We Can't Keep Meeting Like This by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Author:Rachel Lynn Solomon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The ceremony goes flawlessly, or as flawlessly as a ceremony can, given there’s no such thing as perfection in the wedding business. For some reason, my parents didn’t like that as a slogan either: Borrowed + Blue: because there’s no such thing as perfection.

I’m in the canopied dining area, waiting to escort guests to their tables, and I swear, Tarek goes out of his way to either glance at me or walk right in front of me every time he carries out a tray of food for the buffet. Harun is here too, and I watch them joking around when they’re in the kitchen, wondering if Tarek told Harun about us.

Though I guess if he’s glancing at me, I’m almost always glancing back. When our eyes lock, my face burns, and it’s not just because I forgot sunscreen.

This is getting ridiculous. I tell Mom I’ve gotten too much sun, that I need a walk and some space. The grounds are large, and it’s easy enough for me to disappear without disturbing anyone.

Sprawling maple trees shade my path as I walk and walk and walk, until I let out what feels like my first deep breath since last weekend, since that microscopic laundry room, since his mouth was on mine and his fingers were grazing my hips and—

Stop. It didn’t mean anything. It can’t mean anything.

It’s quiet out here. Calming. I’ve never been interested in the roughing-it kind of camping trips Julia takes with her parents, but maybe I could get into nature. I am a new and open-minded Quinn. Just leave me out here in the—shit, is that a wasp?

Of course I’m in the middle of my wasp-avoidance dance when I hear footsteps and spot Tarek heading toward me. I freeze, offering up my skin to the bees.

“Hey, you,” he says, echoing my earlier greeting in this low voice. When Tarek says it, he turns those words electric. I feel them in the tips of my toes.

I don’t know how he’s remotely calm. Maybe because he is a mature college student, and I am the kind of chaotic mess who, without fail, gets mascara all over her eyelids every morning and has to wipe it off and start again.

I chance a step forward, keeping a very safe few feet separating us. “Hi.” My heart does this infuriating beat-skipping thing in my chest that I decide to attribute to the wasps. They are terrifying, powerful creatures.

“We can’t keep meeting like this.”

“You’re the one who followed me here.”

He steps closer, something small clasped in his hand. “So I did.” The sweet, earthy scent of him blends with the trees and the flowers and the summer air, and for a moment I think I might need to lie down. Just right here in the dirt. “Rumor in the kitchen is that you de-greenified the bride’s hair.”

“All in a day’s work. And it was more Asher than me.”

“Still. For such a big wedding, it’s been a shockingly crisis-free one. The brides knew exactly what they wanted.

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