A Toast to the Good Times (8 page)

Or on prom night, when we almost missed getti
ng our picture taken
because I was trying to convince her to get it on with me in the backseat of my father’s old Bronco.

Her hair looked pretty crazy in the picture. And I look pretty pissed.

I didn’t manage to convince her to do anything more than some intense making out.

It was an old tug-of-war routine, and the bite of her lip reminds me of all the times I tried to talk her into going along with my stupid plans.

“Why me?” I ask again.

“I’m hungry,” she announces, switching off the ignition and opening the door to the incredibly cold night air.

She doesn’t pause to look and see if I’m following her, just walks, hands deep in her pockets, head down in the wind.

I follow and manage to hold up two frosty fingers to the hostess before Toni can tell her how many are in our party. Because I’m a guy, and I feel the need to do guyish things like announcing our party number to the hostess and letting her sit first and handing her her menu. But it’s all just a stupid show because Toni is obviously the one who’s more in charge in this situation.

We order a large plate of disco fries, and I am so starved for the melted mozzarella and salty brown gravy, I feel like the last time I ate must have been days ago.

Only I can remember the last time very clearly, and twenty-four hours hadn’t even passed since then.

Since I’d fucked things up with a really amazing friend and left her hanging.

Since I’d had dinner. And then kissed Mila.

And it was both incredible and something I
need
ed
to
forget. So I launch into conversation.

“I think I was asking you why you stuck around with me if I was always being such a total
dick.
” I watch Toni shred her straw wrapper into tiny pieces of white confetti. She doesn’t look up. “C’mon. I know for a fact most girls love talking about what an asshole I am. Try it. I bet you’ll like it.”

She shuffles her little pile of torn-up paper to the side and looks right at me, her mouth set in a flat line. “Do
you
remember the night before Thanksgiving, senior year?”

My brain shuffles through the hazy memories of those long-gone high school years, and I do draw up some blurry mental images of a huge smokey bonfire, the smooth, heavy weight of a bottle of liquor I pilfered from my father’s bar, the feel of Toni’s curves pressed against m
e
in the freezing late fall air.

“That was the night Jagger had that huge party. The year his parents went on that cruise and left the house to him over Thanksgiving break.”

I relax back against the persistent dig of the springs through the torn pleather of the booth seat, remembering that smoky, hazy, fresh-air-fueled feeling, the one I can’t quite put my finger on in the midst of all this stress and stupidity I have to deal with in my annoyingly adult present. It was that feeling of being purely free, of having nothing to worry about except exploding into the best time, staying out under the dull stars as long as we could manage to keep our eyes open, drinking until our heads spun, crashing on some random bed or couch, or, if we were drunk enough, in some tub or on the bare floor.

“I was planning on sleeping with you that night,” she says, her hands folded tightly on the scratched, dull laminate.

“Excuse me?” The memories of debauchery fall away, and I attempt to replace some of the chaos with even one clear image of her from that night: what she was wearing, some moment we shared, some quiet, secret opportunity that got interrupted.

But I’ve got nothing.

“I was planning...to...um, to fuck you.” She tries to make it sound all brazen, but she looks totally uncomfortable with her word choice. “I was planning to drag your hot ass into one of Jagger’s guest rooms, and I had these tiny little lacy underthings on...I covered myself in this powder, this sexy powder that was all sweet because it was made with honey or something and you’re supposed to be able to lick it off.”

She tries to laugh at herself, but the sound that comes out of her mouth is too shaken and cracked to register as anything close to a real laugh.

“Toni.” I slide my hands across the laminate and she drops hers, still folded tight, into her lap and away from my touch. “What happened?”

“Wow.” She looks up and takes a deep breath. “You really don’t remember?”

I’m still so shocked by her announcement, I have no clue what my face looks like, but she must be able to read the truth in my blank look.

She lets out a
long breath that seems to deflate her a little. “Wow. So, this was kind of what I was afraid of, but I had this really stupid minute where I believed that maybe I was so wrong, and I was just remembering things...like, with all the mixed-up emotional crap of that night...”

A few long, awkward seconds tick by.

“You should tell me.”

I watch her press her long blonde hair back, and that gorgeous face, so sure and brave on the train, suddenly looks stripped of any confidence.

My neck burns when I realize I was the one who stripped all that beautiful strength away.

That I started doing it when we were in
high school
, and I’m still the one who does that to her now.

I suck.

I sucked yesterday and I suck today and, apparently, I’ve been sucking hard since I was a stupid teenager.

“You were only a little drunk. I thought it was no big thing. You’d tried to get me to sleep with you when you seemed so much drunker. But I guess that night was just a whole new level. Anyway, I got all ready...um, meaning I got almost naked...and you were, uh, supposed to meet me in this room. And I waited, like, forever. Finally the door opened, but it was Dominick and that Tracey girl, the one from Sparta he’d had a crush on forever? And they were all embarrassed, and I was wearing, like, half a foot of lace and some edible powder...”

She ducks her head so her hair curtains her face and hides her features.

Not that there’s any need to actually see her face to know exactly how humiliated she is.

It’s incredible how the powerful, smart, sexy New York City version of Toni who jumped me on the train has just crumbled, and, even though I don’t remember that night at the party at
all, I feel like it’s being replayed, fresh and raw for my horror. Her embarrassment kills me, and I feel a tsunami of shame that’s dragging me under fast and hard.

“I had no idea, Toni. I didn’t realize.”

Before she replies in a way that will make me want to find the nearest bridge fast, the waitress comes over and sets our plates down.

The fries I was starving for a minute ago aren’t remotely appetizing. I push the plate towards Toni and expect her to push it back, but she doesn’t.

She hooks a finger along the hot lip and yanks it closer, grabs at the crispy, still-sizzling edges of a few fries, and pulls them out in all their gravy-soaked, mozzarella-coated glory. She pops them in her mouth and does that distractingly sexy eat-moan-and-close-her-eyes combo.

If she’s eating and enjoying her food that much, she can’t be all that upset.

Right?

As soon as she’s a few bites in, she seems to relax a little. She glances up from under thick, dark lashes and says, “Look. I know...I know that what I’m telling you about that night sounds all ‘woe is me.’ And it was. Back then. Especially when you were, um, standing there with Danielle Levy wrapped around you like a pretzel. That wasn’t easy.”

Danielle Levy.

Danielle. Oh. I remember Danielle.

I’d be pretty surprised if any guy from my graduating class didn’t remember Danielle Levy and her super tight jeans and her almost nonexistent skirts. She was all curves before we even understood how good curves could be, and she had these distractingly sexy legs that she used to cross and uncross over and over during civics.

I still don’t know dick about the electoral college, but I remember every inch of Danielle Levy’s legs.
 

I also remember, suddenly, that Danielle was at Jagger’s and that she backed me into a room and started kissing me.

And then I remember her whispering all kinds of crazy hot things that made swallowing incredibly difficult.

And I remember her kissing down my chest, pieces of loose hair caught in the buttons on my shirt until her breath was hot over my dick, and my mind was in a thousand places.

I pushed her away, because I wasn’t always particularly good to Toni, but I was never a cheater.

Danielle pawed at me for a while, but I eventually got untangled, stumbled away, and passed out in one of Jagger’s back rooms, on the floor, cradling the cool glass of my empty liquor bottle.

I didn’t think about Toni that night, other
than
that one second I decided not to cheat.

Honestly, I didn’t give her a lot of thought during my sober moments, let alone when I was drunk. Hell, I didn’t give her a ton of thought when I was on a date with her. Toni was, for me, always there but never really all that noticeable.

And I guess I didn’t notice that night when she was trying to take it to the next level, and I was ignoring her and getting sexed up by Danielle.

“You broke up with me after that night.” I rub a hand over my face.

The break-up wasn’t exactly a huge shock. I was a pretty shitty boyfriend, after all. But it did seem like it came out of nowhere. I figured she finally just wised up and decided to move on.

She chews on her fries and shrugs. “It was a real turning point for me. I stopped chasing guys who had no interest in me.”

“I was an idiot for not being more interested in you,” I lament.

“Yeah. You definitely were.” She pushes the plate my way, and I scoop up some fries reluctantly, regret and self-disgust kind of destroying my appetite. “But I didn’t come here and tell you all this to make you feel like shit.” When I raise an eyebrow at her, she laughs. “Honestly. I swear.”

“So, what was the point of all this, then?”

I dip my fries in gravy and take a salty bite, half hoping she’ll tell me that the point is that the only thing that could make her feel better would be her and me in the backseat of her car or, better yet, her apartment.

“Well, I was just going to send you a letter or an email or whatever.” She sits up straighter and shakes her hair out of her eyes. “I actually have a draft of half an email in my inbox right now, but I could never get it to come out right. And I guess it was better to actually see you and...” She clears her throat. “And it wasn’t totally awful to kiss you again. I’m about to accept a study abroad opportunity, and my New Year’s resolution is to take every negative I’ve been hanging onto up to this point and make my peace with all of them.”

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I’m one of your negatives, Toni.” I drum my fingers on the edge of the table.

“It’s okay.” Her smile is a cool punch, like a strong Tom Collins on a hot day. “The thing is...I started thinking about you, about us, and, I kept waiting to get really mad. I mean, you were kind of a huge dick to me the entire time we dated, and I was so completely heartbroken and hung-up over you. But...I don’t know, I’ve always had this soft spot for you. And, even though I tried, I just couldn’t get pissed at you. And now that I see you, I feel...honestly? I feel kind of bad for you, Landry.”

“Why?” I back up to the corner of the booth and catch my own reflection in the dark diner window.

Alright, so I look pretty rough. It’s been awhile since I shaved, I need a couple good nights’ sleep in a row, I’m a little haggard and a bit
hung-over
, but I’m not exactly a guy to be pitied.

Am I?

“Because you’re still running from anything good and solid in your life. I heard about Heather and
Tyler
.” She takes a deep breath. “Seriously, Landry? It’s like you handpick people who suck. I guess I just want to say that you deserve better. When everything happened with me and you and especially right after that night, there was someone, this one unexpected person, who sat me down and he told me that I deserved better. And, even though I couldn’t really process it then, I’ve held onto his words for years. They helped focus me whenever I felt like things were a mess, whenever I felt like I should just give it up or that I should just try to make it work with you even though we were both miserable. I didn’t realize for a long time how much what he said meant to me, but now I feel like...I finally get it.”
             
“Who was it?”

I think back to the guys who threw me envious looks when I walked around with Toni. The problem isn’t remembering who did that; the problem is so many guys did, the list is crazy long.

“It doesn’t matter.” She pretends that she’s shaking my question off, like it’s no big deal, but she shifts her eyes and
smooth’s
her hair and her shirt, that way she does when she gets super nervous. “What matters is that now I’m going to tell you something as someone who honestly has your best interests at heart, and I want you to seriously listen to me.”