Page 11 of Back to You
It seems so obvious in this moment, why I have loved him this entire time. It isn’t just who he is; it’s what he represents. A kind of goodness, a wholesomeness. A light that I lack. He’s someone who understands how to live his life, how to be happy, how to seize the present before it’s too late.
So I let myself dance with him. I know I’m dancing badly, but maybe being bad at something isn’t as big of a deal as I thought. Maybe it’s worse to not do it at all, to never even try, for fear of looking stupid.
“What happened to it?” he asks. He’s leaning in very close to be heard over the music, his head bowed toward me, and I can sense his words from how he’s looking at me more than I can actually hear them.
“To what?” I ask.
“That crush you had on me in high school,” he says. He’s grinning like he’s kidding, but his eyes are intent on me.
The alcohol is warm in my blood, softening the world up, yet I experience a flash of perfect clarity as I grin back up at him. “Who said anything happened to it?”
He seems to go still. Then he shakes his head, laughing. “Is that a line? It’s pretty good.”
“What, you think I just tell guys stuff like that all the time?”
“Maybe,” he says.
“Would it make you feel better if it was only a line?”
He shakes his head harder. “No. No, the opposite. I want you to mean it.”
“I do mean it,” I say.
“Okay, really? That’s good,” he says.
“It’s good?” I repeat.
“It’s great,” he says, and by now we’re both laughing, and everything is going so well that I almost want to stop time just to savor it, like when you come across a line in a book that’s so moving you go back to read it again and again.
I can’t keep track of how much time has passed; it feels like the night is frozen in this club, like it’ll never, ever end. But at one point Adam comes up to us and says, “All right, we’re going to Benny’s.”
He’s met with reiterations of this same sentiment from the others:
“Hell yeah, we’re going to Benny’s.”
“I’msoready for Benny’s.”
“You ever been to Benny’s before, Allison?” Luke asks, turning to me.
“Um, no, I haven’t,” I admit. By now I am assuming that Benny is a popular member of their friendship circle, and I imagine a generically attractive, sandy-haired male who lives in a Pacific Heights mansion with his own Jacuzzi and karaoke room.
We leave the club, where the line outside is as long as it was when we first arrived, maybe even longer, and we pull up outside a burger joint, and when I stumble out of the car, Iblink up at a massive neon sign that saysBenny’s Burgers. It’s built like one of those classic American diners, with just six parking spots and a single table near the dumpsters out back. There’s a couple splitting a cheeseburger in one of the parked cars, and two girls in matching leather tops collecting their orders just ahead of us, both visibly drunk.
“What do you want?” Luke asks me.
“What do you usually get?”
“The double cheeseburger and fries.” He grins. “Their serving sizes are generous, and they’re really good, trust me.”
“I do trust you,” I say, my mouth watering already at the scent of grease and grilled meat. “I’ll have the double cheeseburger too.”
“Pickles or no pickles?” he asks as we walk up to the window to place our orders.
“No pickles, thanks. Wait, I can get it,” I say, reaching for my phone to pay, but he just gives me a quick little shake of his head, like I’m being ridiculous.
When our food is ready, we all take over the table. It’s just large enough for all of us to fit around, and I squeeze into the spot next to Luke, trying not to react at how cold the metal bench is. For a few moments, everyone’s quiet, unwrapping their burgers and tearing open the packets of ketchup. The fog has started to roll in through the darkness, and it feels like we’re far away from the city, from the rest of the world even.
“Have you guys heard about that new Kate Diana rom-com that came out?” Caroline asks. “I’m so excited for it, I’m not even joking.”
