“Oh yes we are!” Cherry shouted from the back of the crowd.
“You’re not serious!” I said, stopping in front of them and taking in the sheer number. We wouldn’t even fit in one elevator car.
“We are!” someone shouted.
“Fine, but you’re all waiting down the street.”
I led the group of fifteen to the trains and we all piled in.
“This is ridiculous,” I said under my breath.
“Yes, it is,” Cherry agreed, “but if life wasn’t ridiculous sometimes, what kind of life would it be?”
“A normal one,” I countered playfully.
“Hush it,” she said, prodding my shoulder with hers. “You love it.”
I did.
“It’s gonna be a long train ride home if she says no,” Jason said after a few minutes.
“Shut up, Jason!” the girls said in unison.
“Jeez Louise!” he said, smiling deviously.
“Oh my God, she’s gonna say no,” I said, beginning to hyperventilate.
Harper sent Jason a death glare. “No, she won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I just do, Tom.”
Apparently January’s grandma’s house was only a ten-minute walk from the station so we decided to hoof it. Every step I took January’s direction made my body shake impossibly worse than the last.
January’s home was a typical Jersey split level, baby blue and ugly as hell. I stood just down the street from it, my family flanking me and immediately feeling for all the world like an absolute idiot for agreeing to bring them along.
“You all wait right here,” I said with conviction, eyeing them all harshly. “I swear to God, if I see one of you girls anywhere near us, I’ll have your prospective spouses whip you, fifties-style.”
“Ugh!” Marty yelped. I focused in on her and she pretended to zip her mouth.
“Stay. Here.”
I nervously walked January’s way and shook out my hands to steady them, wiping the sweat onto the thigh of my jeans. I scaled the sidewalk to the front door. My finger lingered over the doorbell.
“Here goes nothing.”
Chapter Thirteen
Settle Down
January
I’d barely rinsed the conditioner from my hair when I heard the doorbell. I’d hopped in the shower almost immediately after coming home. I needed two things. One, I needed privacy so I could bawl my eyes out after seeing Tom at Seven where he proceeded to blow me off, making me feel worse than I ever thought I could. Two, I needed the water to soothe myself and my aching heart.
Who could that be? I thought as the doorbell rang again. I shrugged my shoulders and continued to cry into the falling water, sniffling like a little girl. They could sit on the porch for all I cared.
“You!” I heard loudly.