And then I realized that my dad didn’t even have that many.
He was just endlessly on his own.
So I joined him—even if only in my head. If he wanted my mother back? If he wanted to change her mind? He was going to need some serious help. It might already be too late. It might take an actual miracle. But in case you missed it, the undisputed alpha of my childhood pack had just asked me out—on a date. And if that didn’t qualify as a miracle, I wasn’t sure what would.
If I could makethathappen, I could do anything.
I looked at my dad with compassion.
Poor guy. He’d screwed up the best thing in his life—and he seemed to have no idea how it happened. From my new vantage point of success, I decided to help him.
It was a heck of a role reversal—from him being the neglectful father who had created all my neuroses to me being the love savant who could share some of my wisdom with the less fortunate.
I’m not sure if this is how compassion always works, but something about that moment gave me strength.
My dad seemed to sense me watching him. He looked over, and I gave him a little salute, like he’d taught us when we were kids.
Finn was still waiting for my response to his invitation.
So I turned to Finn—not as the ten-year-old me he’d kissed, or the fourteen-year-old me who’d memorized his license plate number, or even the yesterday me who was so nervous she got a score ofthree hundred seventy-ninein mini golf.
Just as regular old me.
Regular me who was ready to take a good, hard look at her destiny, at last.
I met his eyes. Then I smiled with every tooth I had. Then I said, “Finn Turner! I thought you’d never ask.”
DID COOPER AVOIDlooking at me all through dinner?
I don’t know. Maybe.
Or maybe he had indigestion.
We were, of course, seated together at the same table with Finn. And we did, of course, sit three in a row—me in the middle again. This was all decreed on Ashley’s spreadsheet.
What wasn’t part of the spreadsheet—certainly not on our second night—was the sudden addition of Bridesmaid Two on Cooper’s other side.
What a fourth wheel.
The fact is, Cooper and I should’ve been celebrating.
His failed hickey hadn’t failed at all. In fact, it might be the most accomplished hickey in all of human history. Not to mention the lady he’d given it to might still have been experiencing a few aftershocks of delighted shivers, even all this time later.
I’d have to add that to my letter of recommendation.
But instead of getting to savor this triumph with my wingman, I had to spend all of dinner watching Bridesmaid Two leaning against Cooper’s shoulder and squeezing her boobs together to create a type of cleavage that felt aggressive, to say the least.
I had to actively look away to preserve my appetite.
Seriously.
She was leaning over so far, she had to bring her fork over from her plate at a 45-degree angle with every bite.
I think at one point she dropped a pea down there.
All to say: Maybe Cooper wasn’t avoiding me after all. Maybe Bridesmaid Two was just making him nauseous.
Finn, on my other side, kept getting texts that he had to respond to. “I’m so sorry. I have to take this,” he kept saying, getting up to step away from the table. But during those times, I couldn’t talk to Cooper because Bridesmaid Two was relentlessly hogging his attention, asking all about his life: What was the best thing about London (“the pubs”), could he do a British accent (“sometimes”), and what did he miss about Texas (“the sky”).
