I think I’ve changed my outfit six times already.
Maybe seven.
I let out a long sigh, turning right and then left, inspecting my latest option of jeans and a cardigan in the mirror, my long hair pulled half-up, half-down.
“You look nice,” Riley says, coming into my room and plunking down on the bed with a bag of Doritos. “For your date.”
I meet her eyes in the mirror. “It’s not a date.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“It’s not.”
“Okay!” she says, sliding a chip into her grinning mouth, eyebrows wiggling. “You sure are spending a long time getting ready for it not to be a date.”
I roll my eyes and swipe a necklace off my bookshelf, putting it on along with a spray of the perfume my mom got me for my birthday, the smell sweet and floral.
“Whatarrryuurevemdouing?”
“What?”
She swallows her mouthful of chips. “What are you even doing?”
“I don’t know,” I say, shrugging as I grab my phone and check the time. 7:58. “She just said she’d be here at eight.”
“Got it, got it.” Riley nods. “So you spent like two hours getting ready, you’re done early for the first time in your life, and it’s not a date.”
“Yep.” I pocket my wallet and phone, then flick off my bedroom light and head down the hall.
Riley hops off the bed, following me. “Do you wish it was?”
“Wish it was what?”
“A date.”
I stop on the top step, glancing back to give her a look. “Riley.”
She tosses another chip into her mouth innocently, waiting for an answer I won’t give. I ignore her and head down the steps.
“That’s not a no,” she says, as the doorbell rings. Eight on the dot.
I glare at her before pulling open the front door. Arden looks perfect as usual in a black leather jacket and a pair of boots expensive enough to put me through college, a baseball cap tucked onto her head, out of place with the rest of her outfit. Is it to hide her face?
She gives me a once-over, the corner of her mouth pulling into that lopsided grin.
“You look nice,” she says like she means it, and I feel my cheeks grow warm.
I hear a loud crunch and turn my head to see Riley standing next to me. “Caroline says it’s not a date.”
“I mean, technically, it is a date,” Arden says, leaning forward to grab a chip and pop it into her mouth. “Since we’re, you know, fake dating.”
I grab my jacket, pushing her out the door in the direction of her car. “Bye, Riley!”
“Bye!” Riley calls back. “Have fun on your date!”
I slow to a stop outside the Volvo, fingers around the icy door handle while I wait for Arden to unlock it.
Instead, she makes a sharp left turn, heading in the direction of town.
I jog after her, grabbing her jacket sleeve. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see,” she says, and I quickly rack my brain for all the places in town we could walk to from here, places we used to go, Barnwich holiday events happening tonight, trying to figure out where she’s taking me.
“Bookstore?”
“No.”
“Clara’s Bakery?”
“Nope!”
“The pinball arcade?”
“No… but…” She hesitates, frowning as we turn the corner onto Main Street. “That would’ve been fun too.”
I scan the street in front of us, signs hanging underneath strings of glowing lights. “Taste of Italy?”
“No.”
I hope she’s not thinking of the little pottery studio on the corner where we used to go as kids, because that closed a couple of years back.
Suddenly she skids to a stop outside Beckett Brothers. She pulls open the door, and the sound of a girl shrieking out Adele nearly blows my eyebrows off.
Karaoke night.
“Oh no.” I take a step back.
“Oh yes. We’re doing this. Figured it might be fun to do something for the article that’s not so holiday-centric, and give your brothers some promo while we’re at it.”
Right. For the article.
Arden grabs ahold of my hand and pulls me inside the dim bar, lit only by a neon sign with the name on the wall, some modern pendant lights I helped put up, and a spotlight on the stage in the corner, where Jessica O’Reilly from Levi’s class is squawking like an injured seagull. Arden guides us around the surprisingly crowded tables and chairs to the red leather stools in front of the bar. My brothers are hard at work making drinks behind it, in front of their wall of alcohol. A few heads turn as Arden passes by, but not nearly as many as usually do in broad daylight. I watch as she confirms my earlier suspicions by reaching up to adjust the baseball cap, clearly still conscious of it.
Arden motions to a free stool and I slide onto it, then swivel it around to face Miles. My breath hitches when she moves close enough for her chest to press lightly against my shoulder.
“Hey!” he says, when he glances up from the gin and tonic he’s making and sees us.
“Miles! This place is awesome,” Arden says, and he beams proudly as he slides the drink across the bar to Mr. Green, who must be fresh off his shift since he’s still in his Santa costume, hat hanging limply off his head.
“What can I get you two?”
“Two beers, please,” Arden says innocently, her breath tickling my neck, making my stomach flutter. Miles snorts and plunks two root beers onto the wooden counter in front of us instead, then swings a bar towel over his shoulder.
“Miiiiles,” she groans. The guy sitting on the stool next to us gets up, and the part of me that can’t be quieted protests as she moves away and takes the open seat.
“Don’t Miles me, Arden James.” He raises a dark eyebrow before moving down the bar to take a few more orders. Thwarted, Arden swivels around to face me and I do the same, my knee grazing hers.
“So,” she says. “Do you come here often?”
“Is that a pickup line?”
She gives me an amused look, taking a slow sip of her root beer.
I shrug. “Not really. Sometimes I’ll stop by after school. The first month or two we all came every day it was open. Some days we were the only customers. But now…”
I motion to the modest crowd of people milling about as Mr. Green hops up onstage with his fresh G & T to scattered applause and whistles.
Maybe it’s partially the Arden effect, but part of me also thinks it’s that they’re the only place in town willing to stray from tradition. Willing to try new things instead of doubling down on the old. Trivia and singles night and karaoke, elf costumes not required.
Maybe Barnwich needs to try something new too.
Arden peers around, taking everything in while I take her in, her face glowing in the red neon light.
Then Levi’s head suddenly appears between us, cutting off my view of Arden. He swaps the root beer bottles for two actual beers with a wink, holding a finger up to his lips.
I laugh, and Arden holds out her bottle to me. “Cheers.”
I clink it against hers, and the two of us join in as the bar sings along with Mr. Green’s rendition of “Piano Man,” people swaying to and fro in their seats.
As karaoke night continues, some performances are better than others. We sit awkwardly through a recently divorced Erica Miller crying her way through “Shallow,” followed by some passable Shania Twain by a tourist in from somewhere down South. But things get a real lift from an impressive “Bohemian Rhapsody” belted out by our elementary school janitor, Mr. Stukuley.
“Holy shit!” I grab hold of Arden’s arm as Mr. Stukuley rips out the high note, sending a few people whistling in admiration.
“Heard him singing once when he cleaned the second-floor bathroom,” Arden says with a laugh. “Knew he had it in him.”
Our eyes meet, and I’m not sure which is making me dizzier, the beer or her hand sliding down to my wrist and then my palm, until her warm fingertips finally close over mine. I catch sight of two girls just over her shoulder, sitting at the end of the bar, heads pressed close together as one of them pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of Arden.
I can’t help but wonder if she’s doing this because she’s already clocked them.
I think of Arden’s fake smile on Margo’s front porch and everything I saw on Twitter two nights ago, and my grip tightens around her hand. I fight off the urge to drag her out of here, to protect her. But this is a fake date. We need, Arden needs, to be seen.
So instead I just let go to stop myself, disguising the movement by putting both hands on the bar and leaning forward.
“Miiiiles!” I call out, and my brother pops into view. “Can we get some fries?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “Did Levi…?”
He catches sight of the empty beer bottles and lets out a long sigh. “Yeah. I’ll get you some fries.”
It isn’t long before the red-and-white boat appears in front of us. Our hands crash together as we both go for the same perfect fry, lightly salted, impeccably crispy. Arden surprises me by pulling her hand away, motioning for me to have it. Instead, I break it into two and hold out half to her. Her lips pull into a small smile as she leans forward and bites it out of my hand.
I roll my eyes at her to cover the blush creeping up my cheeks, then look back at the stage, where a woman about Edie’s age is rocking out to some Cher.
“You want to do it?” she asks playfully.
“What? Karaoke? Absolutely not.”
Arden pops a fry into her mouth, a mischievous glint in her eye as she stares at the stage. “I’d crush it.”
“Says the girl who was lip-syncing Christmas carols.”
“Ouch.” She clutches her chest. “But fair.” She takes a swig of the replacement beers Levi has provided, apparently not daunted by Miles’s threats, then nods in the direction of the bathrooms. “Gotta pee. I’ll be right back.”
I’m so busy watching her go, I almost don’t notice Levi sliding onto her unoccupied stool, plastic bin under his arm. “So,” he says, brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “What’s the deal?”
I glare at him and eat another fry. “What do you mean, what’s the deal?”
“You and Arden.” He leans forward conspiratorially when he says it. He stole my diary when I was in eighth grade, so he knows all too well about my deep, all-consuming crush.
“There is no ‘deal.’ Not a real one, anyway. You know that. There never has been a deal with me and Arden.” My crush is in the past; this is just the ripple effects, the fake dating calling them up. Arden has always been the maybe. The what-if. If anything, this little game of pretend feels like finally getting an answer to it so I can just… move on.
“She’s here for seven more days. And then she’ll just…” I shrug, munching on a fry, a little too much of a lightweight not to be honest. “Forget about Barnwich again. Forget about me again.”
“Mmm.” His gaze flicks past my head, though, and a huge grin appears on his face as the whole room starts to clap and wolf-whistle.
I spin around to see that Arden has hopped up onstage and is taking the mic from the Cher crooner. “Hey, everyone,” she says into it, and a few phones rise in anticipation, the excitement palpable. She clears her throat. “This next song goes out to my girlfriend.”
Oh God.
Her eyes lock with mine, and the moment that perfect, annoying smile of hers appears, I know exactly what she’s about to do.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, resisting the urge to crawl underneath the bar as the opening notes play.
“Where it began…,” Arden starts, and immediately the whole bar turns to look at me.
As she sings, she hops off the stage and starts weaving her way around the tables, doing crowd work the whole way, letting people sing into the mic, taking a quick sip from someone’s glass with a wink, even slinging an arm around Mr. Green.
Whatever her voice lacks, she makes up for tenfold with charisma, and by the time she gets to the bridge, what seems like the whole bar is singing along, swaying right and left in time with her.
She reaches out and a sea of hands reach back at her, a few fingertips grazing hers.
And it’d be all too easy to just… give into it. My what-if with Arden James. To imagine what it would be like if I really was hers, watching as she serenaded me at karaoke or got Austin ten thousand more Instagram followers or listened to Maya talk about art school. Maybe it’s good it isn’t real, because I’m not sure my heart could handle falling in love with one person so many times in a day.
She spins around and clambers onto the end of the bar, but this time she holds my gaze like there’s nobody else in this entire room.
“Sweet Caroline.”
“Bum, bum, bum!” everyone adds in as she whips her hat off and chucks it into the crowd, sending people diving to catch it.
The whole room chants as she walks closer and closer to me, making my heart pound so hard in my chest I feel dizzy.
Soon she’s in front of me, stooping down until we’re face-to-face, so charming that even though I still can’t tell what’s real and what’s not, I’m not sure I want to anymore.
She offers me a hand, one eyebrow ticking up in challenge as everyone cheers.
“Full stack or bust,” she mouths, but somehow I know the challenge is more than just about karaoke. I let out a long exhale and finally, I do give in. I let her pull me up onto the bar. I let myself slip fully into the lie. And even though this is all so far out of my comfort zone, something about the way she’s looking at me makes me less afraid, just like it always has.
We sing the next verse into the mic together, and one person holds up their beer bottle, and then everyone does.
She smiles out at the sea of bottles, the whole room of people, during the verse, but when we get to the chorus again, it’s back to me, only me, her eyes shining in the glow of the neon sign, the same eyes that held my own when we stayed up late whispering secrets to one another, and drank milkshakes at Edie’s, and ice-skated until we could barely feel our feet. The same eyes I fell in love with so many times, it makes me realize that what I thought was a scar was actually just a scab.
The song ends to uproarious applause, and Arden lowers the mic until there’s nothing between us but air. Her eyes flick down to my lips, and for the smallest moment, a heartbeat, it feels like we’re going to kiss. This time I don’t deny it to myself. I want to kiss her.
I want it to be real.
But instead, she blinks and looks away, grinning out at the crowd as she hops down off the bar, then offers me a hand. She helps me climb down before heading back to the stage to hand the mic off to the next person.
As I watch her go, Levi leans over to whisper in my ear, “It doesn’t seem like she forgot about you.”
And I can’t help but hope that maybe she could want it to be real too.