“Maybe it is.” Who was I to say otherwise?
She turned and did the narrowed-eyed thing at me again. “Why are you here, Teddy?”
Aww shit. Well, here went nothing. “I have… certain things I need to say to Gretchen.”
That seemed to be the right answer. “Gretchen!” Rory called. “Look who’s here!”
I was a deer in headlights as Gretchen turned. I couldn’t move anything below the neck, but I could feel my eyes widen and my mouth fall open like I was a fucking idiot.
It was OK, though. She would smile at me—or smirk, or roll her eyes—and say something snippy but fond, and I would be OK.
I caught sight of Maiv, making her way toward us. Normally, I would have greeted her, but she must have sensed the tension in the air because when she got within about six feet of us, she listed to one side and made like she’d merely been walking in a big circle near us. Jack guffawed.
“Jack,” Rory said, looking between Gretchen and me, “can I interest you in taking a giant pronged hammer thing and using it to destroy stuff?”
“You can indeed.”
Which left me and Gretchen. Sugarplum. Sourplum.
“What are you doing here, Teddy?”
There had been no smile or smirk or eye roll accompanying the question, just an unnervingly blank expression. I started to panic.
I thought about leading with the chaperone question, but I had enough functioning brain cells left to realize that wasn’t agood idea. Clearly Gretchen didn’t have the time to be lazing around in a studio for a week helping me with my shit.
“I think youaremy muse,” I blurted.
“What?”
“I think you’re my muse,” I said again, as if the only problem here was that she hadn’t heard me the first time. “Remember when you told me I should sleep with you because maybe I’d get over my inability to write songs?”
“I was kidding about that.”
“I know, but I’m not.”
“So I’m your muse,” she said with what seemed like a strange lack of inflection.
“Yes.”
“Well, no thanks.”
I blinked. “I’m not sure it’s something you can accept or reject. It just is. ‘Sweet and Sour’ is about you, you know. I mean, it’s about a lake, but it’s also about you.”
“No.”
I didn’t know what to do with that. I hadn’t asked a question.
“Have you listened to anything I’ve been saying?” she said, her voice rising. “I’m done dating.”
“I know, but—”
“You can’t be here,” she said slowly, like she was talking to a child. “I didn’t agree to this. This is the opposite of what I agreed to.”
I could not argue with that. I was supposed to be her last hurrah. Maybe I’d been promoted to camp boyfriend there at the end, but I should know that camp boyfriends weren’t reality boyfriends. Look at me, I’d somehow gotten Jack as a real friend and Gretchen had to remain a camp friend.
Well, fuck.
I guess sometimes you shoot your shot, and you get shot down.
