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A bright white and yellow For Sale sign, with Mom’s smiling face plastered beside the words, staked in the front of the yard like a tacky lawn ornament.
The yellow door of the Manning’s house opened, and Reed came out, twirling his car keys. In a split second, our eyes locked. His hair looked extra golden in this light, like he had drops of sunlight in them. Relief was like a small bubble bursting inside me, not fully extinguishing my frustration, but enough that I could breathe a little easier.
Until Rachel stepped out from behind her brother.
“You’ll have to text me what she says,” Rachel said as she hopped down the concrete steps, holding a poster in her hand. She spoke loudly enough that I could hear her across the street. “Of course, she’ll say yes, but I want to hear everything.”
She ran into Reed’s back, who’d stopped once he spotted me.
“Ava!” Rachel frantically waved her arm. I saw the exact moment she noticed the For Sale sign, her jaw dropping visible even from here. “What isthat?”
With numb limbs, I made my way across the yard, unable to even glance at the stupid sign as I passed it. My sneakers crunched over the grit of the roadway. “It’s exactly what you think it is.”
“Is she home?” Rachel craned her neck to glare at Mom’s car in the driveway. “Because I’ll talk to her. We’ll convince her not to sell. Obviously. I’m very persuasive, you know that. She thinks you can move?Psh.”
Reed grabbed above Rachel’s elbow as she started forward. “Leave it for now, Ray.”
“They can’t just move away! Did you know about this for a while and not tell me, Ava?”
“I only just found out, too.” I bit down on the corner of my lip, trying to channel as much indifference as possible. I could only scratch the surface of the emotion, but hopefully it was enough to keep the tears at bay. “What’s the poster for?”
There was a question on Reed’s face, but I pretended to be fully engrossed on the poster Rachel unfurled—and then Iwasfully focused as I realized what I was looking at. There was a photograph of our school mascot in the bottom corner, and adorned all around the perimeter were different sizes of pawprints. Words took up the middle of the poster board in a mixture of blue and gold glitter.
IT WOULD BE WILD IF YOU WENT TO HOMECOMING WITH ME
And just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse.
“He’s on his way to ask Cindy to homecoming,” Rachel said, flicking off a stray piece of glitter from the top of the board. “You should’ve done it at school where everyone could’ve seen.”
“That’s exactly why I didn’t want to,” he muttered. “Everyone would’ve taken pictures.”
The moment was clear as a teenage rom-com. He would’ve asked her in the hallway before classes. He’d come around the corner, smiling only at her. She would’ve been standing around all her friends, and of course they would’ve taken out their phones to snap a picture. They’d have sent it to Babble, giving me the honor of drafting up a post.Reed Manning and Cindy LaVore—Brentwood’s Next Hottest Couple!
Still, he was going to her house to ask her. More intimate, more sentimental, more serious. Maybe they’d get Josh to snap a photo.
You were supposed to tell me, I thought as I stared at the board.You were supposed to tell me.
“The dance is Saturday, you know,” I said instead, unable to tear my gaze from the poster. “You’re cutting it close enough as it is—I’m surprised someone else hasn’t already asked her.”
“Is there anyone you were planning on asking?” Reed asked, slipping one hand into his pocket. From the corner of my eye, I could see his face turned toward me. “What about Josh?”
How could I ask anyone else to homecoming when, just Friday night, I fell asleep in your arms?It was like he’d forgotten about it already—like it’d never even happened.
Reed’s words took me back to Thursday on the car ride home, where I said it felt like he was trying to dump me off on Josh, and the feeling resurfaced with a pain behind my ribs. Here my world was, derailed by the idea of him asking Cindy to homecoming, and Reed was offering Josh up to me like he couldn’t care less.
And Rachel, glancing between us with a slightly confused expression, was witness to it all. Knowing a quarter of the story.
“You should ask Josh,” Rachel agreed, shoving the poster board at Reed. “He might not be your first kiss, but he’d make a great second.”
His head turned toward his sister, and for a brief second, I could practically read his thoughts.How much does she know?“You had your first kiss, then?” he asked me. “Do I know him?”
Yeah. Seriously not funny.
“He sucks,” Rachel told her brother. “He kissed Ava and left her high and dry.”
Okay, we were stepping into territory that I seriously could’ve died of mortification from. I stepped toward my best friend, trying to convey my desperation in a wide-eyed stare. “Rachel, TMI, okay? Your brother doesn’t need to hear this.”Please, please stop talking.
“He should. A player like him should see what it’s like to mess with a girl’s feelings.” She pointed a finger at Reed and narrowed her eyes. “Next time you kiss a girl and plan to ditch her the next day, think to yourself ‘hmm, what if this was Ava? Would I do this to my little sister’s sweet best friend?’No,” she answered for him, “you wouldn’t.”
