You Say It First - Katie Cotugno Page 0,37

“What are you doing?” Jordan asked from the bleacher above him, kicking him gently in the side.

“Buying Bitcoin,” Colby said automatically, shoving his phone back into his pocket and telling himself to stop being such a mopey little pissant. So much for her not remembering they’d argued, he guessed.

“They’re playing like total bitches out there,” Micah complained, turning his cap around backward and scratching his knee through the fray in his jeans. Colby winced, knowing exactly what Meg would say if she heard him talking like that. Casual sexism denotes a lack of creativity, probably, plus some statistic about Mo’ne Davis that she kept in her back pocket for occasions exactly like this.

There was no point in thinking about Meg.

He got some sketchy fluorescent nachos from the concession stand. He talked to some stoners he knew from school. He actually sat still and watched the game for a while, but Micah was right—they were playing like total bitches, or whatever the nonoffensive version of total bitches was, and the longer he sat there with his silent phone heavy in his pocket, the more it felt like some kind of gorge was opening up inside his rib cage, the kind of physical sensation he’d taught himself to stop having after his dad died and didn’t fucking appreciate now. He was lonely, he realized suddenly, as a direct result of having a stunted, long-distance non-love affair with some spoiled princess from the fucking Main Line that was probably over now before it had even started. The thought of it was so embarrassing Colby actually looked around to make sure nobody had noticed, that it wasn’t somehow being broadcast on a neon sign hovering above his head.

“Let’s go, Jakey!” Micah yelled as his brother came up to bat, cupping his hands around his mouth and hooting. Colby blew a breath out and nudged him in the arm.

“Hey,” he said. “You got any of that Coke left?”

“Sure do,” Micah said, offering it to him with a flourish; Colby took a long gulp, wincing at the sweet chemical burn.

“Geez, dude,” Jordan said. “Easy.”

Colby ignored him, raising his eyebrows at Micah for permission before finishing off the bottle.

By the top of the ninth, he was in a truly terrible fucking mood. What the hell was he thinking to begin with, texting this girl a picture of the fucking sunset like he thought he was some kind of twenty-first-century Walt Whitman? They hardly knew each other. She didn’t owe him anything. She was probably out having a life.

Just like he should be.

Colby picked his phone up again, scrolled through his contacts until he got to Joanna’s name. Her text from this morning was still waiting there, calm and familiar as Joanna herself.

We *should* run into each other on purpose, he typed, then gnawed his thumbnail for one second longer before nutting up and hitting send. What are you up to tomorrow night?

Fourteen

Meg

“What can I get you?” Meg asked a gaggle of sophomores, pulling a square of waxed paper from the box on the folding table and trying to sound more enthusiastic than she felt. She was working the doughnut booth tonight, which in reality just meant reselling the two hundred doughnuts Overbrook’s student council had gotten donated from the artisan place in town and trying to convince Harrison Lithwick, who was assigned to the booth with her, not to pick all the sprinkles off the chocolate frosted ones like a disgusting monster.

Normally, the carnival was one of Meg’s favorite days of the year—the optimism of it, maybe, the smell of cotton candy thick in the air, and the parking lot lit up in pinks and greens and purples. It was an Overbrook tradition, with the seniors all taking shifts at the game and concession booths and all the proceeds going to a rec center in Philly. The teachers took turns in the dunk tank. The dance team and a cappella group both did sets.

Tonight, though, Meg felt as sour as the lemonade Emily was selling on the other side of the parking lot. She’d been in a bad mood since she’d gotten here, wincing at the too-loud music blaring over the sound system, scowling at the overdressed freshman girls shuffling along the midway even though she knew it made her a bad feminist—and trying, with limited success, not to check her phone every five minutes to see if Colby had texted.

He hadn’t.

Not that she expected him to, really.

But she’d hoped.

Meg sighed, setting some more doughnuts out on