His smile’s huge. “Yes, son.”

“What did I say?”

He leans over the microphone. “You asked how I would feel about sharing your mother because you didn't think it was fair that someone as pretty and caring as Allie should go without one.”

“And that was just the first two weeks, Allie…if you're even here. That doesn't include the time when we were twelve and you'd gotten the flu and I’d asked my mom to show me how to make chicken soup and chocolate chip cookies so I could bring it to your house. I told you that I bought it from the store because I wanted you to think I was a man. I sat with you and watched all six seasons of Dawson's Creek. You kept joking about you being Joey and me being Dawson. When it got to the end of the series, I was so mad. ‘I don't want to be Dawson, I want to be Pacey,' I told mom.” I look over at my mother. “When you asked me why, do you remember what I said?”

Her smile matched my dad's from earlier. “You said you wanted to be Pacey because he got the girl.”

The room fills with the quiet sighs and awes from all the females.

I glance over at the manager who's still on his phone. “The cops are on their way,” he warns.

I rub my hands against my shorts and look around the room again. Nothing. My heart picks up pace because I know I'm out of time and I seem to be going nowhere. I talk faster now, hoping in vain that she’s somehow hearing me. “I broke Owen Grant's nose freshman year because I heard him telling the boys in the locker room that he got to second base with you. I don't know if he did or not, and I still don't know, but he shouldn't have been talking about you like that.” I stop to take a quick breath. “I uh…stood outside the bakery with bags of two one dollar bills and directions to your brownie stand for that read-a-thon charity you did. I swore to everyone you had the best brownies in the country. Your brownies tasted like ass. The owner of the bakery threatened to call the cops and I ran away. When I got to you, you were mad that I was late. I told you my chores ran overtime.”

Sirens get louder as the police cars approach.

“I hooked up with Becky Schultz because I saw you leaving my party—”

“What party?” Mom interrupts.

“Not now,” I whisper. Then louder; “I saw you leaving with Jack Watson and you broke my heart.”

Red and blue lights flood the front of the restaurant when the cops arrive.

Still, I carry on. “And then senior prom came and went and high school was over and we were going to different colleges. You came over the morning you were leaving and got upset because I was too hungover to get out of bed. I lied. I just couldn't deal with saying goodbye to you.”

“Get off the stage kid,” one of the cops shouts as he makes his way to me.

“Keep going,” Dad encourages.

I look at the tables again.

She isn’t here.

With a sigh, I drop my gaze, knowing that this was all for nothing. “I'm still recording,” Chase yells, shifting the phone away from the cop who's trying to take it off him.

Deflated, I mumble, “I say all this because I need you to know, Allie. I loved you from the first moment I saw you. I loved you through all six seasons of Dawson's Creek. I loved you through all the years of you being mad at me when all I tried to do was show you that I loved you. I loved you through every girl I've ever dated. And I loved you more than any asshole you’ve ever dated. I love you now. Not just because you’re my everything at the moment. But because you’ll always be my everything.”

I step away from the microphone and feel my mother's hand grasp mine. “I'm proud of you,” she says.

I can hear people sniffing, probably crying at my failure.

Then I hear the one sound that overpowers everything. A tiny voice that comes from the French doors at the side of the restaurant. The one's that lead out to the patio dining area. “Tyler?” Allie squeaks.

The diners start to clap and she jumps in her spot.

The clapping turns to cheers and I can't take my eyes off her. Someone grabs my arm, then the other, pulling them both behind me. The crisp cold steel of the cuffs surround my wrist and still, I can't look away.

But she does.

She lowers her gaze and shakes her head. Then she turns around and is engulfed in her brother’s arms.

And I feel like I’m seventeen all over again—watching her get into Jack Watson's car.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It's amazing how twenty-five frat boys, and my parents, can fit into the waiting room of a police station. My phone gets confiscated when I get to the station and so does Chase's. Apparently it's because we're the ringleaders. Plus, I don't think they have enough handcuffs or manpower to arrest all the brothers.

We get questioned in separate rooms.

I stay quiet. I have nothing to say.

And, evidently, it's a good thing I don't talk because Chase somehow convinces the cops that we were doing a hidden camera type social experiment for The Ellen Show—something about people's reactions to outlandish displays of romantic conquests. He even goes as far as getting them to pose so he can take profile pictures of them to use on the show. They'd be hailed as good-sports with a soft spot for romance.

The second my cuffs are off and my phone is handed back, I check to see if Allie's called or messaged.

Nothing.

Mom must see my disappointment because she says, “Maybe the show's not over. You could still be Pacey, sweetheart.”