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Her mom considered that. “Theoretically, I guess,” she said after a moment. “Although I don’t think dating relationships are always better or closer than friendships, do you?”

Gabby shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said, starting to feel a little bit sorry she’d said anything to begin with. “I guess not.”

“And it sounds like what you’re saying is that you feel less close to him now that you guys are romantic.”

“Oh god!” Gabby flung herself backward on the bed, digging the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Is that what I’m saying? That can’t be what I’m saying. That’s what I’m saying, isn’t it.”

“It sounds a little like that’s what you’re saying, yeah.” Her mom peeled Gabby’s hands off her face, linked their fingers together. “And if it’s true, maybe you ought to ask yourself why that is.”

“What are you guys talking about?” That was Kristina in the doorway in a pair of ratty boxers and one of Gabby’s T-shirts, eyes big and curious behind her glasses. “How was the wedding?”

“I’m having a conversation with Gabby right now,” her mom said, but Gabby shook her head.

“It’s fine,” she said to Kristina. “You can come in.”

Kristina bounded up onto the bed between them, wriggling like a puppy angling to get petted. Gabby’s mom obliged, running her fingers through Kristina’s tangled hair. “I think the question you need to ask yourself, sweetheart,” she continued, looking at Gabby over Kristina’s shoulder, “is what do you want?”

That was easy, Gabby thought. She wanted Ryan.

She just wasn’t entirely sure what that meant.





RYAN


“Okay, so I just texted Remy,” Ryan said the following weekend, yanking his T-shirt over his head and tossing it in the general vicinity of his hamper. “I’m gonna jump in the shower, but when he texts back with his train time will you just say got it and we’ll get him on the way to the party?”

Gabby nodded. She was lying on his bed in a way that somehow communicated she was intending on staying there for the foreseeable future, possibly all night long. Sure enough, she reached out her hand for Ryan’s, pulling him onto the mattress alongside her: “What if,” she asked, in her best let’s-make-a-deal voice, “instead of going to the hockey party, we didn’t go to the hockey party and we just stayed here and made out instead?”

“Tempting,” Ryan said, leaning over and pressing his mouth against hers. It was tempting, too, although to be honest it was also a little bit annoying. He’d been looking forward to this party all summer, a reunion   with a bunch of his old teammates who were back from college; he knew Gabby probably didn’t want to go, but having her confirm it out loud sort of irritated him. “But I can’t.” He straightened up again, wriggled out of his cargo shorts. “Even if I didn’t want to go, I’m Remy’s ride.”

“Nice boxers,” Gabby noted, propping herself up on one elbow and nodding at the robot print. Then, “I don’t even know who Remy Dolan is.”

“Yes, you do,” Ryan explained, and this time he was more than a little annoyed. Sometimes it was like she forgot who his friends were on purpose. “You met him a bunch of times; he was my Big Brother on the team my freshman year. I hardly ever talked to him outside of hockey, though. Anyway, he got like two DUIs in Binghamton, so now he doesn’t have a license anymore.”

“Charming,” Gabby muttered, flopping moodily onto her back and staring at the ceiling. “Why don’t you just go without me? You can take my car if yours is still making that noise.”

Ryan frowned. “I’m not using you to drive me places. I want you to come.”

“Why?” Gabby sounded genuinely baffled. “You used to do stuff like this without me all the time.”

You didn’t used to be my girlfriend, Ryan wanted to say, but thought better of it. It wasn’t that being his girlfriend meant she owed him anything, but it did mean that he wanted to show up places with her occasionally. It meant his buddies noticed that she never came out. “We stayed in last night,” he reminded her. “And the night before that, actually.”

“I’m not saying you have to stay in,” Gabby argued, sitting up on the mattress. “I’m saying you should go. But it’s going to be a bunch of dudes I don’t know, you’re probably going to leave me alone to talk to people’s boring girlfriends who are strangers, you’ll be shitfaced anyway—”