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"He wouldn’t listen to anything I have to say"

"How do you know?" I pressed

He sighed "I don’t know Maybe because he never has C’ht before 1:00 It’ll be better than… whatever frozen thing you’d planned to microwave?"

I rolled my eyes and he chuckled

"I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell theain "I don’t know Maybe because I kno much my family loves you" That was bullshit I raised an eyebrow and he laughed "Okay, well they were used to you--used to us I guess you told your parents?"

I curled my toes into the coldinto the entryway "I told Moh I don’t know if the annoyance was directed at you for du to hold onto you" I wanted to pinch h I was pining for him

In actuality, Mom and I had revisited the quarrel we had when I first told her irls forge their own educational paths; they don’t follow their high school boyfriends to college "But do what you like You always have," she’d said, stalking froain until Kennedy broke up with ood now to point out that I was right about hihed over the phone "And your ill-advised decision to follow hiu like, "Even broken clocks are right twice a day" I’d tossed this bit of wisdom back in her face, and just like she had when I announced h like I was hopelessly clueless and dropped the subject Little did she know that in thatI’d ever done

Kennedy stood with his thu contrite "I assu supper with Dahlia’s family, or Jillian’s, or you’d have already said so"

Preferring to wait until the holiday festivities were over, I’d not yet called h school friends to let them knoas home Jillian had flunked out of LSU at the end of fresheed a mall jewelry store Dahlia was in the second year of her nursing prograraduation It was odd, how unconnected I felt to each of theh school

Now Dahlia had her nursing undergrad crowd in a neighboring state, and Jillian had a blue stripe in her hair, a full-time job and a fiancé Both were shocked when Kennedy and I broke up They were a to, even though we hadn’t been close in over a year I hoped we could hang out and hopefully not discuss Kennedy ad nauseuht it would be nice to be ho up at hiiving"

I hated the pity underlying his assulared up at hireen of his eyes scanned over reed "But there’s no reason for you to We can be friends, right? You’ll always be important to me You know that"

I so didn’t know that But if I said no, if I insisted on staying ata , it would look like I couldn’t get over hied that I couldn’t be around hi it

"So are you and ether, or what?" Carter asked, under his breath

If he wasn’t so big, Carter would have been a carbon copy of his older brother--sareen eyes and mop of dirty blond hair But where Kennedy was tall and lean, Carter had sprouted to an equal height, but with the girth andknown him since he was a wiry fourteen-year-old--when Kennedy still towered over hi I re boy, eclipsed by his older brother He was clearly done with that phase

I glanced behind us as we set the table, relieved that no one else ithin earshot "No"

He followed behindforks on top of the napkins I’d folded "Too bad for him"

My eyes widened a bit at this, and when I looked at hiood for him So why are you here?"

"Ue"

He recoiled, astonished "Fuck, are you serious? And I thought est assholes in this town"

I couldn’t help but grin, though I curbed it as eable and eical, coolheaded family I’d never considered what an outsider he must have felt like with them--the impetuous an, who gave the impression that she’d been born a thirty-year-old accountant

"Language, Carter," Kennedy said, rounding the corner

"Fuck off, Kennedy" Carter retorted, notmy reaction was impossible My jaas like rock in the atte, full-wattage grin fro off to the kitchen to help his irls at ainst the lockers when he sauntered past

Kennedy was scowling