Page 13 of Never Not Friends

“I don’t know why you always say that.” He reaches over and curls a strand around his finger. “Your red hair is one of my favorite things about you.”

“You’re lying.” I shake my head in disbelief. “Every guy prefers blonde hair, like Juliet’s.”

“Not me. I mean, no offense to Juliet, but when I first saw you both walking down the hall at school, I didn’t even notice her.”

I scoff, clearly not believing his story. “Yeah, right. Juliet is like a Greek goddess.”

“It’s true. My eyes went straight to you. I thought you were the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.”

“Oh, really?” I laugh. “Then why did you start dating Maddie Aldroid one week later?”

“Because she asked me.”

“So if I had walked up to you out of the blue and asked you to be my boyfriend, you would’ve said yes?”

One side of his lips tips higher. “Isn’t that what happened in cooking class, Sugar Buns?”

“Hardly.” I grab my pillow and hit him with it.

He lets me get in a few blows before stealing the pillow and throwing it across the room. “Hey, don’t we need to party plan?”

I dramatically cross off emerald green from my list and move on to my next idea. “What if we have a bonfire and roast marshmallows?”

“Em, you’re not thinking big enough. This is our sixteenth birthday. It’s pivotal. We could rent out Big Surf, or let’s rent go-karts.”

“And who’s going to pay for that?”

He gives a bitter laugh that has nothing to do with me. “I should tell my dad to pay for it.” Vinny’s entire countenance changes. “Did I tell you he texted me the other day?”

I shake my head, scared to say anything that might make him stop talking. Vinny rarely opens up about his dad, but when he does, it’s only with me.

“The text was something short and stupid. Said he loved me.” Another sardonic puff of laughter. “Yeah, ‘cause dads who love their families always abandon them.” The sarcasm in his voice breaks my heart.

I squeeze his shoulder, not knowing what to say.

He looks up with a forced smile. “So we should put his money where his mouth is and rent some go-karts for our birthday party. They go, like, forty miles an hour.”

We both know his dad would never pay for that. One text every couple of weeks tells us everything we need to know, but instead of stating the obvious, I shoot his idea down another way.

“We’re barely getting our licenses. There’s no way my mom is going to agree to us and our friends driving go-karts recklessly around the cul-de-sac, especially Blair. My mom already thinks she’s too wild of a friend for me.”

“I forgot about your mom.” He flops backward across my bed.

“Since our birthdays are literally the same week, we need to come up with something we both want to do and that my mom will let us do.”

“We both know I’m just going to let you do whatever you want for the party.” He squeezes my leg.

I run my hand through his brown hair in response. “I want us both to choose. What other ideas do you have?”

“What if we rent sumo suits and do sumo wrestling?”

“That sounds intense.” I laugh.

“Laser tag?”

“No.”

“Paintball?”