He laughed at that. Someone had to.

“Ash, there’s a difference between being out, and being OUT. You didn’t give me a choice! Just because I was ready to go through that door doesn’t mean I wanted you to kick it open.”

“So are you mad at me?”

“Yeah, I am,” he said, without hesitating. And then he added, “But I’m crazy-proud of you, too. Those two feelings are stuck together now. You and I are going to have to deal with that for a while.”

A few people who saw us together came over to give their support, which we accepted graciously—but I could tell that, like me, Paul just wished they would stop. It reminded me of this kid in middle school, who went to a weight loss camp over the summer and came back twenty pounds lighter. Everyone kept going up to him commenting on how good he looked to the point that it was just plain embarrassing.

I spared a glance over at my usual table. Norris and Layton and a few others. I’m sure that Josh was trying to intercede for me there. He didn’t have to—I didn’t want him to—but I’m sure he was doing it anyway. If this had happened in my old world, Leo would have done the same. But then, this wouldn’t have happened in my old world. I shook my head to stop my brain from spiraling into a multidimensional feedback loop.

“Did you get called in by Metts too?” I asked Paul.

He sighed and pulled a crumpled pamphlet out of his pocket. This one was all about STDs and had the heading “Protecting YOU!” It seemed all the pamphlets featured the word “YOU” prominently. I guess just in case you started to feel like this was all happening to someone else.

“She’s just doing her job, I guess,” Paul said.

I thought we’d get through lunch unscathed, but toward the end, Layton came over with Katie in tow. Layton sat down right next to me like he was suddenly my best friend—because now it was clear that I wasn’t competing for Katie’s affection. It just made me dislike him even more, which I didn’t think was even possible. Katie sat down as well, offering Paul a warm, understanding smile that was a million times more sincere than anything Layton was offering.

“Dudes,” he said to both Paul and me. “I just wanted you to know that me and Katie are completely supportive of your relationship. In fact we’ve started to call the two of you AshPaul. You like that? AshPaul? I think it’s kind of nice.”

I cringed, Paul looked at me like WTF, and Katie dislodged herself from Layton’s grasp. “We haven’t started calling them anything,” Katie declared. “That was all you.”