I slipped my hand into his and let him pull me to my feet, if only to feel his warmth one last time. Letting go, I cleared my throat and quickly readjusted the under-eye mask I’d nearly forgotten in all the commotion.
“So, whyareyou here?” I asked as I retightened my ponytail, probably a lost cause at that point. “And with Rhett, too?”
He shrugged off his coat and hung it next to mine. “Ran into him at the diner, we got to talking, and well… here we are.”
Any normal person would’ve required a longer explanation. I knew Teddy better than most, though. Elected to Homecoming court every year of high school and voted “most likely to brighten your day” in our senior yearbook, he’d never met a social mountain he couldn’t climb.
“That doesn’t really explain anything,” I mused, flattening the rug with my feet.
“You’re right,” he replied with a smile. “We, uh—thought we’d make you both dinner.”
I narrowed my eyes as he dipped his head and rubbed the back of his neck. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Teddy looked particularly uncomfortable. “Okay…” I drawled, moving past him to lean on the entryway to the kitchen.
Georgie had flicked on the portable radio Rhett gifted her a couple weeks ago, a lazy Ella Fitzgerald tune drifting from its speakers. She’d evidently overlooked the mud mask streaked and cracking on her face, instead swaying beside Rhett and nudging him with her hips as he diligently chopped a bounty of vegetables. I wasn’t too sure what she contributed to dinner—but it clearly, he didn’t mind in the least.
Teddy braced his back against the jamb, opting to watch me instead.
I cast him a sidelong glance. “This is the real thing, huh?”
“Looks like it,” Teddy replied. The corner of his lips tilted but his gaze didn’t falter.
I adjusted the oversized sweater I borrowed from Georgie, the air having grown to a stifling degree in the last several minutes.
“Aren’t you supposed to be helping?” I asked. “Seeing as this wasyouridea and all.”
He laughed and tossed his chin in their direction. “And interruptthat?”
“Uh-uh,” Rhett interrupted without moving from the cutting board. “I need you prepping the steaks.” I watched, mildly amused, as Rhett kissed Georgie on top of the head and shooed her away.
For whatever reason, Teddy hesitated for a second before sending me a grin and venturing into the kitchen.
“C’mon, you need to wash your face,” I told Georgie.
She gasped and touched her cheek. “How long was this supposed to be on? Will my eyebrows be burned off?”
“It’s not evenonyour eyebrows,” I quipped, pushing her toward the downstairs bathroom.
After dinner, we found ourselves sprawled across the couch while Teddy and Rhett crumpled themselves onto floor cushions. Georgie insisted we watchWhen Harry Met Sally—I put up a valiant fight, but she hardly waited for anyone’s approval before sliding the disc into her DVD player. I didn’t imagine the wink she sent me when Meg Ryan appeared on screen.
My new copy ofEmmathat I gifted her earlier that day stared at me from the shelf, its gilded spine smirking in the TV glow each time Sally continued to fruitlessly yearn for Harry. I shifted so often on the couch that, eventually, all three of them separately mumbled at me to stop.
Teddy firmly pressed himself up against my leg to the point that I could feel the muscles in his back stiffen each time he laughed. I attempted to focus on Easton’s snore as he reluctantly napped on his bed in the corner, or how Georgie unconsciously ruffled Rhett’s hair each time she sighed at the TV—but that only made me think of Teddy’s hair, and how I very much would’ve liked to reach out and touch it.
Was it as soft as it used to be? Had it grown thicker with age, as his chin widened and his shoulders broadened?
Embarrassingly enough, my thoughts hadn’t ventured far from Teddy’s hair or the warmth of his back by the time Harry launched into his love confession on New Year’s Eve. My chest tightened with something dense and sharp as he pulled her in for a kiss.
Movies were fiction. In reality, unrequited love remained unrequited, and romantic music would never swell at exactly the right time. Dependability was as rare of a trait as ambidexterity, hard work didn’t guarantee anything, and waiting for a protagonist to fix my smoking heap of a life would prove to be pointless.
No one had truly changed—not my parents, or this town, or even the old Margot. The only person I could depend on wasme. Even if I wanted nothing more than someone just as constant as myself.
“I’m going to walk him out,” Georgie was saying, hopping from the couch and dragging Rhett to his feet.
I watched as she shoved her slippers on in the foyer, laughing about something under their breaths as they slid out the door. Teddy turned on his cushion until he faced me, alarmingly close while he peered up at my face with an inscrutable glimmer in his eyes.
Sitting up until I was a comfortable distance, I joked, “Need me to walk you home?”
“How else would you get your coat back?”
