Never Always Sometimes - Adi Alsaid Page 0,61

especially now

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that Brett felt like more of a friend than like Dave’s meathead brother.

At the very least, she could jokingly torture him for a few months.

Once Gretchen approached, Brett would hand her the rose and tell

her that there were eleven more waiting for her around town, then go

back to being motionless until she was out of sight. After that, he’d run back to the school and help load his truck.

THE SECOND ROSE

At the park, after following the arrows and Dave’s signs, which were

sweet to the point that they’d made Julia want to buy a bag of chips

for stomping, Gretchen would find that the string disappeared into

the branches of a tree. Maybe out of a twisted desire to pretend they

were for her, or maybe simply out of masochism, Julia had insisted

on having Dave share whatever inside jokes he had with Gretchen, to

repeat whatever small details they could use for the promposal. It’d

been strange to hear all that he already knew about the girl, strange

to see how he’d smiled when he related the simplest things, like the

fact that she loved climbing trees. Yeah, no shit, anyone with a halfway decent childhood loved climbing trees.

Julia pictured Gretchen deftly maneuvering her way up the

branches, and despite herself, she wanted the rose to still be there, with the tiny message still tucked into the folds of its petals, the cryptic clue easy enough to be understood, hard enough to be thoughtful. They’d

placed the rose on one of the highest climbable branches, high enough

that Gretchen would be able to poke her head above the leaves and

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look out at San Luis Obispo stretching out below her. What a strange

kind of love it was, to be rooting against yourself.

THE THIRD ROSE

“We’ve got a problem,” Brett said. “The cellist is demanding to ride

with her cello, but I’ve got sixteen other instruments and music stands

to take, and there’s no way I’m letting her ride back there. I can’t get any more tickets. Endangering the life of a cellist is, like, six points off your license.”

Right now, if she’d figured out the clue, Gretchen would be arriving

to the ice cream shop owned by a friend of Dave’s dad. The flavor of

the week was rose. When Julia had come up with that part of the plan,

she’d been simultaneously proud of herself and deeply ashamed that

her brain could even think in such cheesy terms. Though how happy

Dave had looked made her lean on the side of the former.

“Shit.” Julia had no time to deal with finicky cellists. “Tell her she

can ride in the truck, but she has to lie down flat with the cello on top.”

Brett’s hair was mussed with sweat from the bear mask, and he was

still wearing the rest of the costume. “That’s insane.”

“Just do it, Brett. I have to get the cupcake.”

“Wait, Julia. Before you go?”

“What?”

Brett started to say something, then ran the back of his hand across

his forehead, his forearm coming away slick with sweat. He smiled

wide, then stared at the ground, a move that felt strangely Dave-like.

“You’re really freaking good at this.”

206 NEVER ALWAYS SOMETIMES

THE FOURTH ROSE

“Dave? How’s it going over there?”

“The second string is in place, and Gretchen’s about to finish her

ice cream.”

“Damn.” Julia was watching a YouTube clip of how to draw a rose

petal made out of frosting for the fiftieth time. She’d messed up eleven times already and only one cupcake remained, which was to be the sixth

rose. Where the hell was Chef Mike when she needed him? Gretchen

would follow the new string to the library, where it would lead her to a rose tucked in between her two favorite books. Julia didn’t have much

more time. “You didn’t tell me she was a fast ice-cream eater.”

“I had no idea.”

“David Moneybags Gutierrez, how are you dating someone without

knowing how fast they eat their ice cream?”

“Ha! You used my actual last name.”

“This frosting thing is impossible,” Julia said. “Pastry chefs are

severely underpaid.”

“She’s done. I gotta go.”

THE FIFTH ROSE

It’d been a hard rose to leave behind, and Julia kind of hated that

it had been up to her to do it. Dave had chosen the first place he and

Gretchen had kissed as a spot, and since that had happened at Julia’s

house, it only made sense for her to be the one to do it. After she had

finally succeeded in drawing a rose made out of freaking sugar on a

cupcake, she went downstairs and set up the string. She tied it to her

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mailbox and then took it around the side of her house toward the

backyard.