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“Speaking of, who’s taking photos tonight?”
“No one. There are only so many sports photos we need inone yearbook. They all kind of look the same.” When I only nod, he narrows his eyes. “Are you mad at me or something?”
“What? No.” I feel like a lying liar because Iammad, but I know I have no reason to be. He didn’t do anything. Corrine didn’t even do anything. I’m just... mad. “Why?”
“You seem...” He looks me over. “Tense?”
“I just can’t have anything happen to this camera.” I glance over my shoulder and see my team spilling out onto the track, everyone clad in their cold-weather gear. I still haven’t paid Corrine back for mine, but I’m working on it. After I’m done working on this. Corrine would agree that school stuff should come first. “I have to go.”
He latches onto my arm when I turn away. “Are you hanging out after the game?”
“I’m still on Friend Probation, so I think we’re going to Mikki’s house.”
“Okay, yeah, that’s where I was going. Do you want a ride?”
“I’ve got Kayla.” I tug out of his grip. “I’ll see you after the game. To get the camera.”
“We could film the party, too.”
“Okay.” I avoid looking over my shoulder, where I know Corrine is pretending she’s not staring at us. I can feel her eyes on my back. But she didn’t say his name. She had the chance and she didn’t. She was hinting at something with all that, right? He’s fair game,right?
Do I want him to be fair game?
I thunder down the bleacher steps and join my team. Throughout the game—that we win!—I watch Holden in thecrowd, the camera placed so stiffly and consistently in front of his eyes that I think he’s going to have to see an optometrist and a chiropractor in one day. He does the wave. He shoutsDe-fense!He talks with Taj and Nita, who showed up halfway through. He even, somehow, manages to catch a CHHS Hawks T-shirt from a T-shirt cannon while still filming. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw him attempt it, but he caught my eye with a blinding and triumphant smile afterward, and I couldn’t help but smile back.
Mikki’s house is a shit show when we arrive. We don’t bother to change our clothes, heading to the party in our uniforms, which has always been bad for several reasons: someone is bound to spill something on their uniform or do something they shouldn’t while wearing it—like take photos smoking—and because they’re just uncomfortable after a while.
Juniper practically tackles Kayla when she walks through the door, her drink sloshing within an inch of Kayla’s uniform before hitting the floor. Two seconds at the party and we already had a near-fatal incident.
Corrine nudges me with a shit-eating grin.
“I’m so glad you’re here. Devon keeps trying to talk to me,” Juniper says. Her eyes widen and she lowers her voice. “He sent me a dick pic today.”
Corrine ties her jacket around her waist. “I’m not even surprised,” she says with an eye roll. “A wise woman once said, you are what unsolicited pictures you send.”
“I don’t get it,” Juniper says, putting her arm around Kayla’swaist. Another nudge from Corrine. “We didn’t even get along. Why would he want to go back to that?”
“Probably because he’s not getting any action now,” Kayla says. She smacks Corrine’s shoulder behind Juniper’s back. “He talks about hisdry spellall the time at band practice.”
“Like I was even having sex with him!” Juniper says, cheeks pink.
“You weren’t?” Corrine asks. I catch her eyes cutting to Kayla’s back and resist the urge to roll mine. She is not subtle.
“We did other things, but notthat. Not... you know, the biblical version of it. Sex-sex.”
I walk over to Mikki’s gray sectional and flop down in the corner. Corrine sits next, practically on top of me, and Kayla takes my other side, with Juniper on her other side. My skirt is folded under my ass weird, but there’s not enough space for me to fix it without elbowing someone.
“But, like, how far?” Kayla’s eyes drop. “Wait, sorry, it’s none of my business.”
“I want to know!” Corrine says, angling toward them by throwing her legs over mine. “What’s the farthest everyone’s gone?”
Juniper mumbles into her cup, “I think I need something stronger than Diet Coke to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Corrine says. “I’ve had sex. A lot of sex.”
I don’t know why, but my first instinct is to push her off me and get myself a very strong, very toxic drink from the kitchen, away from her.
“Maybe she’s not ashamed; she just doesn’t want to talk about something she feels is private in a public space,” I snap.
