Page 106

“In this place, anyway. Then my parents get to pay thousands of dollars for me to take exams over in BC,” Nat said.

“Yeah, but at least they’ll be for classes you actually like,” Yu told her.

She beamed and a spark of guilt flickered in A.J. Between talk of the Certs and the mixed emotions caused by him getting into RIA, they’d barely celebrated her getting accepted to the art program at UBC.

“How soon until you drop out to open your own studio do you think?”

She scoffed, but her smile grew.

“If that happens, you better fly your happy ass back to Canada to check it out.”

“Bring Bren along, please,” Yu said. “I think some photos of him trying to make sense of Nat’s art could be my big break.”

“So we’re all planning on having studios then?” A.J. asked, even if the one he was picturing for himself was off limits to anyone who didn’t live with him.

“We could start a hippy art collective and save on rent,” Yu said.

“If A.J. wasn’t ditching us,” Nat added.

He liked to think he knew Nat well enough to not take her seriously, but the spot she’d poked was already good and sore.

“You guys aren’t upset I’m going, are you?”

“One hundred percent,” Yu said, but then he smiled and shrugged.

Nat waved him off. “It’s not like we’re going to stop being friends just because you’re on another continent, dude.”

With a great deal of effort, A.J. smiled.

It was a nice thought, and one he’d had more than a few times in recent weeks. But were they lying to themselves? MSN and international calling plans gave them a leg up on the era of pen and paper, but between the seven-hour time difference and college workload, how much time were they going to have for each other, really? And that wasn’t even taking into consideration the slew of new people they were going to meet.

“Alright, alright, you’re going to make me blush,” A.J. said, though there wasn’t any danger of that with this group.

“That year in Ireland really messed up your ability to express love normally, huh?” Yu asked.

A.J. puckered his lips and leaned across the table, and when Yu didn’t back away, he made to call his bluff. The result was a horrifically awkward kiss, stretched as far as he could for his lips to barely touch Yu’s cheek.

“I love you, Yu.”

“That’s better.”

He didn’t show any signs of embarrassment, but he did wipe his cheek clean when A.J. sat back down.

“You two better not start dating. I don’t want to be the only single person in that limo,” he told them.

“Still no word on who Dustin’s bringing along?” Yu asked, and heat bloomed across the back of A.J.’s neck.

Every time he thought the subject had been covered for the last time, it popped up again.

“It’s gotta be Brooke, right?” Nat asked, glancing at the clock that was still ten minutes before their exam. “He’s been making such a big deal about being single since musical. Gotta be saving up for the one that got away.”

“You think? She’s hardly come to anything since April.”

“I mean, she’s valedictorian. Go figure she doesn’t have time for sitting around in Dustin’s basement.”

“Maybe he’s going stag?” A.J. said, knowing that his refusal to engage in the speculation would only draw more attention to it.

“Might be better that way,” Yu said. “A group of three and a couple feels weird.”