AS SOON AS MAYA ULRICH realized that not only had she not qualified for regionals, but that Pup Flanagan, Studio Art dud and all-around loser, had, she burst into tears. On the short drive from the Natural History building back to the hotel, Mr. Hughes made her sit in the front seat so he could give her a soothing pep talk as she blubbered into a tissue. Pup felt sorry for her—sort of—but more than that, he wondered what it was like to be the type of person who actually expected to win things.
Once Mr. Hughes checked everyone in, they split up to drop their bags in their rooms and get ready to go out for dinner. Pup was in such a good mood that he didn’t even mind having to share a room with Brody for the night, not even when his new roommate sprawled himself across his bed and FaceTimed Izzy, a conversation filled with screen kissing and repeated breathy I miss yous, despite the fact that Brody hadn’t seemed to be missing her very much when he was flirting with Maya and Abrihet the entire drive down to Champaign.
“Hey, Flanagan!” Brody called. His face was so close to the phone he was practically licking it. “My girlfriend wants to talk to you.”
Pup hesitated. He hadn’t seen much of Izzy in the two weeks that had passed since their ill-fated game of Spin the Bottle. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to avoid her. Whenever the morning bell rang, he steered clear of the Languages hallway, where he usually caught up with her on her way to Latin class, and instead cut through the weight room to get to first-period English. A few of the varsity football players were always in there, getting huge in the off-season, and they usually heckled his weak physique as he scurried past. Taking the long way also made him late to class, and Mr. Spellman wasn’t a fan of Pup even at his most punctual. Still, he’d rather get heckled and lose participation points than face Izzy and the pity he’d seen in her eyes after their kiss. Then again, it wasn’t like she’d tried to get in touch with him, either. So maybe she didn’t even feel sorry for him. Maybe she didn’t think about him at all.
“Flanagan! Are you deaf?” Brody took his phone and tossed it across the room. It dropped onto the hotel carpet with a muffled thud, and Pup, smoothing his hair with a quick sweep of his hand, unwillingly picked it up.
“Hey, stranger!” Izzy’s voice was loud, too bright, too falsely casual. She was lounging on her bed, with its mountain of frilly decorative pillows, but she looked nervous. “I hear you won an award!”
“Yeah.” Pup took his ribbon from his back pocket and held it up for her to see. “Finally have something to add to the Flanagan family trophy case.”
“You know he traded sexual favors for it,” called Brody. “It’s the only explanation. All he did was take a picture of his drunk-ass brother passed out on the roof of their house. If I’d known it was that easy, I would have taken some snaps at Lily Hubert’s graduation party last weekend. You missed it, Flanagan, but it was sick. Plenty of drunken photo ops to be had.”
“Oh, really?” said Pup. “And I guess you’d know how to compose the shot and expose the film and develop it by hand, too, right?”
“I know how to do plenty of things by hand,” Brody retorted. “Just ask Izzy.”
“You’re such a pervert!” Izzy shrieked, craning to look past Pup at Brody in the background, who was smiling to himself and unwinding the cord to his headphones.
“Listen,” Pup said, “let me put you back on with Krueger. I have to change my clothes. Mr. Hughes is taking us out to dinner to celebrate.”
“No, hang on a second.” She sat up on her pyramid of pillows and looked Pup full-on in the camera, focusing her attention entirely, for once, on him. She lowered her voice. “While I’ve got you on the phone, I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”
“Oh.” Pup glanced over his shoulder and saw that Brody had pulled his headphones over his ears, and was blasting his terrible pop country so loud that Pup could hear the auto-tuned twanging from all the way across the room. “What’s up?”
“So . . . about what happened at my house. With Spin the Bottle and everything. I just want to say that I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” Pup could feel the heat rising from the hollow of his throat all the way up through his cheeks and forehead. Did they really have to be video chatting at a time like this? “For what?”
“I don’t know.” She reached for a pale pink cylindrical pillow that looked like a giant-size version of his dad’s cholesterol pills, and held it over her chest. “I just am.”
“Well, okay.”
“So . . . are we okay?”
“Babe!” Brody lifted a headphone from his ear. “Don’t use up all my data!”
“Almost done, babe!” She winced a little, and smiled at Pup. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” said Pup. “I really do have to get ready, though.”
“Okay. Well. I’ll see you at finals week?”
“Sure. Bye, Iz.” He ended the call and tossed the phone back onto Brody’s bed, not sure if their conversation had left him feeling better or worse.