More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
It’s a whole lot easier when you grow up with the person and innately know their character inside and out.
“I pick a song when something cool or important happens so I can remember it. Then when I want to relive a moment, I rewind it back and start the song from the beginning.”
She used to steal all my thoughts. She used to occupy my entire existence. I almost forgot what that felt like. I’ve spent six years subconsciously comparing every date to her. Comparing their laugh to hers. Their kindness to hers. Their confidence to hers. Their taste in music to hers.
Kai has never looked at another woman the way he does her.
No one here knows I’ve been in love before. No one knows that though I had a front-row seat to watch them all find their person over the years, I had found mine long before any of them.
“Well, maybe that was the first time you were told, but I know for a fact it wasn’t the first time someone liked you.”
I don’t tell him that I don’t like almond milk. I only ordered it when we were younger because I knew he’d ask for a sip of my latte since he couldn’t handle the amount of caffeine if he ordered his own, and I didn’t want the dairy to bother him.
“You drive me insane, you know that?” “Hmm,” he hums. “That makes two of us, love.”
“I’m not going to push you to want me. But I am going to be here, waiting, if you ever decide you want to try again. I’m not going anywhere this time.”
In the music I listened to. In the house I live in. I tried to compare every single person I met to you, but there was no comparison. And I will spend the rest of my life regretting leaving you behind all those years ago.”
I’ve seen every single one of their relationships form from the beginning to now. I was on the plane the day Stevie met Zee. Indy stayed at my house in the few days she wasn’t sure Ryan saw a future with her or not. I still remember the night when we all figured out that Miller was in love with Kai, even if she hadn’t realized it herself. And Kennedy… Well, I watched Isaiah obsess over her for years before she married him.
“Are you sure that’s not just a first-love thing?” “No, baby. It’s a last-love thing.”
“Girlfriend, huh?” “Oh, I’m sorry. Do you think we should take a couple more decades to get to know each other before I start calling you that?”
I don’t understand how everyone around me in this coffee shop is having a normal fucking day while I’m sitting here more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life.
To know that I’m loved, long before hearing the words again. To feel it in every fiber of my being. To see it in the way she looks at me. To hear it in the way she speaks to and about me.
“Rio, playing for Boston is your childhood dream.” I shake my head. “You’re my childhood dream.”
You’re my home.
“The house has always been yours, Hallie. Ours. It was just waiting for you to come make it a home.”
“How lucky am I to have been loved by you for fifteen years now?”
Hallie and I fell in love on the roof that connected our parents’ homes. I’m going to ask her to spend forever with me on the roof of ours.
I watch as each of my friends catch their partner’s attention from across the yard. I’ve witnessed this happening for years. This silent check-in in a crowded room. A soft smile before continuing their conversation. A discreet wink. A little smirk.
“I love you, man.”
I’ve been waiting to hear him say that for years.
“I used to be the love of his life.”
“Ryan, I love you too, man. Less than her, but I still love you. I love all of you.”
I spent years complaining about being the single one of the group, the odd man out. But even though I was the last one, how lucky am I that I got a front-row seat to watch each of my best friends fall in love?
Besides Indy, we’re all a bunch of transplants from other places who found a home in the windy city…and with each other.
