Page 16 of Kiss Slay Replay

“An opportunity to rip off that metaphorical Band-Aid.”

The guitar-piano duo is currently playing a cover of “Can’t Help Falling in Love” and I’m not convinced that now is the time. “Later.”

Cassie drinks. From both glasses. Sip, sip.

I execute a quick scan of the party with the spy-like subtlety I’ve developed over years of socializing as an extroverted introvert. It’s crowded. The gang’s all here. Evan and Wyatt are at a cocktail table talking to Tanya over highball glasses, the small lantern between them glowing artificially bright thanks to a flameless votive. They appear to be enjoying themselves, fully engaged in the conversation. I wait for bitterness to manifest, for that intensely unpleasant heartburn sensation, but it doesn’t come. They’ll loop back to me with an honest assessment. Even if the report is positive, even if it stings, they’ll still provide me with the recon. Because they’re loyal to me. Because they’re my friends. They’ve been my friends for more than a decade—an amount of time I still can’t quite wrap my head around.

Clocks tick, the world spins, and I’m hyperconscious of my mortality in a way that I’ve never been until lately. Ever since the split. I know the years with Ravi weren’t wasted, I don’t regret them, and I don’t want to. But I’d spent those years picturing the rest with him, and now they’re just…empty. And that, that I regret. I resent. The blank future I don’t know what to do with. The youth I can’t get back. Having to start all over. Not really knowing how.

Luke comes up behind Cassie and wraps his arms around her shoulders. She hands one of her cocktails back to him. “Here. I don’t like this one.”

He takes a sip. “Backwash. My favorite.”

“Do you guys remember the party? Where Steph and Jace met?” I was quick to dismiss Danny’s curiosity about that night. In retrospect, I’m not sure I gave his question proper thought. It was so long ago—all those college nights have since tangled together into a single feverish montage. The memories are lost to me but maybe not to my friends. Reminiscing is the only way back, and I crave it. A way back. Because there’s a sense of safety in the familiar. Because it’s an easy out of the here and now.

Luke exhales. “Uh…”

“I think we were off campus,” Cassie says. “Allston.”

“Yeah. It was at the SAE house. It must have been September, because I remember the leaves hadn’t changed yet. I was with Jace, and he saw Steph pouring drinks and he grabbed my arm, like this—” He claws Cassie’s bicep. “And I was like, dude, relax. But he didn’t relax. He didn’t relax until he went over and talked to her. Then he finally…” He sinks his shoulders. “It was crazy. I thought he was just like that. Like”—he lifts his shoulders up to his ears—“all anxious and intense. But he wasn’t. Or he was and Steph cured him.”

Cassie gawks at her husband. “You remember all that?”

He boops her on the nose. “Yeah, babe. It was the night I met you.”

“Aww,” I say.

“No, it wasn’t,” Cassie snaps. “We met moving into the dorms, asshole.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Love at first sight,” I say, and they both laugh. They didn’t get together until junior year, after a truly exhausting run that proved will-they-or-won’t-they is only cute on sitcoms.

Evan saunters over, Wyatt at his heels.

“What do we think of this whole…situation?” Evan asks, gesturing to the musicians, who stare deep into each other’s eyes as they play a slow, sweeping cover of “Stand by Me.”

“I think they fought on the way over here,” Wyatt says.

“And I think they fucked,” Evan says. “Pulled over. Back seat.”

“Por qué no los dos?” Cassie asks.

“Whatever it is, it’s making me uncomfortable,” I say.

Luke frowns and shakes his head. “Yeah. Do you think they take requests? I—”

“Don’t. We should be nice,” Cassie says.

Evan and I exchange a look.

“For Steph and Jace,” she clarifies.

“Sure,” Evan says, shrugging. He narrows his eyes at something. Someone. He points. He doesn’t care about subtlety. Unlike me, he’d make a terrible spy. “Who is that?”

I step next to him to align our views. He’s looking at Danny, who is looking back at us, grinning.

“Jason’s friend Danny.” I know I’m blushing because my face is hot. My whole body is hot. My ears. My neck. Even my elbows. My fucking knees. It’s insanity. I turn away.