I started to head toward the front door when I heard a sound from upstairs.
“Hello?” I called, figuring one of the Choudhurys was home after all. “I have your cat!” I called, then a second later, realized it made me sound like I’d kidnapped Miss Cupcakes and was demanding a ransom. “She’s fine,” I added when I didn’t get a response. I waited, ears straining, but didn’t hear anything and tried to tell myself that it might have been my imagination, or the house settling, or something. I had just reached for the doorknob when I heard it again—the sound of low laughter and footsteps coming down the stairs. I looked around, trying to decide if I should stay, or make a run for it, when I heard someone say, “Well, of course you do,” and I realized it was Bri.
I started to walk toward the front stairs, figuring I’d meet her halfway, when I heard someone else. I’d just assumed Bri was on the phone, and it took me a second to recognize the voice. It wasn’t until I saw them on the stairway together—pressed up against the wall, arms around each other, kissing—that I even began to get what was happening. And even then I somehow couldn’t get my brain to understand what I was seeing, though it was right in front of me.
Because Bri was kissing Wyatt.
Chapter SIXTEEN
I dropped the keys I’d been holding, and they clattered onto the wood floor. Bri jumped and broke away from Wyatt, her eyes widening when she saw me. “Andie,” she said, blinking at me. “What—what are you doing here?”
“I was bringing the cat back from the vet,” I said, saying these words because they still belonged to a universe that I understood, with logic that I could follow. “I . . .” I stared at them, wondering if there was any way I could have misunderstood, trying to come up with some other explanation for what I’d just seen. But Wyatt’s hand was still tangled in Bri’s hair, and her cheeks were flushed, and Wyatt’s shirt was on inside out. There was no pretending that she’d been giving him emergency mouth-to-mouth, or anything other than what this was. Wyatt was looking from me to Bri, like he was trying to figure out what happened next.
“Right,” Bri said, taking a step away from Wyatt and smoothing her own shirt down, like she was trying to regain some of her composure. “I guess I just thought . . . I didn’t realize you would be the one bringing her back.”
“Last-minute thing,” I said, and Bri nodded and then looked down, and I wondered if she’d just felt what I had—that I’d reached my limit of talking about things other than the elephant in the room.
“So I think I’ll head out,” Wyatt said to Bri, after the awkward silence had stretched to the breaking point, and I watched them have a fierce, silent conversation that ended with Bri glancing at me and nodding. Wyatt leaned forward, and was clearly about to kiss her, but stopped at the last moment, looked at me, then pulled back and gave Bri an awkward half hug/pat-on-the-head combo. Wyatt hurried past me like he was fleeing the scene of the crime, slamming the door behind him as he went.
I looked at Bri, who wouldn’t meet my eye, just turned and started walking up the stairs again, her steps heavy. “Come on,” she said over her shoulder. “We should talk.”
“You think?” I asked as I followed her up the stairs to her room.
“I know,” Bri said, looking down at her hands, which were twisting together. “I know, Andie.”
“But . . . ,” I said, trying to get my head around this. “What is even going on? I mean . . .” I looked at her, wanting her to jump in, somehow explain things so that I could understand them. “How did it happen?”
Bri let out a long breath and looked up at me. “The night of the scavenger hunt,” she finally said, and I felt my jaw drop open.
“Wait,” I said, shaking my head. I had been ready to hear that this had been a one-or two-time thing, that she now realized was a huge mistake. “The scavenger hunt was weeks ago. You guys have been . . . this whole time?” Bri nodded and pressed her lips together hard. “Did it happen when Wyatt’s car broke down?” Bri just gave me a look, and much too late, the penny dropped. “His car never broke down,” I said, feeling like an idiot for not putting this together sooner.
“No,” Bri said, her voice quiet. “We were starting to do the list when he told me how he felt. And I hadn’t wanted to admit it, but . . . I’d been feeling the same way too.”
I closed my eyes for a second, still trying to get this to be a reality I could deal with—that Bri and Wyatt had been together, in secret, for half the summer.
“Oh my god,” I said, sinking down to the floor, feeling like my legs were not really up for holding me at that moment. My eyes strayed over to her bed—it was messy, the sheets rumpled, and I knew for a fact that Bri made her bed, hospital corners and all, every morning. “Are you sleeping with him?”
Bri just looked at me—I could see the answer clearly written across her face. “Bri.” I suddenly thought of the day on Palmer’s roof, how quiet she’d been when we were talking about guys and bases, keeping this secret from all of us. Keeping it from Toby. “What about Toby?” I asked, feeling like this just kept getting worse.
Bri shook her head and let out a short laugh, the kind with no humor in it whatsoever. “Right,” she said, and I could hear her voice was tight, and higher, the way it was when she was getting emotional and didn’t want to show it. “Because of course this is about Toby.”