I walk to Sam’s car after school, filled with Nico gave me his number energy. He’s not there yet because he’s probably still helping Theodore, so I sit down on the curb and start texting Caroline about all the new developments—the spilled water, the wiping of the leg, the party invite. She interrupts my texts by calling me, and we both squeal in excitement. I don’t even care who might be looking.
“I’m a genius.”
“You are a genius. You should write a book!”
“No, you should write a book. You will write a book when this is all said and done! Just make sure to thank me in the acknowledgments. And I’m talking a whole page—don’t give me some throwaway sentence.”
“Pages! I’ll devote pages to thanking your genius if this all works out.”
“I mean, I had my money on a little elevator hostage situation today, but the spilled water . . . classic.”
“I guess so.”
“And it led right into number four. Maybe even number five!”
“We both know there’s no way my dad will let me sleep over at some guy’s house. And that one-bed thing only happens in romance novels. I was just humoring you by letting you put that stuff on the list.”
“Yeah, okay. But now, the winking, let’s talk about the winking. Can you get on FaceTime right now? I want to see what kind of wink it was—like a sexy come hither wink or a subtle do I have something in my eye or do I like you wink, you know, with plausible deniability.”
“You want me to demonstrate?”
“Of course.”
A pair of zip-off cargo pants appears in front of me, and I look up to see Sam standing there. There’s a dusting of flour on his cheeks and arms.
“Hey, I have to go,” I tell Caroline, waving at Sam. He gives me a big one-dimpled smile as he unlocks the car.
“But we need to talk strategy! This is big. This could be a real turning point! His girlfriend is going to be there, so we need to figure out how you’ll circumvent her. I started reading this book for AP Lit, Lady Chatterley’s Lover . . . well, I’m mostly reading the SparkNotes, but—”
I slide into the passenger seat, holding up my hand and making a face that says I’m sorry as he starts the car. “Caroline?” he mouths, and I nod.
“We can talk tonight,” I say.
“Okay, but you need to try and get trapped in a closet with Nico. Write that down somewhere! It’s important.”
I laugh and roll my eyes. “Oh my god. Bye.”
“Call me before six! I—”
I hang up before hearing the rest.
“Sorry about that,” I say, looking over at Sam, but his face is different now. His jaw is tight as he stares straight ahead at the road.
“You okay?” I ask. “More drama with Giancarlo today?”
Giancarlo is the guy who shares Sam’s station in their classroom kitchen, and Sam’s been complaining lately about his messiness and lack of adherence to mise en place, whatever that means.
“What was she talking about—getting trapped in a closet with Nico?” he says, still not looking at me.
“You could hear that?”
“Yeah, your volume is up really loud.”
“Oh.” I can feel my cheeks turn pink. “It’s, um . . . Nico invited me to a party at his house this weekend. Do you want to come? You can if you want to.”
“I’m good,” he says, shaking his head. “But what does that have to do with going into a closet with Nico?”
I cough a few times and fan myself. All of a sudden it feels really hot in here. “Can I roll this window down?”
“Sure.”
I can feel him sneak a glance at me quickly before turning his attention back to the road. He laughs, but it sounds exasperated. “Are you really not going to explain that?”
I sigh. “Okay, okay! But you have to promise not to make fun of me.”
“Uh . . . all right.”
I clear my throat. And then clear my throat again. “Can we turn the air on too?”
“Tessa!”
“Okay! It’s just . . . I, well—you know I have a plan with Caroline.”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, it’s been really good for us. It’s like we’re back to the way we used to be, before I moved.”
“And . . . ?”
Man, he’s really going to make me say this out loud.
“And,” I continue. “Well, our plan. It’s kind of . . . unconventional. That’s why I didn’t tell you too much about it before. To help me get my groo—my writing back . . . uh, well, Caroline thinks that if I make my life into one of the love stories I typically write, that maybe that’ll help me start writing again. It will, like, fill up the well.”
“And Nico is the guy in this love story?” His voice is quiet.
“Yeah, and I know you guys have sort of a history,” I say quickly. “But he’s not a jerk like Grayson or anything, right? He’s actually really nice.”
We stop at a red light, and Sam turns his whole body to face me. “But Nico has a girlfriend. Poppy. How can you make a love story . . . or whatever with him if he’s already with someone else?”
The question makes me feel a little bit icky, but I shake it off. Like Nico just told me, they’re on-again, off-again. I haven’t done anything wrong. And I’m not planning to.
“Well, Nico might not always be with Poppy. They break up a lot.” Okay, I don’t know that. But “I’m not going to make him do anything he doesn’t want to.”
His eyes narrow. “Do you hear how that sounds?”
“Whatever.” Luckily the light turns green, and he has to turn his attention back to the road. This is why I didn’t want to tell him—tell anyone other than Caroline. He’s making me feel silly, and yeah, I recognize the plan is a little silly. But why can’t he just go along with it or just, like, laugh it off? That’s what friends are supposed to do. Why does he have to be all judgy?
We continue the rest of the ride in silence, but I’m boiling as I get more and more self-conscious, which makes me more and more irritated.
“You said to look for inspiration,” I say finally as he’s turning into our neighborhood. “I write romance. This is inspiration.”
He rubs the side of his face. “This wasn’t what I meant.”
“Well, I think this is going to work. It’s already working.”
“You’ve written something?” He says it like a challenge.
“No. But something is happening with me and him. I could feel it today, and I’m going to see it through.”
When we pull into his driveway, he turns off the car, but then he doesn’t move. He just sits there, staring at his hands. I don’t understand why he even cares. Maybe Nico was more involved in the bullying when he was in middle school than I thought?
“I thought it was your anxiety,” he eventually says, his voice low but harsh. “Like we talked about Monday? I thought you were nervous to share your work, and that’s why you weren’t writing. How will going after Nico change that? It seems like it’s dealing with the problem on a . . . I don’t know. Shallow level.”
Shallow. That word stings. Maybe because I’m worried it’s true.
“I mean, yeah, I’m still nervous. But this will help me to write something that I’m proud of. Something real. I was thinking about all the old stuff I used to write, and I really didn’t know what I was talking about. And you have to write what you know. That’s probably what made me freeze up in the first place.”
There—that feels better, getting it all out.
But then Sam laughs. And again, it’s not in a nice way. I can feel my neck burn red.
“Listen, I don’t really want to talk about it anymore,” I say, opening my door with more force than I need.
“Fine,” he spits out. “Then we won’t.” And he opens the car door and walks away.