I’d been overwhelmed by waiting tables my first week on the job. The second week wasn’t much better, but Chloe helped bolster my self-confidence to the point that I felt like maybe I could function like a normal person, and have a normal job like every other seventeen-year-old in town.

Evan helped, too.

I went over to the bar with a new drink order. Since I was still a minor, I could only place drink orders, not serve them. And whenever a customer placed an order, I got a tiny little thrill in my belly, knowing I’d have an excuse to go talk to Evan.

He was Merv’s best bartender. Quick. Precise. A good listener, too, which seemed a prerequisite to the job. Evan once told me he’d considered minoring in psychology at the small university in town just to up his bartending game. His exact words. But then he decided he liked welding better, because it required less thinking and more doing.

“Hey, good-looking,” he said when I came around the bar.

A smile instantly spread across my face. Evan technically called every girl here good-looking, but it still made me feel something I hadn’t felt in a long time—noticed, in a good way.

“Hey.” I handed him the drink order, and he got to work. “So Chloe said you guys are going to Arrow tonight?”

Evan grabbed a shaker. “Are we? I hadn’t heard.”

I leaned against the counter. “I wish I was eighteen.”

Where did that come from? I sounded a little too whiny and needy, two things I absolutely hated.

“Why?” He nodded at the cut lime wedges behind me, and I handed one over, stuck between the claws of the silver tongs. “Would you go out with us?”

I shrugged. “Probably. Maybe. I don’t know.”

He smiled as he shook the mixed drink. “That is three non-answers.”

“Yes,” I said. “The answer is yes.”

“Then we can change our plans. Arrow will be there tomorrow night. And the night after that. There’s plenty to do around here that doesn’t require you to be eighteen.”

I straightened. “I didn’t mean you had to rearrange your night for me.”

He handed Merv a tray with the finished drink and an open beer. “Table twelve,” he said, and Merv nodded as he left.

Evan came closer. My face warmed. I couldn’t help but wonder if my makeup had held up since I put it on, or if my pores were huge, or if my teeth were clean. I quickly ran over in my head what I’d eaten for lunch. Apple, peanut butter, string cheese. Nothing that should have been stuck in my teeth.

Someone called for Evan down the bar, but he ignored it.

“I want to rearrange my night for you.” He leaned in even closer. “Besides, I go out with the same people every single night. It’d be nice to have someone else to hang out with.”

He winked and turned away to wait on the customer who was nagging him at the other end of the bar.

I lingered for a few seconds longer, listening to Evan greet the customer with as much cheeriness as he greeted everyone, despite the fact that the older man was still scowling, clearly frustrated with being ignored.

When the bell dinged in the kitchen, signaling a finished order, I turned away and hurried to check if it was one of mine.

The smile on my face remained the rest of the night.

6

ELIZABETH

“YOU REALLY DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS,” I told Chloe as she tore clothing free of its hangers and tossed it at me.

“Yes, I do. Because I’m your best friend and best friends do not let their friends go out with boys they like looking”—she turned to me and waved her hand in the air, gesturing wildly at me—“like that.”

I glanced down at my Merv’s uniform. “I just got off work. Besides, I had planned on changing.”

Evan was right, Chloe was mean, but it wasn’t the kind of mean that was born out of malice. At least not with me. Since we’d become friends, she’d been on a mission to improve my life. If it wasn’t for her, I never would have had the courage to speak to Evan, let alone go out with him and his friends.

I owed her a lot.

But really, did I need a makeover?

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said as she handed me a tank dress with a silky polka-dot skirt.

“What?”

“You’re thinking I’m thinking you need a makeover if you’re to impress Evan.”

I blanched. That was exactly what I’d been thinking. Or at least, something like that.

“But I’m not doing this for Evan,” she said.

“You’re not?”

“No, silly.” She laid her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “I’m doing this for you. I don’t think you need a makeover, but you keep telling me how you’re beneath Evan, so I figure the better you feel about your appearance, the better you’ll feel in your own skin.”

I hung my head and let out a strangled laugh. “I’m not sure I could ever feel comfortable in my own skin.”

Chloe sighed and led me to the bed. “Sit.” I did, and she went on. “I know what you went through must have been…” She trailed off, and when I glanced at her, her eyes were unfocused and watery. “Well”—she took a breath—“it must have been terrible.”

She said it with such conviction, it was almost as if she knew everything I’d gone through and just how bad it’d been. As if she understood every broken part of me and didn’t think less of me because of it.