I head back into the shop and flip the switch near the door. The white Christmas lights I wound around the rafters last night light up for a second before one of the bulbs pops and the middle strand goes dark.
“Ah. Shit.” I launch myself onto the long wood worktable and unplug the dead strand. The remaining strands are too dim, and make the walls and shelves look yellowed and frayed, like old newspaper. This was supposed to be a romantic way to congratulate her on finishing her exams. If I’ve learned anything from the movies Bridge secretly loves, it’s that girls freaking melt over white Christmas lights. Christmas lights and candles. It’s girl science: The more tiny lights there are in a room, the more likely a girl is to take off her clothes in that room.
I unwind the bad strand and drop to the table, almost knocking the bottle of sparkling cider and the box of Anastasia’s doughnuts to the floor. Suddenly, I see the shop the way she’ll see it when she walks in: the weak lights hanging limp from the rafters; the fake booze and the dented doughnut box. Pathetic.
I should know better. Every time I plan a big romantic moment between Bridge and me, the moment disappears before she even knows it was supposed to exist. Somehow things work out for us anyway. It’s like the night I was supposed to tell Bridge I loved her, for the first time out loud. Freshman year, our first high-school party. I went because Bridge was excited and because for some reason, my mom wanted me to go. She has always had a very specific picture of what she hopes I am. I honestly think she pictures me at parties fist-bumping other guys and saying things like Nah, bruh.
The party was being thrown by a junior girl named Isabella, a girl whose parents were the kind of people who said things like If you’re going to drink, I’d rather you do it here. That night, I knew things were going to change for Bridge and me. No longer Bridge and Wil, platonic childhood buddies. We’d see each other across a crowded lawn or kitchen and we’d be magically transformed into Bridge and Wil, smooth ninth-grade love machines. Or something. I practiced in the mirror; studied how my mouth looked saying unfamiliar things like You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever known—we, like, make sense.
I showed up to the party in khaki shorts and a new T-shirt my mother had ironed, my hair frozen with some gel I found in my parents’ bathroom. Standard uniform for love machines everywhere. I had my speech ready. Bridge was already there when I made it to Isabella’s back porch. I’d specifically told her to go without me. You can’t notice someone across a crowded porch if you show up together.
She looked maybe the prettiest I’d ever seen her that night, in shorts and this white tank top, and her hair was braided but wild around the face. Buck Travers was handing her a beer. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and I tried to catch her eye, but her eyes were everywhere else, so I gave up on my big romantic moment and headed their way.
“Hey,” I said. “Buck.” I wedged myself halfway between them.
“Hines, man. How’s it going?” Buck dipped the brim of his trucker hat.
“Wil!” Bridge looked up from her drink and grinned like she was surprised to see me. She threw her arms around my neck. She smelled like Bridge and a little too much like beer. “So glad you’ve popped in for a spell, bloke. Care for a pint?”
“Uh, what?”
She listed toward me. “We’re speaking in Bri-ish, love.”
“Blimey, darlin’,” Buck said halfheartedly, which Bridge found hilarious.
“Oh.” I tried it out. “Hines. Wil Hines,” I said, and it didn’t sound Bond-ish at all, but Bridge laughed harder than she’d laughed for Buck.
“You look sharp, mate,” she observed with a grin.
“That’s Australian, I think,” I said. “But, like, good Australian.”
She shrugged and sipped her drink. “Master Travers, dost thou think thou could get Master Hines a pint of ale?”
“Huh?” Buck sounded thick.
“Get him a beer,” Bridge said.
Buck licked his lips. “Oh. Yeah. I guess.”
“Great, man. Thanks,” I said. I didn’t want a beer, but I wanted Buck gone.
“Um,” I said once he’d left. “Hey. So do you think we could talk about something?”
“He’s been flirting with me all night,” Bridge said, putting her hand on my chest.
“Oh—” I didn’t know what to say after that.
“But you know what?” Bridge leaned in close, and her hair enveloped us. “I. Fancy. You.”
I breathed her in. “I—” Were we still pretending? My body hovered in the space between nirvana and devastation. “Are you—”
“I fancy you,” she said again in her normal Bridge voice, and her eyes got clear and sharp. And then she kissed me.
I always thought girls were supposed to taste sweet, like cotton candy. But Bridge tasted like floating in the ocean and getting a slow even burn. She tasted like grass and salt air and mangoes, like good sore muscles after a day in the shop and the sound of the waves at three A.M. She was everything good in my life. And she wanted me. Even without a big romantic moment.
Back in the shop, I peel myself off the table and yank the green cord from its outlet. I tug the lights gently, until the strand worms its way from around the beam and collapses in a heap at my feet. Then I wind the cord from my elbow to my palm and around again. Again and again until it’s a perfect oval. I twist one of Dad’s garbage bag ties around the loop at the north end and the south end. Dad won’t forgive a half-assed job, even for the sake of romance. I store the lights in the bottom drawer of his toolbox.
“All right,” I tell the walls. “I’m going.”
I leave the windows down as I gun over the Intracoastal. At the top of the span, I close my eyes for just a second, imagine Bridge and the way her eyes go from faded blue to aqua when she’s surprised or embarrassed. She’ll be surprised, that’s for sure.
I recognize Leigh’s street a second too late and make the turn too fast, almost sideswiping a brand-new beamer. Cars are parked on either side of the street for the entire length of the block. No wonder Bridge was mad when I refused to go. Every kid in the junior class must be here. I park behind a Jeep with a SALT LIFE bumper sticker and walk the few blocks back toward the party.
The dull roar of the party swells behind three stories of stucco. I start down the drive, which is lined with tiny spotlights on either side, like a mini airport runway.
“Wil? That you?”
I squint at the house. There’s a girl, not Bridge, sitting on the front steps. A red Solo cup hovers just above her knee.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Ana. Acevedo?” She says the last part like she’s not sure.