And we’re back to where we were on the first night of the summer all over again, when Kelsey was drunk as a skunk and sucking face with some loser.

Okay so this time she doesn’t have her tongue stuck down a guy’s throat, and she’s only on her second beer, but I still want to throttle the guy she’s making flirty eyes at in the corner of Sammy’s.

Hook up with someone new. That’s what she’d thrown at me three days ago. I didn’t know if this was a test, if she was really breaking whatever this thing was off, or what was going on. All I knew was that I didn’t notice any other girl in the bar except for her, and that I was going to punch this tall hipster in the throat if he made any more effort to subtly graze her arm.

I ordered another shot of Jack, thinking that if I could just get drunk enough, I might have the guts to go over there and start something.

“Slow down, killer.” Parker smiled his shit-eating grin from the stool next to me.

“Fuck off.” I still wasn’t fully talking to him. I couldn’t believe he’d said something to Kelsey. In Parker’s messed up brain, he was only trying to be a friend, but in reality, he’d fucked everything up.

“Come on, bro. You have to let this go sometime. Look at her, anyway. She didn’t waste one minute finding her new Mr. Right Now.”

“That’s because you scared her off! Instead of slowly trying to coax her into a relationship, like I was doing, if you’d ever bothered to ask, you sent her fleeing like a scared gazelle.”

He shrugged. “A leopard don’t change its spots, buddy. Lie to yourself all you want, but that one is not relationship material.”

He pointed at Kelsey, who was shimmying in her short grey t-shirt dress. I think I bared my teeth.

“If she can do it, so can you. See that brunette over there? She’s been eyeing you all night. Best way to get over someone is to get on top of someone else. Go get ‘em, tiger.”

Parker slapped me on the shoulder and shoved me in the brunette’s direction.

She wasn’t bad looking, but she was just typical. She was a pretty girl, nothing unique or striking about her. She wasn’t Kelsey.

And speak of the devil, out of the corner of my eye I saw Roo notice my movement toward the other girl. Was I scorned enough to make her jealous? Absolutely.

I walked up to the brunette, who immediately began thrusting out her chest and batting her eyelashes. It was all so obvious, and when I asked her to dance and took her elbow to lead us to the floor, she molded herself into my body.

Feeling Kelsey’s eyes on me, I put my all into the act. I grabbed the girl’s hips, leaned into her neck and even ran my hands up and down her thighs. After two songs, I felt someone smack me on my back.

Kelsey eyed me with narrowed slits. I kept my position, feeling glee that I’d actually forced her to come over here.

“Yes?” I said this with a cocky-ass smile on my face.

“I need to talk to you.” She crossed her arms over her perky chest.

“I’m busy with a new friend here.” I motioned to the brunette, who waved like an idiot at Kelsey.

Suddenly I was being pulled out of the bar by my ear.

“OW! Fuck!” She was squeezing it so tight, I wouldn’t be surprised if I had hearing damage after this.

When we made it to the sidewalk, she finally let go.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I shout at her, walking down the street away from her and rubbing at me bruised ear.

“Want to explain what you’re doing chatting up that basic bitch in there?”

So I did make her jealous! I laugh at the irony of what’s going on right now. “If I heard you correctly, you told me to hook up with someone else. Isn’t that right?”

I couldn’t resist throwing her words back in her face. My anger was quickly tainting everything I was thinking.

“Well…I did! But not with some plain looking brunette! Come on, you can do better than that!”

“Oh, like the definition of a pussy hipster who keeps trying to leer at your tits?”

Kelsey scowls at me. “Why did you even have to come to Sammy’s tonight? We need to make a schedule or something so we aren’t here at the same time!”

We are both yelling at each other in the middle of the crowded downtown street. Other graduated seniors and summer-course students stop to stare at us before drunkenly laughing and keep walking.

I grab her arm and pull her towards the other side of the street to the parking lot behind the building. I’m not stepping anywhere near that goddamn alley.

“What is this really about, Kels?”

“It’s about you trying to hook up with some basic bit—“

“No it’s not. This is about you having feelings for me and trying to deny it. This is about you being jealous of me putting my hands on another girl. This is about the fact that you never should have tried to end what we had.”

“That’s not it at all—“

I wasn’t letting her get away this time. I was going to make her be with me whether she liked it or not. “Friends don’t lie to each other, right? Especially us.”

I gave her the wisest “I know you” stare that I could, trying to make her spill her true feelings without having to pull them out of her. She stubbornly crossed her arms.

“You never wanted to stop this. Deep down you have feelings for me. And I like you. A lot. Let this happen. Be with me. Trust me. This is me, Roo. No one else. Let me show you how good we can be.”

I can see the tears pooling in her eyes, her lower lip wobbling. Taking her hands, I stoop down so I’m on her eye level.

“I don’t want to hook up with basic bitches. I don’t want you flirting with random hipster douchebags. I want to watch bad 80’s movies with you. I want to split seven containers of Chinese food and be amazed when you eat even the hottest of General Tso’s. I want to take you on a real live date without being afraid that you’ll be so scared, you fly to Brazil. And I really want to have sex with you and only you. I want you to want those things with me. And I think you do.”

Kelsey shakes her head, still fighting the inevitable. This is going to happen. Her eyes are red-rimmed and I can see her holding back the sniffles.

“We wouldn’t be out here right now if this wasn’t what you wanted.” I hold her face in my hands.

“What if I hurt you? What if I screw this up?” The words are barely above a whisper.

“You won’t. Sure, we will both be idiots. No one is perfect. But you know the great thing about falling for your best friend? We already know each other’s faults going in. I know when you’re scared shitless, and you know when I need a good smack on the ass.”

She still isn’t smiling. “My parents…they’re miserable Clint. I’ve never…I’ve never told you just how bad they are. But they’ve been married for over 20 years and I’ve never even seen them touch each other. I have no model of what a healthy relationship looks like. And there’s more. Turns out, I don’t even know who my father is. My mother kept that secret from me my whole life.”

She laughs and shrugs, even though none of this is funny at all. Her voice is a one continuous broken sob. “I have no idea how to love other people. I come from a family of cold-hearted scientists who don’t even believe in it. And what if my biological father is worse?”

I try to soak in all of the information she’s just thrown at me and process it. I need to comfort her, but I had no idea the weight she’d been carrying on her shoulders for so long.

“Roo, you should have told me. First of all, stop with this ‘I don’t know how to love’ bullshit. You’re an amazing friend. You have had almost 15-year friendships with both Minka and Chloe. You love them as if they were your own sisters. And they love you. You fall in love with a new animal every single day. Jackson! You love Jackson! Your parents are shitty people who don’t deserve a daughter as amazing as you are.”

Finally, I got a small smile. “I can’t disagree there.”

“And as for your biological father…you don’t know what kind of person he is until you meet him. And you don’t need to make a decision on whether you want to do that right now. You are the sassiest, sweetest, most caring person that I know. And that’s of your own doing. We decide who we want to be. So choose to be with me.”

I let my declaration hang in the air, praying that she says she will. I hope she can’t see how much I’m sweating right now.

“When I say I want to be alone, you have to leave me be. And I always get the last garlic knot. And I refuse to be dragged to the gym, and we aren’t doing any of those stupid couple things like wearing matching Halloween costumes.”

My face must light up like a Christmas tree, because she giggles and tilts her eyes to the sky. “Does this mean you’ll be with me? Exclusive? We are a couple?”

Kelsey hugs her arms around my waist. “Yes, but you don’t get to drop the girlfriend word like it’s the only one in your vocabulary.”

“Okay.” I nod solemnly. And then remember one caveat I have. “But I get one thing as your new boyfriend…”

She rolls her eyes, waiting for my rule.

“I won’t date a smoker.”