You Say It First - Katie Cotugno Page 0,103

breath and lifted the receiver. Imagined her own heartbeat echoing out across the line. “Hello?” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “This is Meg.”

“This is Colby,” he said, and she smiled.

Thirty-Seven

Colby

The truck stop was right on the side of the highway, the neon sign glowing like Christmas in the blue-purple twilight; it came up so fast and sudden that even after waiting for it for four hours Colby nearly missed the turn. He pulled into the giant lot and shut the car off, sitting motionless in the driver’s seat for a long, quiet minute. He shoved a piece of gum into his mouth, then decided he didn’t want to be chewing gum when he saw her and spit it into a receipt he found on the floor of the passenger seat. Finally, he took a deep breath, wiped his sweaty palms—why were his palms sweaty? Fuck—on his jeans, and went inside.

She was already sitting in a booth in the brightly lit diner, her own hands folded primly in front of her like she was waiting for a job interview. Holy shit, Colby loved her so much. As soon as he had the thought, he knew it was true, and that there was nothing to be done about it. Her gaze, when she glanced up and saw him, was dark and steady and clear.

“Hi,” Colby said, sliding into the seat across from her.

Meg smiled, a little uncertain. “Hi.”

For a moment, neither one of them said anything, the silence stretching out like every mile they’d both traveled. It was even more awkward than it had been the first time they met. Colby thought again that they were probably too different; he thought of all the million reasons why this would never, ever work.

Still: she’d shown up here, in this place right in between them.

He had shown up here, too.

And maybe that was all either of them—maybe that was all anybody—could ask.

Colby took a deep breath then and looked across the table. He felt like his heart was sitting there on the Formica, bloody and raw. “So, um,” he said, and his voice was an apology and a declaration and a gamble, “I was wondering if you could tell me again why I should register to vote.”

For a moment, Meg only stared at him, wonder and disbelief playing across her expression. Colby was sure he’d blown it, that he’d come with too little too late.

Then, almost imperceptibly, she nodded.

“Sure,” she said, and Colby heard her smile before he saw it. “I can probably help you with that.”

Acknowledgments

All I have ever wanted is to be able to write the next book and, as always, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the incredible team that keeps on making it happen: Josh Bank, Joelle Hobeika, Sara Shandler, and everyone at Alloy, for their big ideas and good humor and endless enthusiasm. My keen-eyed editor, Alessandra Balzer, for steering the ship, and everyone at HarperCollins, but especially Sabrina Abballe, Sam Benson, Donna Bray, Kathy Faber, Caitlin Garing, Caitlin Johnson, Nellie Kurtzman, Caitlin Lonning, Kerry Moynagh, and Andrea Pappenheimer. Thank you, Ana Hard and Jessie Gang, for putting together the most gorgeous cover I have ever seen in all my days on this earth. Dahlia Adler, Robin Benway, Brandy Colbert, Christa Desir, Corey Ann Haydu, Emery Lord, Jennifer Matthieu, Julie Murphy, Elissa Sussman, and Sara Zarr, for long talks and quick questions and troubleshooting and general brilliance. All the booksellers and teachers and librarians and bloggers and Bookstagrammers who have been so good to me all this time, for your attention and kindness and all the often-uncompensated work you do behind the scenes. Lisa Burton O’Toole, Rachel Hutchinson, Jennie Palluzzi, Sierra Rooney, and Marissa Velie, for first reads and cheerleading and being my very faves. Jackie Cotugno for literally everything, always, but especially this year. Tom Colleran for being my home for almost two decades. Annie Colleran, I’ll be yours for the rest of my life.

Also, not for nothing: hey, go vote! xo

About the Author

Photo credit Jennie Palluzzi

KATIE COTUGNO is the New York Times bestselling author of Top Ten, 99 Days, 9 Days and 9 Nights, Fireworks, and How to Love. She is also the coauthor, with Candace Bushnell, of Rules for Being a Girl. Katie studied writing, literature, and publishing at Emerson College and received her MFA in fiction at Lesley University. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee whose work has appeared in Iowa Review, Mississippi Review, and Argestes, among others. She lives in Boston. You can visit Katie online at www.katiecotugno.com.

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Books by Katie Cotugno

99 Days

9 Days and 9 Nights

How to Love

Fireworks

Top Ten

You Say It First

with Candace Bushnell

Rules for Being a Girl

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Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

YOU SAY IT FIRST. Copyright © 2020 by Alloy Entertainment and Katie Cotugno. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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Cover design by JESSIE GANG

Production by Alloy Entertainment

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019951209

Digital Edition JUNE 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-267414-2

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-267412-8 — ISBN 978-0-06-303248-4 (intl. ed.)

2021222324PC/LSCH10987654321

FIRST EDITION

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