The Boyfriend Project Read online

We cleaned the kitchen, put our leftovers away in case we got hungry later. Then we went to get my car. We were quiet as we drove over to the vet’s. My chest tightened as we pulled into the lot.

  “Why don’t you drive my car back?” Jeremy said.

  “Yeah, okay.” I handed him my keys, grateful that he understood I wasn’t quite ready to be in my car yet. It had been Bogart’s final ride.

  Jeremy followed me. We were partway home when he flashed his brights. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw him pull into a car wash. I made a U-turn at the next intersection and returned to the car wash. I waited while he cleaned the inside of the car, then the outside.

  It was so Jeremy to take care of something that he knew would be difficult for me. When we got home, he came over to me, handed me my keys, didn’t say anything about what he’d done.

  It had been a long day. It was late. When we got inside, I set the alarm, took Jeremy’s hand, and led him upstairs to my room. Lying on my bed, I pulled him down beside me. His arms came around me, and I snuggled against his chest.

  “The house is so quiet,” I said, my voice low.

  “I could sing.”

  “Don’t take this wrong, but I’ve heard you sing.”

  He chuckled low. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.”

  “But I do appreciate the offer.”

  We were quiet for several minutes before I said, “Now that you’ve been at it for a while, how do you like construction?”

  “Looking forward to being a lawyer. Construction is hot and hard.”

  “That should make your dad happy.”

  “Happy is not in his wheelhouse, but he’ll be relieved. Until he realizes I’m not going to work for his law firm.”

  “Isn’t it a little soon to decide that?”

  “Nope. The one thing I have realized is that I like not having to deal with him all day. Not facing the pressure of having to please him has made working so much better.” He skimmed his fingers over my arm. “Still going to be a vet?”

  “Absolutely.” I pressed my hand to his chest. “Why does it seem like we’ve been apart forever?”

  “I don’t know. But I feel the same way.”

  “Doesn’t it make you worry that we’re wrong for each other?”

  “We’re only wrong for each other if we let ourselves be,” he said.

  I rose up on my elbow so I could see him more clearly. I sifted my fingers through his hair. Then I lowered my mouth to his.

  Mom wasn’t coming home. We weren’t in a cramped car. We were together. I knew that we weren’t going to go any further than this. I was feeling vulnerable, raw. I think he was, too. We’d made some mistakes, but I believed we were willing to work through them.

  Still, it was scary to think about, to consider.

  Things had gotten out of whack so quickly before.

  But it was reassuring to have Jeremy with me now, tonight, when I needed him the most.

  Breaking off from the kiss, I snuggled against him, inhaling his familiar scent. We talked about things we wanted to do before we left for college. Summer had passed so quickly, more quickly than I’d expected.

  I drifted off to sleep with him holding me.

  Chapter 44

  JEREMY

  I woke up with a numb arm that was trapped beneath Kendall. Not that I cared. I could still feel the weight of her, and I had one arm that wasn’t tingling. With my good hand, I brushed strands of her hair back.

  Sunlight was streaming in through her windows. I liked how she looked when she was asleep. I could count her faint freckles, could see the way her nose twitched. I watched as she opened her eyes and a slow smile eased across her face.

  “I’m glad you stayed,” she said.

  “Me too.”

  She sat up, stretched her arms over her head while blood rushed into my arm with a vengeance, but I fought to ignore it.

  She rolled out of bed. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

  She padded out of the room, while I stayed there for a minute wondering exactly where we went from here.

  By the time I got downstairs, the kitchen was filled with the tantalizing aroma of bacon. Using the Keurig, I made some hazelnut coffee before sitting at the counter to watch her fry up some eggs. “What are you going to do today?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe go to a movie. I don’t want to mope around but if I stay here, I think I will. What about you?”

  “Have some plans.”

  “Oh?” She looked at me, and I saw the doubts in her eyes. She just nodded, went back to the eggs.

  “Not what you think. Not with Jade or anyone else.”

  “You don’t have to tell me what you’re doing.”

  I got up, walked over to her, and put my arms around her waist, set my chin on her shoulder. “There’s no one else. Not after yesterday. I can’t tell you what I’m planning until I know for sure that it’s going to happen. If it doesn’t happen, I’ll go to the movies with you. I should know in a couple of hours.”

  “That’s kinda Jason Bourne-ish,” she said.

  I laughed. “Yeah, I’m a skilled assassin. If it works out, I think you’ll like it.”

  While she finished with the eggs, I got the toast out of the toaster, buttered it, and took it to the counter. She brought over the eggs and bacon.

  “This is so domestic,” she said as she hopped onto a stool.

  “Maybe we’ll get a house together our sophomore year so you can cook every morning.”

  She stilled, stared at me. It was something I could have said a couple of weeks ago and it would have caused no tenseness between us, but now we weren’t completely comfortable with each other. The teasing was gone; the absolute trust had vanished.

  I knew it would take some time to get that back.

  “Want to tell me what you were doing all night?”

  I’d barely walked through the front door when my dad started the inquisition.

  “Not really,” I said. I didn’t think my dad would believe me, anyway, if I told him that all I did was hold Kendall. If he knew we were in bed together, he would assume we’d had sex. Not that I hadn’t wanted to, but I’d understood that wasn’t what she’d needed last night.

  “You need to break things off with this girl if you want me to help you with your college expenses. I’m not going to stand by and see your life ruined.”

  It was ironic. If he’d made the demand a few days ago, I could have told him that we’d broken up. Right now, though, I wasn’t exactly sure where we were.

  Following breakfast, I’d helped Kendall clean up the kitchen. Then I’d headed home. At that precise moment, I was wishing I’d stayed at her house.

  “Dad, who I date, who I spend time with, who I love, who I ruin my life with—is my business. I know you didn’t want to get married when you were eighteen. I know you think it was the biggest mistake of your life, that I’m the biggest mistake—”

  “Son, I never—”

  “Even if you never said it, I felt it. If Mom hadn’t gotten pregnant, if you hadn’t gotten married, where do you think you’d be right now? How much better do you think your life would be? Kendall, the girl I love, her name is Kendall, needs to control things, but we can’t control everything. No matter how hard we try. Things happen that we’re not expecting and we make the best of them. If you don’t want to help me with my college expenses, don’t. I’ll get a job, I’ll get a loan. You made your choices and if you’re not happy with them, they’re on you. Do something about it.”

  I turned to go to my room and nearly slammed into my mother. She was pale, her face horror-stricken. What could she say? She had told me I was a mistake.

  “If you’re not happy, you don’t have to stay here because of me,” I said quietly.

  Then I headed to my room, determined that I would never look back and think that whatever happened between Kendall and me was a mistake. Whether we got back together or stayed apart, it wasn’t going to be because I didn’t know what I wa