Girls Save the World in This One - Ash Parsons Page 0,39

flat on his shoulder, like we are frat guys. Chums. Drinking buddies. “Man, it was good to see you!”

I slap his back two times, and press past him.

Scott looks like that dog, the one with spots on his ears, tilting his head back and forth at me in confusion.

Cute, clueless, and ready to go crap on someone else’s yard now.

Imani and Siggy fall in behind me, like we’re a walking-away dance squad.

“Who’s the badass now?” Imani asks, smiling at me slyly.

11

That was so epic!” Siggy yelps after we turn the corner and head down the aisle.

“Yeah!” Imani says, linking her arm with mine.

“Man, it was good to see you!” Siggy quotes me. “June, that was perfection.” She kisses her fingertips like a chef in a fancy restaurant.

I can’t help it, I feel simultaneously proud of myself and a little embarrassed by their effusiveness.

We walk out of the exhibit hall past the volcanic rock waterfall and ride the escalator back upstairs. We file into the shuffling line outside the massive ballroom for the full-cast panel.

We’re lucky enough to get inside before they say that the room has reached capacity. It’s standing-room only, so we ease along the back of the ballroom, following a clump of people spreading along the back of the room.

As we wait for the panel to start, my feeling of invincibility from seeing Scott fades, and I’m left just feeling a little deflated and a little sad.

“So, I guess that’s my first boyfriend, huh?” I murmur to Imani. “Except not even that. Not really.”

“Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Imani says. “He doesn’t deserve you.”

“But do you know how it feels to be the only one who hasn’t had a real boyfriend?” I ask. “You don’t. And Siggy doesn’t. And Blair didn’t. Just me. I’m the only one.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, June,” Imani says, her tone like she wants to grab my shoulders and give them a shake. “High school isn’t everything. High school is just a small bowl. You need more fish. Look at you!”

She means it like you’re so cute!, but she’s not really qualified to speak on the subject. She’s my friend, and more to the point, Imani doesn’t look at me with romantic eyes.

“Don’t get trapped in it, June,” Imani says.

“Just ’cause he was a jerk doesn’t make them all jerks. And it doesn’t mean anything about you, either, so stop that crap,” Siggy says.

Easy for you to say.

Ugh. Shut up, brain.

“Pretty good view for standing-room only, huh? Even the camera stand isn’t in the way.” I point to the camera platform, standing in a clear space to the side of one aisle, approximately in the middle of the room.

Siggy and Imani exchange a glance that says they know I didn’t agree with them, but am just changing the subject.

They roll with it anyway.

“Yeah! The video screen helps, though.” Imani tips her chin up, studying the row of empty chairs onstage. On the screen we can see through the close-up that each has a name sign taped on, but we can’t read who’s sitting where.

“Honestly, after this morning I don’t know that it would be healthy for me to be that close to either Hunter or James again.” Siggy fans herself with her hand.

“Oh lord,” Imani sighs.

“Don’t hormone-shame me,” Siggy says.

“You haven’t even seen your favorite actor yet!” I say.

“I love them all equally.”

“Okay, you just talk about Linus the most,” I say.

Linus Sheppard joined the cast this season. His character, Hugh, was a veterinarian before the zombie apocalypse, so now he’s somehow become the medic of the little group of survivors, even if he insists he isn’t qualified at least once per episode.

Not only is Siggy absolutely smitten with him, but she instantly and completely shipped him with the trucker’s daughter, Shella, played by Annie Blaze. They’ve got a May-December thing going on, or at least May-October. I try not to think too much about