in a bit. She didn’t know what he expected—they’d always been a unit, just the two of them, and simply because puberty held him in its grasp didn’t mean that she was booking him a separate hotel room. She’d avert her eyes; she’d never enter the bathroom while he was in there. She was doing her very best.
Gaby had ordered two burgers and two fries for them respectively, but Cleo didn’t have much of an appetite. She nibbled on a disproportionately long fry (she’d always been drawn to outliers) and considered what came next. She didn’t think that MaryAnne was going to stop, and in fact, Cleo was scared to check her Facebook page now. Surely her ex–best friend had teed off about their evening, saying God knows what to God knows who. Gaby stared at her phone while it buzzed and buzzed and buzzed, biting her burger thoughtfully, as if it held the key to their mess.
“Ooh!” Gaby said, a grin appearing on her face, even while she chewed. “Ooooh.”
“Good news?” Cleo stopped midstride and hoped for a bit of a miracle. “Did she forgive me?”
“Hmm, no.” Gaby looked up from her screen. “But that Oliver guy just texted me asking if I wanted to get a drink.” She righted herself off the bed and reached for her suitcase. “And you know what, Oliver Patel? I do.”
“Wait, he texted you?” Cleo groaned. She wasn’t even sure when they had time to exchange numbers.
“You wanted him for yourself?” Gaby was in her bra now, throwing on a bright-yellow silk shirt that complemented her skin tone perfectly and which, Cleo suspected, Oliver would never be able to resist.
“Well, I didn’t not want him. He was cute in high school—I didn’t really know him well, but my Lord, look at him now.”
“I know.” Gaby raised and lowered her eyebrows, then did it three more times. “I know.”
Cleo flopped on the bed, muttered into the pillow, “I’m happy for you.”
“It’s just drinks,” Gaby said, but then she laughed, rich and decadent, and they both knew that it wasn’t.
“It’s fine,” Cleo said, face still in the pillow. “I’ll go hang out with my teen son who has more romantic interests than I do.”
“Clee.” Gaby turned to her, serious now. “If you want . . . I can set up a profile on Tinder.” She laughed again, gleeful, and Cleo threw the pillow at her head.
“Don’t wait up.” She grabbed her purse from the arm of the desk chair and dropped her room key into her back pocket. “Oh, also,” she added, like it was an afterthought, “I just uploaded the video to YouTube. So buckle up!”
“You what?” Cleo jumped to her feet at a pace that would very much impress her boxing instructor. “It was a fucking disaster; why would . . . Seriously, Gaby, this has to stop!”
“No, it wasn’t. I reread all of your internals, and the electorate wants to see growth. They don’t expect perfection.”
Cleo sat back down on the bed.
“Hey, chin up, Senator McDougal. We’re just getting started.”
“Honestly.” Cleo fell backward and stared at the ceiling. “That’s what worries me.”
Cleo had the YouTube app on her phone but had never used it. Why would she? Sometimes Lucas watched . . . she thought they were called “vloggers”? And he for sure caught up with some soccer stars, watching their foot skills, cheering their goals, salivating for whichever products they hocked.
She knew she could head back to their room and ask him to find the video and read the comments, but really, what good was going to come from that? It was disorienting being back here in her hometown, seeing her old friends. Well, maybe not friends. Peers. But at some point, she and MaryAnne had truly loved each other like sisters, and there was no way around that fact, even in the wreckage of what came next.
She thought she’d give Lucas a bit more breathing room, and besides, she could use some air herself. She shot Lucas a quick text that she was taking a walk (he wouldn’t care, but she was still a responsible parent), then slid on her flats and strode through the Sheraton lobby and out into the Seattle night. The city had changed so much since she’d grown up here—it was a vibrant boom of a town now, expansive and glittering, but still, so much of it felt pregnant with memories—of shopping trips to Nordstrom with MaryAnne’s mom’s credit card, where they bought electric-blue eyeliner at