“You wouldn’t like it,” I said.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said.
“Okay, fine.” Before I went into the kitchen, I leaned down and gave Gretchen a hug. “I’m really proud of you. I’m sorry you were worried tonight.”
“It’s okay.” She hugged me back. “I’m sorry I’ve been a pain lately. Now run.”
Chapter 21
When I got up Thursday morning and looked outside to check the weather for our trip up north, I saw Sean sitting on the front steps. Maybe it was a mirage, I told myself as I looked again. I hadn’t slept much the night before, because I was so excited about the trip.
What was he doing here? This was awkward. Was his shovel broken or something? Or was he here to tell me that Conor couldn’t go away with me—that he and I were back on instead?
I opened the front door a crack. “So, did it snow?” I asked him.
“Oh, hey, Kirsten.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. He had dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept all that well either. “Good morning.”
“What’s up?” I asked. “Are you okay?”
He got to his feet. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Well, do you need something?” He wasn’t here to try and win me back or something romantic like that, was he? He had this serious, distressed look on his face, his forehead semi-creased with worry.
“I just wanted to talk to you for a minute,” he said. “Do you have time?”
“Clearly,” I said. I was standing there in my sweats, having decided to sleep in clothes that might not always look like pajamas from now on. “Do you want to come in?”
“Could we sit out here?” Sean asked. “I don’t really want to see Gretchen or Brett, if that’s okay.”
“That’s cool. I’ll be right out,” I said. I grabbed my jacket from the hook on the closet door and put on my boots. Looking at them reminded me of the Snow White costume. Hopefully Sean wouldn’t have the same memory.
I grabbed my mittens and went outside. Sean was sitting on the porch swing, so I went over to sit beside him.
“First of all, I want to apologize,” Sean said.
“No! I should be the one apologizing,” I said. “I know I should have been honest with you, when I felt like I was kind of, I don’t know. Like maybe Conor and I had more in common and…I just really liked you and I’d already said I’d go to the dance and the cabin with you, so…”
Ugh, listen to me, I thought. I was sounding a lot like Emma Dilemma. I love the girl, but I didn’t want to emulate her dating style. “Anyway. I’m sorry if I was rude at the party, or worried you that night, or any of that,” I said.
“I’m sorry, too,” Sean said. “I was just…I liked you and everything. I mean, you showed up here in town and you’re funny and cute, I thought, well, I just wanted to hang out with you. And then I saw that Conor liked you, and when I realized there were like a hundred reasons to like you…I felt like I had to go out with you, instead of him.”
We sat there, swinging back and forth for a minute. I wondered if he felt as stupid about this as I did. There was no reason we couldn’t go out with each other, but there was no reason we should, either. We just didn’t have that intense connection, the way you should if you’re going to spend that much time with someone and, like, make out with him.
“I guess what I want to say is that, despite everything that’s happened, I really like you,” Sean said.
I stopped swinging. What?
“That’s why I have to tell you something. It’s really, really important.”
“Okay…” I said slowly.
“As much as we argue, and fight, and criticize each other? Conor’s a really good guy. You can trust him.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Yeah?” I asked.
“Yeah. For sure.” He nodded. “But if it turns out you can’t? And he’s awful to you? You know where I live.”
I laughed. “Are you seriously going to be that nice to me?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I think you’re too nice,” I said. “That’s why you have all those girls around you all the time. You have to be a little, you know, discriminating or something. Be mean to a few of ’em. Thin the pack.”
“Thin the pack? What am I, a wolf now?” Sean slid off the swing and caught the chain to keep it from whacking me. “I know we act like jerks to each other, but he’s still my brother. I’d stick up for him over anybody. Even when he does stupid things like walking out on a team.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I thought about Gretchen and our argument the night before. Maybe we’d never be that much alike, but I’d knock down any guy—anyone, period—who tried to hurt her.
“Aunt Kirsten likes boys, Aunt Kirsten likes Sean…”
“Conor,” I tried to correct Brett for the umpteenth time.
The four—make that five, counting Bear—of us were standing outside by Conor’s pickup. A light snow was falling, and we’d just spent the required five minutes discussing the weather as we prepared to take off for the Groundhog weekend.
Gretchen had tried to give me some advice over breakfast, in terms of how far to go with Conor on our first weekend away together. I told her that one, I didn’t plan on sleeping with him or any guy until I was older, and two, we’d be sleeping in a cabin with a bunch of other people, so not to worry. That seemed to put her mind at ease.
“Don’t break your leg,” she said to me.
“I won’t!” I said. “Will you quit saying that already?”
All of a sudden, Brett stopped chanting my name, and got this big lower lip as I opened the passenger door to the rusty pickup truck. His eyes filled with tears and he started to cry.
I crouched down, wrapped my arms around him and gave him a big hug. “I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
“You’d better be,” Gretchen said. “I need a driver.” Then she smiled. “And a friend.”
We gave each other a quick hug, and then I climbed into the pickup beside Conor.
Gretchen leaned into his window. “Take care of her.”
“Got it,” he said.
“And drive really carefully.”
“No problem. It’s a light snow. I think it’ll taper off soon.”
“Okay, bye!” I called out as we pulled away from the curb. “Man,” I sighed. “I thought we’d never get out of there. Could you and Gretchen talk about cold fronts any longer?”
“Well, what else are we supposed to talk about?” Conor said. “Uh oh. I think we’ve got a problem.” He kept glancing in the rearview mirror. “Look behind us.”
I was afraid to look. I figured it must be Gretchen waving her arms, yelling “Stop! Stop!”
But when I finally turned around, I saw Bear. He was running at top speed, like an Iditarod sled dog competitor, bounding along the middle of the street after us.
“Loyal, isn’t he?” Conor remarked as we slowed to a stop.
By the time we got Bear back home and got on the highway, the snow had started coming down harder. Then it fell even more heavily. After a while, we were going so slowly due to ice buildup, and lack of visibility, that we had only made it about ten miles in an hour.
“This has kind of turned into a blizzard,” I commented. “Did we even hit St. Paul yet?”
Conor laughed. “Yeah. We’re about fifty miles out of town.”
“We’re actually not going to make it to the cabin. Are we?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
I started laughing. After all that. After everything I’d gone through to get a date for this silly weekend, after all the money I’d spent, the risky deposit for two. Now we weren’t even going to get there.