Page 55 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes, you do. I’ve seen you with guys, Margo. Our whole lives, I’ve watched how you are about things,” she reminded me. “Whatever this is, it’s different. I can feel it.”

“And you’re …” I frowned, sizing her up. “What, happy about that?”

She shrugged as she picked up a palm tree snow globe and shook it, pretending to be an interested customer. “I’m just excited to see you finally let yourself go a little.”

I wrestled with the compulsion to deny, deny, deny. As much as what she was saying was true—maybe I did like Declan, a little—I didn’t want to admit it. It was as close as I’d come to breaking Rule Number Two, only it wasn’t Declan that I was embarrassed by. It was me. I was embarrassed to show any sign of weakness, to finally throw in the towel and admit that maybe Jo was right. Maybe I was overdue to let go, a little.

Maybe this experiment was good for me.

“I can’t wait to start outlining Season Seven,” Jo said excitedly. “We’re going to have so much to talk about.”

And there it was—the other wrench in the gears, the thing that was holding me back from wanting to talk about it. I was no longer keen on turning this all into some funny anecdote designed to get a cheap laugh out of our listeners, but it felt impossible to say that out loud when I had signed my life away to sponsorships and Spotify exclusives. I’d initialed every page of the contract with Castaway Catalina, which meant the entirety of these two weeks was commodified. I had to have some sort of content.

“Did you know?” I asked, after a long moment.

She knit her brow. “Know what?”

“That Declan had a crush on me in high school.” When she only gave me a dumbfounded look, I was pretty sure I had my answer. “He said he told Peter about it way back when,” I explained. “I didn’t know if Peter had told you.”

She shook her head. “He never mentioned it.” There was a thoughtful pause before she added, “But that honestly doesn’t surprise me.”

“It doesn’t?” I asked, taken aback. It had sure as hell surprised me.

“He literally went to every single one of the school concerts,” she reminded me. “What other guys do you know who willingly sat through the same renditions of Tchaikovsky and ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ semester after semester?”

I didn’t know how to answer that, so I fell silent, feigning interest in the impressive collection of beach bum T-shirts on display, all featuring small animals of some sort—cats, dogs, bunnies, turtles. It was true that Declan had shown up to a few of our end-of-semester performances, but I’d always assumed he was scoping things out for his next stunt.

“So,” Jo said, finally getting around to what she really wanted to ask, “what exactly happened between you two?”

“Last night at the bachelorette party,” I started, hesitant.

“I thought you went to bed.”

I winced. “I might’ve gone and made out with Declan in an elevator instead.”

“That’s it? You just kissed?” She sounded disappointed.

I sighed. I was going to have to explain things sooner or later. Might as well get it over with. “He has this thing about one-night stands. He wants to go on an actual date before screwing my brains out, or whatever.”

“I gathered that during the whole cake conversation,” she said dryly. “So you guys haven’t actually done anything, then? No wonder there was this weird”—she made a funny gesture with her hand, wiggling her fingers at me—“tension between you two, back at the table.”

“I didn’t say that. We sort of … fooled around in a dressing room earlier today, when he took me to buy new jeans.”

She picked up a hideous men’s XL T-shirt of a worm wearing sunglasses. “I’ve heard you describe just about every sex act humanly possible, sometimes in graphic detail, so there’s no way you’re getting away with a lame description like fooled around.”

“Fine.” I cast a nervous look around the shop to make sure no one was eavesdropping, and then I muttered, “He went down on me.”

“He ate you out in a dressing room?” she blurted, way louder than was necessary, because the lady in skinny jeans—in the middle of checking out at the register—turned to shoot us a disgusted look. Seeming to realize how tactless this was, Jo lowered her voice. “How did that go?”

“Best orgasm of my life, I’m pretty sure.”

“Wow.” There was a long pause, during which Jo seemed to be processing this new information. I could practically see the wheels turning in her head. “Well, what are you going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t just let that sort of thing go.” She took the worm shirt to the register and I followed her. The skinny jeans lady dodged us like sluttiness was contagious. “If you don’t go on that date, I promise you, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”