Page 57 of See You Next Tuesday

“No.” Gabe leaned toward her. “I think we really do.”

He looked right at her. Oh god, he wanted her to explain.

“I mean, I said I wanted to sleep with you, and you said no.” Anya fidgeted with the sweatshirt cuff, wishing it didn’t smell so much like him. “And then the woman you actually wanted to sleep with showed up, like, instantly, so. I’m not sure how much more rejected I could have been.”

“Anya.” Gabe sighed. “I had such a big crush on you. Like, an enormous crush on you.”

“What?” Anya gaped at him. That wasn’t possible. “Then why did you…”

“You wanted a one-night stand.” Gabe’s gaze was fixed on her, and his tone was urgent, like he needed her to understand. “In the canoe, I asked you point-blank if you liked me, and you said no, and then you were extremely clear that if we slept together it wouldn’t mean anything. And listen, I understand why you didn’t think I was good enough to date you. I was a raging fuckboy back then—I wasn’t good enough for you. But it still made me feel like shit that you thought so little of me.”

“I didn’t.” Anya was stunned. “Gabe, I thought that was all you’d want with me. I was shocked you even wanted that. I didn’t believe it until Simone basically forced me to. I thought—you know, I thought we hated each other.”

“I certainly thought you hated me,” Gabe pointed out.

“I know! But then we talked in the canoe, and we were dancing, and I was drunk, and I really wanted you, and I was terrified to say something but I made myself do it anyway, and then you just…didn’t want me back. I felt like such an idiot.”

“You weren’t,” Gabe said.

“But you get why I felt that way, right?”

“I wanted to explain.” Gabe leaned toward her. “But then you said all that stuff, and I was like, Okay, message received. She still hates you, she always did, and some drunken hookup wouldn’t have changed anything. The best thing you can do is forget about ever dating Anya.”

“I can’t believe this,” Anya murmured.

“Can’t believe what?” Gabe was looking at her so fervently it made her whole body feel warm.

“All these months—years, even—I thought you couldn’t stand to be around me. I would think back on us dancing, remembering exactly where your hands were, how much I felt like you wanted me, trying to figure out if it was all in my imagination.”

“You think about that night?” Gabe’s breath was shallow.

Slowly, deliberately, Anya nodded. “Do you?”

“Anya, I think about it all the time.” Gabe flicked away the last of his cigarette, a little flurry of sparks showering to the ground. “I think about what an idiot I was, letting my feelings ruin what might have been my only chance with you. I think about what would have happened if I’d just done what I wanted.”

He looked so intense—but then he laughed softly to himself and cracked a knowing smile.

“What’s funny?” she asked. Her breath was thin.

“Those cheap bunk beds.” Gabe cocked his head. “I like to think about whether we could have broken one.”

“Oh my god,” Anya laughed—at the shock of his suggestion, at the sheer absurdity of this conversation. “Jill would have had a fit.”

“And think of the poor gorillas.” Gabe grinned.

“They’d be scandalized,” Anya agreed.

Anya couldn’t stop herself from imagining it: her grabbing the bed frame, the feeling of him on top of her, the crash as they tumbled to the floor. Don’t stop, she urged him. Keep going.

“What?” he asked. He was staring at her hungrily. She had a feeling he’d been indulging in the same fantasy.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “I can’t believe we’re talking this way about a children’s bedroom. I totally downplayed it with Zeke—”

Fuck. Zeke.

She looked up at Gabe, who seemed to have had the exact same thought at the exact same moment.

“So, you and Zeke,” Gabe asked carefully. “He makes you happy? Like, really?”