Man of My Dreams(12)

“Yes. Tonight I’m all yours. What do you want to do?”

Uh, oh. I know that look. I’m not sure I’m ready for her suggestion. “Think Friday night, two years ago.”

I know she can’t be talking about laser tag, so she can only mean The Room, the place where every high school junior or senior went on a Friday night. The Room looked like an old comfortable basement. Cushy couches, ping pong and pool tables, and even a bunch of televisions set up with different gaming consoles. Back then we all thought it was an ingenious idea, but now it seems kind of…childish. Truth is we’re stuck right in the middle of too old and too young. Too old for Nintendo and Sega, but too young for alcohol and clubbing.

“Really, Grace? The Room? Don’t you think we’re too old for that now?”

Grace lowers her chin to her chest, pouting. “I thought it would be fun. Who knows who we’ll run into. That is if the whole entire teenage population isn’t away like we should be. But maybe you’re right. You have any better suggestions?”

I feel bad for knocking down her idea. I know she misses me. I miss her too and it wouldn’t kill me to spend a nostalgic night with my best friend to make her happy and secure in our friendship. Tomorrow she’ll meet Declan for the first time and then she’ll be playing third wheel. She needs this time with me.

“The Room it is,” I wink, grabbing a dirty t-shirt from her hand. “I have kind of missed that place.”

Grace’s eyes light up and she pulls me in for a tight squeeze. When she releases me, she plops back down on the bed, smoothing her hand over the vinyl lettering on my university sweatshirt. “You know, Mia, I never imagined it this way. I just thought the two of us would go off to London or Greece, study a little, party a lot and meet some gorgeous Europeans with sexy accents who would sweep us off our feet and out of this small town for good. But I’m stuck here at community college and you’re off, spreading your wings, two hours away. I’m so happy you love school and that you’ve found Declan, but…I miss my best friend.”

I pull my sweatshirt out of her discerning grip and toss it in the hamper. She doesn’t need the reminder of our distance in her face. “I miss you too, Grace. But nothing or no one is ever going to come between us. I’m not going anywhere. In fact, Declan didn’t grow up far from here. If we do wind up together our lives will be here and everything will go back to normal. I promise, chicky. Best friends for life.”

Grace smiles, erasing any earlier doubts. “You’re the bomb diggity bomb, Mia. And I like you…I like you a lot.” Goddamn Dumb and Dumber. Isn’t it supposed to be a guy’s favorite movie, not my girly best friend’s?





The Room is exactly the way we left it. The woodsy smell of brick oven pizza, the musty basement air, the lava lamps illuminating the acne scarred teenagers trying to score a hook-up. And they all look so young. How could two years make such a major difference?

We find an empty couch over in the corner by the cliché of a jukebox. Grace rummages through her bag and pulls out a beaded change purse, jingling its contents for me.

“What’ll it be? The Fugees or Ace of Base?”

“Oh God, Grace. Anything but Ace of Base.”

She laughs, probably remembering a time when The Sign played on repeat for an entire weekend. We’d made up a ridiculous dance with props and everything. She wore a pair of white go-go looking boots and a pleather pink trench coat while singing into a hairbrush. The memory makes me shake my head, relieved that we’ve grown up a little.

I watch her tiny frame, lit up by the orange and pink lights of the jukebox, wondering what she decided on. As she walks back over, Matchbox Twenty’s familiar opening to 3 A.M. rushes through the machine. It brings me back to waiting on lines for concert tickets and memorizing song lyrics from the inside of the CD jacket cover, all by the light of the moon.

I walk up to the bar to grab two root beers and that’s when I think my eyes are playing tricks on me. I bring my fists up to rub them, like a cartoon character, expecting to hear a squeaky sound to accompany the motion. This can’t be right. Of all the places, of all the times…Noah Matheson walks through the doors of this dingy hangout.

I silently pray that my body language doesn’t betray me, or my boyfriend, right now. But seeing Noah causes a million unfulfilled memories to flutter through me like teeny tiny sparks of wistfulness. I lower my gaze and search over my shoulder for Grace. Maybe there’s a chance for us to jet out of here before he sees us and I resort to the same old pathetic obsessing. I want to trust myself, or the sensible part of me that is committed to Declan. But holy heart failure Batman, it’s Noah Matheson! I never got closure. Hell, I never got an opening! This is absurd. I’m not a lovesick girl anymore. I’m a twenty year old woman in love. There’s a difference. And what I have with Declan is the real thing. The crush I had for Noah, whatever I thought I felt for him is—