Just What I Needed

Just What I Needed (70)

Chuckling, Keely shook her head. “It’s not awkward, sweetie. I swear.”

“It’s just you’re my friend but he’s Tony and yeah,” she tried to explain. For such a smart girl, she seemed to be failing with words for the night. “He said he was going to wait around for you but he didn’t and you guys started talking, so I guess–”

“Oh my god, Sadie!” she exclaimed, her voice cracking slightly, but she needed to do it. “Shut up! It’s okay, seriously. I didn’t want him to wait around; I was never coming back for more than a couple weeks at a time. It’d be unfair. And what we had obviously wasn’t the love story of our century. So it’s okay, stop apologizing.”

Sadie gave a sigh, leaning her head on Keely’s shoulder. “Okay, I just wanted to make sure.”

Rolling her eyes she just kept going forward, but then a thought settled into her mind. She tried to ignore it, but it just kept burrowing deeper into her mind, bothering her and she was unable to hold herself back from blurting it out.

“Just you guys didn’t… you know. I mean, of course you did or you’re going to eventually, but you didn’t while me and Tony were… whatever we were, right? Because, I know it happened a bit and I guess – but, oh man. You know what I’m saying, don’t you?” It appeared that Sadie’s problem with finding the right words was rubbing off on her too.

Sending her a horrified look, the other girl shook her head fervently. “No way,” she assured Keely. “I’d never do that.”

“Okay, okay,” Keely murmured roughly, giving a sigh. She sent a quick look behind them where Tony was awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck as Joe walked beside him with a sour expression on his face. “Be careful, alright?”

Understanding what she meant, Sadie nodded, letting them fall into silence for a moment. “So did you have fun in New York and with touring?”

It was the first time anyone had asked her about moving away and the tour, causing Keely to send her a quick glance in surprise. So far her dad and Joe had purposefully avoided talking about music and the tour with her and while at dinner whenever Tony would bridge the subject, Joe would glare at him deliberately.

Smiling at her, Keely dipped her hand into the front pockets of her jeans. “It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. And I’d try to explain it to you, but my voice wouldn’t handle it and I think it might take like six hundred pages to write it down.”

With a shrewd expression, the other girl observed, “You loved it.”

Giving a slight chuckle, she went to run a hand through her hair in habit, but remembered she had it pulled back into a ponytail. “More than anything else in the world.”

Having come up to the theatre, the four of them got their tickets but when they were pondering who gets seats and who goes and gets the popcorn, Keely sent Sadie and Joe inside for the seats. She, instead, opted to drag Tony towards the concession lines.

In the enormous line up, Keely signed a few autographs for people who recognized her. But all too soon she and Tony were left standing in silence as the long line started to dissipate.

It wasn’t until they’d gotten all the drinks and popcorn and were standing at the side for Keely to poke straw into the drinks that she piped up.

“Okay, you know I forgave you a long time for everything that happened when we were together?” she questioned, looking up at him as she stabbed a straw a little too violently through the lid. “You’re still one of my best friends, despite everything and I don’t hold a grudge against you personally.”