“No.” I shake my head, feeling my eyes well up. “You don’t sound ridiculous. You sound like you’re letting yourself fall in love. For real. And I…I get it.”
She laughs. “Yeah, right. It took you, like, six months and three spreadsheets to decide you could commit to Connor.”
“True,” I admit. “But I technically fell in love with Penn overnight.”
She freezes. Her jaw drops. “You what?”
I nod, wrestling with an unstoppable grin. My turn to play it zero percent cool.
“Ohmygod,” Bridget exclaims. She slams her hands on the bed, accidentally spilling frosted crackers everywhere. “I could tell something was different when you told me about the game. You couldn’t even say his name, but…” Her eyes widen as she grips my knee, rattling me. “Youlovehim?”
I cover my impossibly big smile with both hands. “So much.”
We both laugh, two blushing idiots. Bridget pours us more wine and screeches at all the right times while I give her the MASH relationship rundown. When I reach the end, she says, “Let me get this straight. In the seventh-grade matrix, or whatever, you both fell in love.”
“Right.”
“But here, you and Penn are still just friends. Who like to flirt.”
“Right,” I say again. She pauses, her eyes fixed on the wall behind me as if she’s still wrestling with the facts. “It’s a lot to take in,” I acknowledge. “So, just…let it marinate.”
Two seconds later, she eyes me, head tipped to one side, and asks, “What was Penn like?”
I shrug. “Same as here.”
“In bed, I mean.”
“Bridget.”
Her smirk is wicked. “What? It’s a fair question.” She dips her chin. “Clearly, it couldn’t have been that good, or you’d have already made your way to bone town.”
“Uh, you’ve skipped a few stops between friendville and bone town.”
She points at me. “That’s your problem. That’s where you’re stuck right now, isn’t it? Somewhere in the middle. You need to make a choice. Go one way or the other.”
“I know,” I say, sighing. “I’ve just been torn on whether I should get off this train for a while and try to get on a new track, or—”
“Oh, you should absolutely get off.” Bridget winks and pulls an imaginary train whistle.
“Helpful,” I deadpan.
“Sorry,” she says. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around what’s holding you back here. Are you afraid he won’t feel the same?”
“I’m afraid of all of it,” I admit, letting out a low, nervous laugh. “It was one thing to fall for Penn inside a game, but this is real life, and I’m stuck with whatever happens, good or bad. So are you. And Ryan. If we give it a shot, it’ll shake up everything. I don’t want to rock the boat and throw everyone overboard.”
“Ruby.” Bridget clicks her tongue. “This isn’t about me, or Ryan, or our feelings.”
My throat tightens. “Everything is about you two to me.”
“I know. But not this.” She gives me a small, warm smile, and we may as well be lying side by side in our sleeping bags like we used to, our stuffed teddy bears tucked to our chests. “All we want is for you to do what makes you happy. And obviously, Penn does.”
Bridget’s got a point. After all, isn’t that what I’ve been preaching for her and Ryan to do, too? To follow their hearts and be true to themselves?
“I don’t know what to say to him,” I tell her. “I can’t just, like, come out with it.”
“Well, how did you make everything happen in the game?”
My eyes close as I recall the palpable humiliation. “I put on teen movie soundtracks and made out with him on a beanbag chair.”
