

“Why did you hate it so much?” I ask.

“I just didn’t care about the work,” he says. “I don’t want to give up my whole life to helping some rich-ass company delve into the tax implications of moving their headquarters. I want it to mean more than that.” There’s unhappiness in his voice, though, as if he can’t stand fully behind his position.

“But that doesn’t rule out law as a career.”

He sighs. “It probably rules out making money at it, though.”

“You can room with Max,” I tease.

He grins at me. “Don’t think I won’t kick your chair over just because you’re a girl.”

I laugh hard, and in the moment being with him feels right, and easy, and slightly miraculous, as if I’ve finally lined up all the notches and ended up in the perfect place.

Except nothing is perfect, because tomorrow he’ll become that other version of himself. Terse and tense. While I don’t want these moments between us to ever end, it’s as if he’s hell-bent on making sure they do.

Chapter 9

I work the lunch shift and am sitting downstairs in my uniform afterward when Max comes home.

“See?” he says approvingly. “Feels like a second skin now, huh?”

“It’s tight as one anyway,” I laugh. In spite of his constant references to dating me (well, actually “dating” is a somewhat unspecific term for what he references), he is harmless. We have an easy back-and-forth, a kind of Luke-and-Leia vibe that could never be more than friendship. “I can’t change. Ginny’s video chatting with Alex in the room.” It seems like every time I go up there she’s talking to either Alex or Allison.