UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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“I’LL KEEP THAT IN MIND, THANKS,” JESSE SAID before exiting.

I crossed my arms for warmth, watching him leave after his friend. I had the weird urge to follow and see what Broody Barista did in his free time. Running into him had been such an unexpected surprise in an otherwise meh kind of a night. The door closed with a clunk. I walked over to it, running my hand along the cold push bar—one swift motion and I’d be out. Not that I really wanted to leave—the night had barely started. And this dress was far too fabulous to just roam the streets in, plus I still hadn’t gotten any decent photos or slow-danced with Zach.

Why was I making a list of reasons to stay at the dance?

School dances always sounded better than they actually were. Why not call it what it really was: Friday night all dressed up trying to be something it wasn’t. No matter how much balloon art filled the gym, it still boiled down to a room with blue padded walls, retracted basketball hoops, and the faint smell of rubber and Simple Green where we’d be slapping around a hockey puck in class on Monday. Seeing it as a romantic place was hard, even with the mood lighting.

Except . . . watching Wren and Grayson—the building could have come crashing down around them and I doubt they’d have noticed. They really were that sickening couple—annoying and sweet and in their own world. I took a few pictures of them, then wandered deeper into the crowd, ignoring the disappointment that threatened to bring down my already precarious good mood. There was nothing that sucked more than searching for your date during a John Legend song. Where was Zach?

I made my way to the front of the gym to see if there were any interesting shots—I’d been wary of the dance assignment at first but realized it could be a great opportunity to build my portfolio. Photography was not my thing but my art teacher had said a diverse portfolio showed that you weren’t afraid to take risks. That what these art programs wanted to see most was your potential.

Earlier in the year, I’d taken some artsy shots at the Sacred Heart Founders Festival between the spokes of a Ferris wheel that had won a ribbon in the fall art show. Granted, there wasn’t much competition. I looked around for something out of the ordinary, anything I could see with a different perspective. As I brought the camera up to my face. Zach’s grin appeared in the frame.

“Where have you been?” he asked, grabbing my hand and leading me toward the dance floor.

“Zach,” I said, taking quick little steps to keep up with him. “Slow down.”

I adjusted the strap so the camera was to my back, like a purse—it had really become the clunkiest of accessories. We found an empty space in the center of the gym. He drew me close, hands sliding up my arms, his fingers tracing my shoulders and trailing down my bare back. I clasped my hands behind his neck, keeping my eyes on his.

“Where was I? Where were you?”

He leaned down.

“Let’s just dance,” he whispered, lips brushing my ear. My breath stopped. Maybe I was too quick to dismiss the dance, because his mouth on my skin made me forget we were even on planet Earth. I snuggled into him as he caressed my back and we swayed to the music.

For all of ten seconds.

Until the beat got fast, and Pitbull echoed through the gym, sending up some loud whoops as the crowd got crazy again. A few of the teacher chaperones darted onto the dance floor as a precaution. Sacred Heart was a no-grinding zone—but it didn’t stop people from trying. Zach lifted his arms up in the air and rocked his hips, with the sort of fearlessness that canceled out the goofy moves. He moved closer to me, so serious I had to laugh. I wondered if he’d practiced in a mirror.

“C’mon,” he said.

He screwed up his face like he was in pain and continued to dance around me. I finally relented until Miss Preston, the driver’s-ed teacher, gave us an I’m watching you glare and we parted. I took the moment to search the floor for Jazz or Wren but it was impossible to see anyone through the thick mass of bodies.

“I need some air,” I yelled at Zach, and pointed out to the hallway. He led the way toward the door. Once outside the gym I felt cooler. Zach draped his arm over my shoulder as we walked down the hall.

“Have I told you how smokin’ you look?”

“Yes, twice, but you can keep telling me.” I snaked my arm around his and leaned into him.

“We should do something after this,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Your couch, maybe?”

“This is not a couch dress.”

“Who said you had to be wearing it?” He nuzzled my hair.

I stopped short. “Zach, really?”

“What?”

His brow bunched up in confusion. I wasn’t sure why what he’d said bothered me. Zach’s pervy side normally made me swoony, especially the thought of being skin to skin. Somehow, in the hallway of school, it pissed me off. Maybe it was from watching Wren and Gray slow-dance and realizing that it might not be so bad to have a main squeeze I kind of adored. Someone who would seek me out during a slow song instead of grinding against my leg. Not that that wasn’t fun. Why wasn’t spending time with me in the dress enough for him? Couldn’t he think of anything else for a moment? He brushed some hair away from my face.

“Madison, what did I do?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not just tonight, you know, you’ve been . . . weird lately. I feel like I’m always one step away from annoying the hell out of you.”

He frowned, his eyes soft, uncertain, making me feel like such a hard-ass. How he could go from howling on the dance floor to this vulnerable mush in a few short minutes was part of the reason that whenever I thought about untangling myself from him, I couldn’t. I couldn’t stand this look being directed at me or thinking that I was the cause of it.

“No, you’re not,” I said, tugging on his tie.

He leaned down and I brushed my lips across his, getting lost in the heat of the kiss. This was where we were perfect, the lovely liquid place when our eyes were closed and our mouths touched. Was this how Wren felt with Gray on the dance floor? My whole body relaxed as his arms surrounded me. We stepped back until I bumped the wall behind me; the cold tile made me tremble. Or maybe it was Zach and the way his tongue wrapped around mine.

You couldn’t build a relationship with someone simply because you got off kissing them, I knew that, but it wasn’t exactly a shitty way to start.

The urgent click of heels in the hallway coming in our direction made us part. Miss Preston walked by, smiling as she made her way to the cafeteria. I ran my thumb along the corner of Zach’s mouth, to wipe off where my lipstick had smeared. He took my thumb in his mouth and nibbled before I pulled away, laughing.

“Why don’t you help me with these pictures I’m supposed to take—it’ll go faster, then we can just enjoy this thing. Sound like a plan?”

“Sure,” he said. “What should I do?”

“Let me know if you see anything interesting.”

He lifted the strap over my head, and holding the camera at arm’s length, put his cheek to mine and said, “Say whiskey.” He held down the button so the camera clicked multiple times. A group of girls walked by us and giggled.

“Zach! You left without saying good-bye,” a girl with long blond hair and a sparkly purple dress said.

“Hey, smile for the camera,” he said. They pulled together, three of them hiking up their dresses to show some leg, and grinned.

“Got it! Official yearbook business,” he said, which caused the girl in purple to laugh a little too loud at him. She . . . was flirting? Zach looked back at me, goofy-ass grin on his face.

“What?”

“You left where without saying good-bye?”

“Oh, the caf—Kyle and me were talking to them. They’re sophomores—come to our indoor matches sometimes. Why? Jealous?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

Slight disappointment flashed across his face, but then he kissed me.

“Why don’t you just pass the camera around to different people, make your job easier,” he said.

“Because it’s, like, a three-hundred-dollar camera, and it’s my job, come on.” I tried to get it from him but he held it out of my reach.

“You said you wanted me to help you,” he said. “Chill, trust me.”

I swallowed a groan. I didn’t want to chill or trust him. I just wanted the freakin’ camera. “Zach.”

He wandered farther down the hall, stopping to take a picture of a statue of the Blessed Mother, which, considering he’d just had his tongue down my throat, seemed slightly inappropriate.

“Zach.”

He was a good five feet ahead of me, when he stopped, looking down the annex hallway that led to the two newer classrooms in the building. His mouth opened slightly as he raised the camera to his face. “Cool.”

“Please give it—” I said, then looked at what he’d deemed “cool.”

It was pretty cool.

The hallway was decorated with bunches of pink and purple glowing balloons. The ribbons trailed down into the hallway and were gathered with ties made of tulle; each bunch had a large rectangular card attached to them.

“Hey, um, babe,” I cooed. “Could I have the camera, please?”

He handed it off to me and I went to work. When I got closer to the balloons I saw that each card had a different word on it. I stopped at one that read CHOICE and snapped a picture—trying to get different angles, looking up at the balloons, focusing on the word and the glow of the hallway. Another bunch had the word BOUNDLESS attached to it, another had the word UNSTOPPABLE. For dance decorations they were pretty esoteric. Zach followed behind. The last one had the word INSPIRE.

“You know how this dark hallway inspires me?” he whispered in my ear.

“Shh.” I crouched down to get a more interesting perspective.

That’s when we heard it.

A high-pitched sound . . . not exactly a squeak . . . more like a sigh. Zach’s eyes grew wide and he grinned. There was breathing and a soft smacking noise. I froze, the sinking realization in the pit of my stomach that we had happened upon someone doing something in the small alcove of senior lockers that were now about two feet away. Zach shrunk back against the wall, sliding along it, doing his best impression of an undercover agent about to catch the criminal. I motioned for him to stop.

No, I mouthed.

He shrugged and kept moving. Whoever was in the alcove, ugh, I cringed at the thought of them being discovered. I coughed. Loud. Purposeful. Zach put his hands up, like he was angry but he smiled. Foiled.

I grabbed Zach’s hand and we backed down the hallway, the balloon ribbons swaying in our wake. Once we were out in the main hall he spoke.

“Why’d you do that?”

“Would you really have wanted to surprise someone in the middle of something?” In the middle of what I wasn’t sure, but I could use my imagination, and it was quite steamy.

“No. I don’t know—you told me to look for interesting things,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“Fine. Let’s stand here for a few minutes and see if they come out.”

I might not have wanted to catch someone in the act of whatever, but I was curious to see who was horny enough to hook up in the senior alcove. We waited for a good five minutes. Drums echoed down the hallway—the band was back on. Finally a guy with longish sandy hair emerged. Alone.

His tie was loosened, part of his shirttail hanging out in back. He barely glanced in our direction as he tucked his shirt back in, then walked toward the gym. I looked at Zach and stifled a giggle, then we heard the telltale click of heels strolling down the hallway. I lifted the camera up to our faces, taking selfies like Zach had done, so we’d look inconspicuous, just there goofing off. We mugged a few times as the footsteps came closer. In my peripheral vision I saw a figure, heard the swish of a skirt. I saw the dress first, the A-line shape swaying with her movement.

“Jazz?!”

Her eyes went from the camera to me, Zach’s face, and then she looked down the hallway—her thought process in motion.

“That wasn’t Kyle,” Zach said.

The sight of Jazz emerging from a clandestine hookup necessitated an emergency confab in the bathroom. I’d dispatched Zach to find Wren while Jazz and I waited.

“Please tell me you did not get any pictures of that.”

“Nope, no evidence,” I said, crouch-walking along and peering under the bathroom stalls to make sure we were truly alone so we could get the dirt.

Wren arrived, positively glowing. I felt a stab of envy that I wasn’t having a better time; that I didn’t feel the way about Zach that she did about Grayson. Would I ever feel that way about anyone? Did I even want to? She did a quick mirror check, running her hand through her hair, and came over.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Jazzabelle happened,” I said.

Jazz grinned and chuckled to herself.

“Huh?”

“Jazz hooked up with someone,” I said.

“Not Kyle?”

“No,” Jazz said. “Logan.”

Wren and I squealed and high-fived.

“So wait, what happened with Kyle?” Wren asked.

“And what about Darby?” I asked.

Jazz motioned for us to come closer. “The other day after the mall, I called Kyle to talk. I really felt bad about—you know—using him as a date for the dance.”

I groaned.

“No, no, really, it was cool. Awkward at first, but then we talked and he said he was fine going as friends. Turns out Darby and Logan just came as friends too—they’re here with a group of people. We bumped into each other in the cafeteria, and talked and—”

“And you got friendly down the glowing hallway,” I finished.

“Ooh, my glowing hallway? Cool,” Wren said.

“You did that?” I asked.

“Yeah, they were going to spread those out in the gym, and they looked so sad in such a big space so I thought . . . why not . . . people would be passing through the hall all night.”

“Apparently,” I said.

Two of the girls who Zach had taken a picture of earlier walked into the bathroom. One was the girl in purple who flirted with him. She gave me a sharp look before disappearing into the first stall.

“Did you just see that?” I whispered.

Wren nodded. “What’s that about?”

“I don’t even know who she is,” I said.

“She was one of the girls that Kyle and Zach were talking to in the cafeteria before. She was pretty much hanging on Zach’s every word. He wasn’t doing anything, though—you know, just talking.”

When he should have been dancing with me.

“He can talk to whoever he wants,” I said, shrugging it off.

“So where did you leave it with Logan?”

“Not really sure. We didn’t do much talking.” She smiled, dimples and all. Jazzy was a fade-to-black girl so this was about the only detail we were going to get out of her. The boy must have been good.

“We exchanged numbers—but for now, I’m just enjoying this experiment like you told me to. We’ll probably run this week too.”

The sophomore in the purple dress came out of the stall to wash her hands.

“C’mon, let’s get out of here,” I said, tossing my shoulders back. “We need to get a picture of our gorgeous selves so we can put it in the yearbook spread.”

As the three of us left the bathroom I gave Purple Dress a wave and a smile. No need to be bitchy.

The rest of the night was a blur. I commissioned Grayson to take a picture of me, Jazz, and Wren because I trusted his ability to click and shoot. Logan asked Jazz to dance. I got some more artistic shots for the yearbook and ended the night with three full slow dances with Zach that more than made up for his ditching me earlier. We helped Wren with some of her Spirit Club clean-up duties before heading out. Kyle dropped off Jazz first then swung by my house.

Zach walked me up to the stoop.

“You don’t have to wait until I get in,” I said.

“I want to.”

I tugged on his coat to bring his lips to mine. As I was about to pull away, he deepened the kiss, both arms wrapped around me so tightly he lifted me off the ground.

“Whoa,” I said, laughing as we parted.

“Madison, I . . .” he said.

My stomach dropped. He had this earnest look about him, and I suddenly got the feeling that he was about to say something I wasn’t prepared to deal with.

I stepped away from him, walking toward my stairs. “I had a great time tonight, Zach. I’m happy we went.”

“Wait,” he said.

“I’m freezing,” I said. “I really have to get in.”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

He nodded. “Okay. I’ll, um, call you, maybe we can do something tomorrow after my game.”

“Sounds great.” I started up the stairs.

“Madison?”

I turned, still holding on to the railing. He ran up to me, his lips brushing my cheek as he brought his mouth to my ear. I shivered.

“I love you,” he whispered.

He backed away before I could say anything, which I was grateful for, because I’d stopped breathing.

“Just, you know, think about it,” he said, getting into the car.

Why did he have to go and ruin everything?

The yelling woke me up.

I rolled over and looked at my clock. Ten a.m. I thought for a moment it could have been something on TV, but it was coming from downstairs, and we didn’t have a television on the first floor. I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes. Listened.

“How could you do this?”

Paul. Paul?

“Please stop yelling.”

“Dana . . . why? Why would you keep something like this from me?”

It felt weird to eavesdrop, even though it wasn’t like they were doing much to keep it down. My bedroom was directly above the dining room, so I hopped to standing, making sure they heard my footfall in case they were there. I took exaggerated steps toward the door, swung it open and whistled as I walked into my bathroom. Silence. Paul had said something about making Nutella crepes for Saturday breakfast, but there were no delicious aromas wafting up from the kitchen.

I padded downstairs in my slipper socks and jammies and rounded the corner to the dining room. It was empty. I looked toward the kitchen. Paul was leaning against the counter. The expression on his face was odd. Intense. His features hardened. When he looked over at me I startled.

“Hey,” I said. A chair scratched across the linoleum and my mother appeared in the doorframe. She was in her yoga gear, flushed as if she’d just gotten back from a class.

“Madison,” she said, walking out to me. “Good morning.”

She gave me a hug. I squeezed her back. Not that my mom didn’t hug me, but it was a little out of sorts for first thing in the morning.

“What’s up?” I asked as she pulled away. Something about the way they both looked freaked me out.

“Sleep well?”

“Like a baby,” I lied. I’d tossed and turned all night thinking about Zach. I’d even turned off my phone for fear he’d want to text or talk, neither of which I was up for after what he’d said to me. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do. He had told me to think about it. If I loved him—would this be how I reacted?

“Let’s sit down.” She gestured to the living room we rarely sat in, especially now that it had become her meditation spot. Dread snaked up my spine. She was acting odd, stiff. They both were. I perched on the couch. Paul sat in the wingback chair; my mother was next to me but on the far end of the couch.

“What’s wrong?”

My mother played with a phantom thread on her yoga pants, making small circles with her index finger.

“Dana, please,” Paul said.

“Madison, you know how much I want to integrate yoga in my life, right?”

“Um, yeah,” I said. Paul ran a hand across his face then fixed his eyes on me. I shifted in my seat.

“Well, it changes you, makes you reevaluate your life and your beliefs. And one of the first things you learn about is the principles of yoga.”

“Mom—what are you talking about?”

She took a deep breath and looked at me.

“Satya. Truth. It’s about living an authentic life.”

“Is this about Leif?”

It snapped her out of whatever yogi-wisdom trance she was headed into. Her face scrunched up. “No.”

“Who’s Leif?” Paul asked.

“Our instructor. Mom, you’re seriously freaking me out, please just spit it out,” I said.

“I want you to understand, I’ve always done what I thought was right for us. And I knew there would come a time when, well, we’d have to face this at some point.”

“Face what?”

“Oh hell, Dana.” Paul stood up. “I’m your father, Madison.”

I repeated the words in my head while looking between them, waiting for more of an explanation. My mother was on the edge of the couch, lips pressed together, her brows practically up in her hairline. Paul had his hands on his hips. I looked between them, unsure of what to say, letting the words sink in, trying hard to understand.

Paul is my father.

My eyes landed on the Laughing Buddha statue—his mouth frozen in a perpetual smile. A reminder of abundance. Of Zach with his shirt off. I started laughing, low at first, but then I couldn’t help it and covered my mouth in a fit of silent giggles. I finally caught my breath.

“Yeah, right.”

“Madison, it’s true,” my mother said, reaching for my hands. I pulled away and stood up.

“But he’s been here. He’s been in our lives forever. . . . You . . . How . . . I don’t understand. Did you know?” I looked at Paul, his eyes pained. He shook his head. My mother stood up.

“Mads, you have to—”

“I don’t have to do anything, Mom.”

I paced back and forth, my hands clutched together.

“I know you’re—”

“Why would you do something like this?” I asked.

“Madison,” Paul said. “It’s a lot to take in, I know, but we’ll figure it out.”

Did I have to listen to him now? Did his words carry more weight because he was my father?

“I . . .” Words were meaningless. My mind could not wrap around what had just happened. The only thing I knew was that I didn’t want to be with either of them at that moment. I ran up the stairs to my room and slammed the door.