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“Mom, it’s early,” I groan.
“Your adorable friend with the bald head has gone viral.”
“What?” I rub my eyes again.
“Hold your phone up so I can see you.”
Annoyed, I hold the phone up. “Why are you FaceTiming me so early?”
“What? No practice today?” she asks.
I inwardly cringe since I have yet to tell her we’re not practicing Fridays until we get closer to competition season, fearing she’ll somehow guilt me into coming home on weekends. “No.”
“What are you wearing?” She scrutinizes me. “I bought you all of those cute pajamas, and you’re wearing that?”
“I’m going to hang up and go back to sleep,” I warn.
My door flies open, and Leah leaps on my bed, causing me and my phone to launch into the air. And before I have time to even think, she squeals, “Your hockey boy’s gone viral!”
“Who is that? Let me see.”
Leah slaps her own hand over her mouth, and her eyes are so wide they nearly pop out of her head.
I scramble to grab my phone, planning to hang up on her and pretend there’s bad wi-fi when Grace runs into my room, her phone facing me and Theo’s voice coming through the speaker, singing that damn song. “Fucking viral, baby!”
“That’s what I was telling her!”
Grace freezes and looks around.
“Down here,” my mom’s voice comes from … somewhere.
Grace bends down at the end of my bed to pick up the phone and doesn’t see me shaking my headnolike a crazy person.
“Hey, you must be Riley’s mom.”
“You’re Grace,” my mom tells her,like she doesn’t know who she is. “The fiery redhead in nearly all the KET pictures on the Gram.”
“I apologize for my language, Mrs. Park, but our friend, Theo, went viral and—”
“No need to apologize,” my mom, who would have threatened to wash my mouth out with soap, tells Grace, who is unaware that she’s now one of Mom’s best friends. “I was calling to tell her the same thing. I met Theo just the other day, in fact.”
Before Leah or Grace say something … stupid, I hop up and snatch the phone. “When he, like you both just did, ambushed a call.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Mom says. “I like meeting your friends.”
“Are you coming for parents’ weekend?” Grace asks.
I look at the screen and into the judgmental face of Nabi, whose brow is arched. “I’m not sure. Riley hasn’t mentioned it.”
I walk over to the door so I can get these two bitches out of my room, and when I push it open the rest of the way, I see Dean’s reflection. He’s standing right behind me.
“Oh, hello, Dean. How are you, dear?”
Fuck my life.
“Mrs. Park, it’s lovely to meet you.”
“I’m so sorry about your grandfather. He was a lovely man.”
