“What just happened?” Victoria asked.
I met Alana’s eyes through the glass and she shrugged.
“Read the magazine. And come find me if it changes anything,” Diego said, and then he was gone.
“I’m so confused,” Victoria said.
“I need to go.”
“We’re in the middle of recording.”
My heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest. Diego hadn’t heard my confession, obviously, but he would when this all aired. For a moment, I thought I was going to be the embarrassed one, since he liked Alana. But he’d referenced the magazine that was sitting in the back of my car. He obviously hadn’t just handed me a random magazine he thought I’d like. There was something I was supposed to see.
I ripped off the headphones and placed them on the floor. Into the microphone I said, “Sorry, Victoria, to leave you alone like this, but I know you can handle it and I can’t wait one second longer.” I really hoped Ms. Lyon wouldn’t give me an F. But I had to do this.
“Good luck,” Victoria said as I sprinted out the door. I snagged my backpack off the couch and didn’t look back. I could hear someone, who I assumed was Alana, follow after me. I fumbled in the front pocket of my bag for my keys as we neared my car and pushed the unlock button. I opened the back door and snatched the magazine off the seat.
I turned back the cover. I noticed right away the red pen that had been taken to the first article. The headline had been manipulated, parts written over or letters and words crossed out and replaced. It went from saying: Eight Ways to Stay Safe in the Water. To saying: Eight Ways to Say Yes to the Fall Festival. Each of the eight tips were crossed out and now had various ways of saying yes—I’d love to; of course; please, yes; sure; yes, thank you; I thought you’d never ask; no, I mean yes; yes!
I swallowed hard. “Oh no.”
I turned the page. The next article’s headline had been doctored to read: Have I been patient enough?
Page after page was filled with festival references and different ways of asking me to go. The very last page, in black Sharpie, written over the face of a surfer said: Will you go to the Fall Festival with me, Kate?
I was a horrible person. Diego was right. I’d told him no in a subtle way. We’d stood behind the bleachers of the baseball stadium that night and he’d asked me if I’d read any of the articles in the magazine he’d given me and I’d said yes. He thought I had read this and was politely rejecting him. And yet he was still so sweet to me. So sweet until he found out I knew it was him calling in all along. And that had hurt him. He’d thought I was mocking him. Using him.
This whole time I thought he liked Alana and he really liked … me?
Alana, who had obviously been reading over my shoulder, said, “And the best woman won.”
I met her soft stare. She smiled at me. “It’s always been you, Kate,” she said. “It was never me.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know.”
She took me by the shoulders and said, “I know. And we made a deal, right? We’d still be best friends no matter what.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Why a magazine?” she asked.
“That first day I took Liza to the tutoring center, I tried to guess what magazines he read. Then after that, anytime there was a new magazine I noticed it and … no …” My mouth opened and closed.
“What?”
I laughed a little. “No, he was trying to guess my interests after that. He’s the one who brought in the new magazines every Monday. I didn’t realize it was him bringing them in until now.”
“You two are going to be sickeningly sweet together.” Alana picked up my keys from where I had apparently flung them onto the back seat of my car along with my backpack and handed them to me. “Go get your man.”
“Are you going to be—”
“Of course I’ll be okay. It will be fun to watch Frank try to win my affections. I’m ready for someone who’s totally into me now.”
I hugged her tight. “I love you.”
“You too. Tell Diego I said hi.”
I shut the back door and opened the one on the driver’s side.
“Actually, never mind,” Alana added. “Don’t say anything to Diego about me. You should just kiss him. Wasn’t that Victoria’s advice to him once? If he had taken that advice from the beginning and not your lame advice about patience, none of this would have ever happened.”
I laughed. “Yes, Victoria gives much better advice than me. That was determined long ago.”
Alana gave me a playful push into my car, and I pulled the door closed. Then I rolled down my window.
“Wait, I have no idea where to find him. I don’t even have his cell number.”
“I’ll text it to you.”
This is Kate. Where are you?
The hill behind the stadium, Diego texted back almost immediately.
“Thank you for not being too far,” I whispered.
I drove over the single block and parked next to Diego’s car. I carefully exited and stared up the hill. Sequoia trees blocked my view so I couldn’t see him, but I started walking up, anyway. When I arrived, he was holding a golf club and a pile of golf balls were by his feet.
We locked eyes from forty feet away.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in the middle of recording a podcast?” he asked.
“Yes, but I had a magazine to read,” I said, inching my way forward.
“Did you like the articles?” he asked.
“So much. Even better than the originals.”
“Yeah?” He twisted the golf club back and forth, perhaps a nervous reaction.
I finished my walk to him and held out my hand for his. With no hesitation, he placed his hand in mine. I smiled and drew the word Valor on the back of his hand. A shiver went through him, but then he tugged on my hand, bringing me closer to him.
I looked up, meeting his eyes. “I once got some advice that if I liked someone and wanted to know how that person felt about me, I should just kiss them,” I said softly.
“Really? I got that same advice.” He dropped my hand and the golf club at the same time and pulled me into a hug.
I pressed my cheek against his, savoring the feeling of being this close. Then I turned and kissed his cheek, then his jaw, then the spot right below his ear.
He let out a low hum. “I think I’ve run out of patience.”
I smiled and finally let my lips meet his. He tasted like mint and smelled like pine. Or maybe that was the trees. It didn’t matter. It was my favorite smell in the world, and this was my favorite feeling in the world. His hands traveled the length of my back and up into my hair. I stepped even closer to him and nearly tripped on the golf club that lay between our feet. He wrapped one arm tight around my waist, lifting me off the ground slightly, and kicked the golf club out of the way. We continued to kiss, soft at first and then the way we should’ve been kissing for weeks, urgently and holding back nothing.
He pulled away first and looked at me, slightly breathless. “Tell me everything.”
It took my brain a second to catch up to what he’d said. “Everything?”
“From the first time I called in to the podcast until now.” He pointed to a fallen tree nearby and we both walked to it, hand in hand, then sat down.