park. I’m about to lean on the horn when I notice the front door of his house is open, and he strolls casually to the car, not even caring that he’s getting totally soaked by the rain.
“Wow. It’s really chucking it down out here,” he says, opening the door. He stops when he hears the song playing. “Uh-oh. What happened?”
I give him a questioning look.
He plops his backpack on the floor and climbs into the passenger seat. “You only put the Beach Boys on after something bad happens.”
I scoff at this. “My life doesn’t have to be in shambles to listen to the Beach Boys.”
He closes the door. “Yes it does.”
“What if I just felt like listening to something beachy?”
But Owen knows me too well. We’ve been best friends since the summer between third and fourth grade when he talked me into jumping off the ropes course telephone pole at Camp Awahili. “The Beach Boys are in your ‘Psych Me Up Buttercup’ playlist. And I happen to know that playlist is reserved for emergencies only.”
He gives his head a doglike shake, flinging drops of rain from his dark, shaggy hair onto my dashboard. I grab the small cleaning cloth I keep in my glove box and wipe it off. Then I slump in my seat. “Fine. Tristan and I had a fight.”
His green eyes open wide and he turns down the music. “You and him?”
“Uh-huh.”
“A fight?”
“Uh-huh.”
“As in, the two of you actually disagreed about something?”
“Do you not understand what a fight is?”
Owen lets out a low belly laugh.
“Owen,” I whine. “What’s so funny?”
He stops laughing. “It’s just that it’s about bloody time.”
“You’re not British,” I remind him. “You can’t keep using the word ‘bloody.’”
“The Brits don’t own the word ‘bloody.’”
“Yeah, they kinda do. In America—where we live—it means ‘covered in blood.’”
“It’s a good word. It’s like the loophole of swearwords.”
I scowl. “What did you mean when you said it’s about time?”
“I said it’s about bloody time,” he reminds me.
“Owen!”
He sighs. “Fine. I just meant you two never disagree. About anything.” He holds up a finger. “No, wait. I wish to strike that from the record.”
“So stricken,” I say automatically.
Talking like we live in a television legal drama is kind of our thing.
“You never disagree with anything,” he says, amending his statement.
“I do, too.”
“Well, yeah, with me. But not with him.”
“Objection.”
“On what grounds?”
“I—” I begin to argue but then realize I can’t come up with a single example to prove him wrong. “Well, but that’s just because I don’t want to be like all the other girls he’s dated.”
“Superficial and obnoxious?”
I slug his arm. “Dramatic.”
“Having a differing opinion is not being dramatic. It’s being, you know, a person. What was your fight about?”
I groan. I don’t really want to rehash it, but I know Owen won’t leave me alone until I spill. “His phone.”
“You had a fight about his phone?” Comprehension flashes on his face. “Oh. Let me guess. He has an Android operating system and you have Apple. It’s a compatibility issue. You’ll never get along. You may as well just end it now.”
I give him another slug. “No. It was what was on his phone.”
He cocks a scandalized eyebrow. “Now I’m really interested.”
“Not that, you perv. Snapchats. From girls. While we were trying to watch a movie.”
He shrugs. “So?”
“So?!”
“He’s a musician. In a semipopular local band.”
I exhale loudly. “Yeah, that’s what he said. Well, you know, minus the ‘semipopular’ part. And I know. I know. It was something I told myself I’d have to deal with when we started going out. And normally, I’m able to suppress it. But last night, I kind of just snapped.”
“You Snapchat Snapped?”
Owen finds this incredibly amusing. I do not. He wipes the smile from his face. “Sorry. Good joke. Bad timing. Withdrawn.”
“Anyway,” I go on, “we got into a huge fight. I told him I didn’t like the attention he gets from girls. He accused me of overreacting. It went on and on and then I threw a garden gnome at his head.”
Owen’s jaw drops. “You did what?”
“It wasn’t a heavy one,” I say, defending myself. “It was mostly full of air. It didn’t even hit him. I missed. It hit the paved walkway and broke.”
“That doesn’t bode well for your softball tryouts today.”
I feel myself deflate. “Now he wants to talk.”
Owen sucks in air through his teeth. The sound puts me on edge.
“I’m doomed, aren’t I?” I ask. “He’s going to break up with me, isn’t he?”
He takes a beat too long