another word, Grandma is marching past us, Boomer fast at her heels.
“Hey, you! Yes, you!” she shouts. “Think I don’t know what you’re doing?”
“What is going on?” I glance at Jamie. “Is this . . . is this part of the process or something?”
“No, definitely not . . .”
We turn around. And then we see.
Someone’s on their knees in the parking lot. And next to him on the ground is a stack of bumper stickers. Fifi stickers.
“I asked you a question,” Jamie’s grandma says loudly. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
The guy looks stunned for a moment, but recovers quickly. He holds a bumper sticker defiantly in his hands and smirks.
“You need to mind your own business, old lady.”
Boomer growls. The smirk vanishes pretty quickly.
“Is that how you speak to people, Nicholas Jacob Wilson?” Grandma asks. At this, the boy startles. “Oh yes, I know who you are. Your grandmother is always showing off your photos at Jazzercise. She goes on and on about what a hardworking boy you are. Is this the kind of work you’re doing? Vandalizing people’s property?”
Nicholas stands up slowly.
“Wait,” he says. “Listen. It’s just a prank.”
“Terrorizing people is a prank? Including my own family, for that matter. You have some nerve, young man. When your grandmother finds out . . .”
“No, please,” he cries out. All the carefully manicured cool is gone. He looks like a ten-year-old, caught red-handed with a cookie before dinner. “Don’t tell my grandma. Please.”
“Give me one good reason why I wouldn’t?”
He doesn’t respond. His lower lip trembles. Is he about to cry?
“I just have one more semester till graduation,” he says shakily. “Please. She’ll cut me off.”
Jamie’s grandmother crosses her arms, but before she can say another word, he starts to cry. It starts off like a leaky trickle, but before I can even blink—he’s sobbing. About how this will ruin everything. How no one can find out.
“Is this real life?” I whisper.
I glance over at Jamie for the first time.
He is holding Grandma’s phone. He’s . . .
“Are you recording this??”
Jamie’s jaw is tight.
“Instagram Live just got a whole lot more interesting,” he says.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jamie
Stepping into the campaign office on Sunday is like stepping into an alternate universe. For a moment, Maya and I just stand frozen in the doorway, gobsmacked. Gabe had mentioned we should come in through the front of the bookstore today. But I didn’t realize that was because we’d now taken over the front of the bookstore. And the back. And the extra event space near the side window.
“Seriously, where did all these people come from?” Maya whispers.
I peer around the room—which is so packed with earnest-looking college kids, you’d think this was an Apple Store. I spot Hannah near a display of scented candles, brandishing her phone for a large huddle of volunteers. Meanwhile, Alison the intern is sorting through printed address lists, looking frantic. But for all the bustle and chaos, there’s this thrum of hopefulness in the air. I pause, taking it all in—the buzzing conversation, people clustered between rows of bookshelves, the ABBA album blaring in the background. I haven’t felt this sort of electricity since Jordan Rossum himself burst into the iftar.
“I think there are more than forty people here,” Maya says, sounding awed. “Remember when half the volunteers were related to either Gabe or Hannah?”
I laugh. “To be fair, Hannah’s mom works for the Democratic Party.”
“But still.” Maya grins.
Gabe pops his head out of the annex, and his whole face lights up when he sees us. The next thing I know, he’s springing toward us like an excited puppy. “The heroes of the hour!” He hugs me, and then Maya. “Listen. You two? Are game changers.” He whirls around to beckon over a few nearby volunteers. “Guys, this is my little cousin Jamie and his best bro, Maya!”
Best bro. Bro? I mean, after dealing with Mom and the guys, I guess it’s a relief that someone out there doesn’t assume Maya and I are dating. Not that I mind the assumption. I just mind the idea of all those conversations leaking back to Maya. But then again . . . bro? How should I interpret that? Drew and Felipe saw some kind of vibe between us, but now I wonder if that’s even real. Because if Gabe thinks we’re bros—
“—the ones who filmed the Instagram Live and exposed the fuck out of that troll,” Gabe declares.
“Oh. Wow!” says one of the volunteers, an East Asian girl in a