“Bye.” I end the call so that Samuel won’t have to take his hands off his controller. And I sit there, simmering in my feelings, still hating that he’s right.

Tuesday: April 19

There’s a knock at my door, slow and rhythmic. I’ve only been asleep for maybe three hours, and already it’s morning.

“Neil, you awake?” Wyatt asks.

“Yeah.”

“I have to pee.”

“Well, come in.”

Wyatt opens the door slowly, traipsing into the bathroom, and a few seconds later I hear peeing, followed by the flush and sound of running water.

“You know you don’t have to ask every time,” I say when he steps out of the bathroom. “You can pee whenever you want.”

“I didn’t want to walk in on you.”

The easy solution is for us to share the room.

No, shut up.

Shut up, stupid brain. You’re not involved in this.

“What are we doing today?” he asks.

I prop myself up on the bed, trying not to pay too much attention to the shirtless nature of the Wyatt Fowler standing right in front of me. It shouldn’t even matter; we’ve seen each other shirtless plenty of times before.

But now it’s different.

And I hate that I feel that way.

Though I certainly don’t hate the view.

“Pictures,” I tell him. “So put on your Sunday best.”

“Where are we going?”

“Actually, I don’t know. My mother never sent me the address.”

That probably means that I should ask her, but if she never sent me the information, then maybe I have a built-in excuse for not showing up. I’m just a groomsman; do I even need to be there for some lousy pictures?

I glance at Wyatt. “Maybe we’ll get lucky, and we can skip.”

“I doubt that.”

I climb out of bed, and Wyatt and I both move to the couch. I’ve convinced myself that I shouldn’t have to even think about getting ready for these pictures until I have the address. For a moment there, I think that Mom must have forgot, or maybe she really didn’t want me to come to the photography session, because it gets to be ten o’clock and I haven’t heard anything. The light in California is great, but if you wait too long, it’ll get too hot to take pictures. Everyone will look sweaty and oily, and Photoshop can only fix so much.

The closer it gets to noon, the more it feels like we’ve been spared. Or they’re taking the pictures without us. Maybe I should feel bitter, but that just means I get to sit here on the couch with Wyatt, watching TikTok compilations on YouTube.

Except God doesn’t love me that much.

I’m in the shower, music playing from my phone, when it’s interrupted by a ding!