“We definitely don’t want to put anybody out,” Sadie promises. She looks completely and obviously enamored by the idea of coming along, her pretty face lit up like her veins are full of neon. “But that sounds amazing, actually. Like, assuming you guys are for real and this isn’t just a politeness offer, and we’re not messing up your romantic vacation or anything like that.” She looks at Gabe. “Isn’t that the point of a backpacking trip?” she asks, sounding almost beseeching. “Like, going wherever the whim takes you?”
“Kuddelmuddel!” Ian bursts out like a contestant on a game show who knows he’s got the winning answer. He looks to me for confirmation. “Right?”
Gabe’s eyes narrow. “What?”
I shake my head. “Forget it.”
For the first time all night, Gabe looks directly across the table at me. What are you doing? his expression seems to beg. After all, I could still save us; it wouldn’t even take that much. I could weave a thousand excuses. I could tip my hand and tell the truth.
But I don’t.
“It’s a real invitation, dude,” Ian declares, sitting back in the booth, his long limbs everywhere like he doesn’t have a care in the breathing world. “We wouldn’t ask if we didn’t mean it.”
“Ryanair flights are like thirty bucks right now,” Sadie puts in. “Or thirty euro, but still. I was looking today,” she explains, off Gabe’s quizzical expression. “I thought we couldn’t make it work ’cause we’d still have to pay for a hotel and car rental and all that stuff, but if we have a place to stay . . .” She mirrors his wide-eyed stare. “Oh, come on,” she cajoles, hooking her arm around his and resting her sharp chin on his shoulder. “It’ll be an adventure.”
“An adventure, huh?” Gabe asks, lips twisting. But then, to my utter surprise, he nods. “Okay,” he says slowly, like he knows he’s outnumbered. “Fuck it. Why not, right? Let’s go.”
“Sweet!” Ian is grinning. “Glad to have you aboard, kids.”
“To Ireland,” Sadie says, raising her pint glass. “And new friends.”
The rest of us raise our beers in a sloppy cheers, giddy; beer sloshes down my wrist as we clink. I look everywhere but at Gabe as the band starts up again, grateful that the music is too loud to think about what might happen next.
Day 3
“Wake up, Drunky Brewster,” Ian says the next morning, nudging me with one gentle knee and waving a paper cup of weak British coffee in front of my face. “We gotta go meet your friends at the airport.”
I shake my head into the sheets. “What?” I mumble. My head is pounding, my stomach gurgling from all the beer we drank last night; for a second I’m completely disoriented. Then I remember:
Gabe. Sadie.
Ireland.
Oh my God, what have I done?
I scramble upright, head clearing as suddenly as if I’d fallen through thin ice into Star Lake in January. “Why did you do that?” I demand, trying not to sound too ear-splittingly shrill and knowing I’m missing by several octaves at least. “Just invite those guys to Imogen’s last night without asking me first?”
“Wait, what?” Ian sets the coffee down on the nightstand, blinks at me. “Really? You’re mad at me now? Last night you were totally into the idea.”
“No, I wasn’t,” I tell him, though I know I can’t actually blame him for assuming otherwise. I wanted so badly to convince him that everything was fine, and I overshot so hard that for a second I even managed to convince myself it was a good idea. “It’s just, it’s weird.”
“Why is it weird?” Ian asks. “They’re your friends. Or he is, at least. Isn’t he?”
“No,” I amend, “I mean, he is, but it just feels like an imposition on Imogen, and it wasn’t part of our plan, and—” I break off, huffing a breath out. I can’t believe I let him do that. I can’t believe I let myself.
“Do you want to uninvite them?” Ian asks finally, sitting down on the edge of the mattress and looking faintly crestfallen. “You can just text them, right? Say you got some kind of rare European fever and the whole thing is canceled.”
I smile in spite of myself, shake my head. “No,” I say. “That just makes it weirder.” I sigh, scrub my hands through my unwashed hair. “I’m sorry. I’m being a control freak.”
“Something new for a change,” Ian jokes, but there’s a faint edge to his voice. I tuck my hair behind my ears, and just like that I’m my normal self again, bright and unruffled.
“You’re right,” I tell him. “I’m being ridiculous. It’ll be fun. The more the merrier, right?” I lean over and stamp a deranged kiss on his face before hopping out of bed and trotting toward the bathroom. “Good morning, PS. I’ll call Imogen and let her know.”
I shut the bathroom door and turn the water on, then scroll through the favorites on my phone until I find the number for Imogen’s international cell. “It’s you!” she says when she answers. “What’s the matter?”
“What makes you think something is the matter?” I ask, sitting down on the cool tile floor and stretching my legs out in front of me.
Imogen laughs. “If nothing was the matter, you would have texted. You guys are still coming, right?”
“No no no, absolutely!” I promise. “Yes. There’s just, like. A tiny wrinkle.” I rest my head against the doorjamb, try to think how best to begin. “So, first of all, guess who’s in London.”
I explain the whole night as quickly and factually as possible, leaving out the part where seeing Gabe again set every cell in my skeleton humming like a juiced-up power grid and ending with Ian being Ian and inviting them to tag along. Once I’m finished, Imogen is silent for a moment. “So you’re bringing Gabe and his new girlfriend to my nun house today?” she asks. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“Um,” I say sheepishly, squeezing my eyes shut. My head really hurts. “Yes? I’m sorry. I know it’s a massive imposition, you can definitely tell me to go screw, I—”
“No, it’s not that,” Imogen interrupts. “Come on, I don’t care about that. I just . . .” She trails off, the question hanging thick as London fog in the silence.
“I didn’t tell him,” I blurt. “I know that’s what you’re thinking, and you’re not saying it out loud because you’re polite, but—no. I didn’t tell him.”
“Are you going to?” Imogen asks. “I mean, for the record I don’t actually think you’re obligated, after the way he totally fell off the face of the planet back in the fall. But that’s just me.”
I huff a quiet laugh through my nose. “I don’t know,” I murmur, glancing over my shoulder at the closed bathroom door. “I wanted to back when it happened. You know I wanted to. But you’re right. He made it pretty clear he didn’t want anything to do with me after last summer. So I kind of don’t see what it would accomplish at this point except dredging a bunch of ugly stuff up again.”