Right. Whatever-we-were. That was the word for it, all right. Because what had we been, really? We hadn’t really been lovers, because we’d never made love.

But I had loved him. A part of me still did. Maybe more than a part of me.

Because I’m a complete moron.

“But we’ll always be friends, won’t we?” Rob wanted to know. “I mean, after everything we went through together.”

I thought he meant the number of times we’d been unconscious in each other’s presence, from being smacked over the head with various large, heavy objects.

But then he added, “Detention at Ernie Pyle High. That’s gotta bind people for life, right?”

I smiled then. A tiny smile. But a smile just the same. Because itwas kind of funny.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”

“Good,” Rob said, leaning back maybe a fraction of an inch and his shoulders losing a pinch of tension. “Good. Okay. So, we’re still friends.”

“Still friends,” I said. And took another fortifying sip of frozen margarita.

Because I really don’t want to go to his wedding. Not even as friends.

“Then it’d be okay if I asked you,” Rob said, starting to tense up again—I could tell by the way one of his denim-clad legs began to jiggle a little nervously beneath the tiny table—“I mean, as a friend—”

Oh my God. What if he’s about to ask me to be his kid’s godparent or something? I wondered who the kid’s mother was. The blonde from the garage that day? God. I had so known he was lying when he’d said there was nothing between them.

“So,” Rob said. “Here’s the thing—”

I took a deep breath…and held it. Really, I’m a very strong person. I mean, I have lived through a lot in my nineteen years, including a schizophrenic brother, various fistfights brought on by people calling said brother cruel names, being struck by lightning, being stalked by the paparazzi because of a superpower caused by said lightning, sent to Afghanistan to help in the war on terror, and so on.