There's Something About Sweetie(2)

Ashish had had to read the text about twenty-two times before it finally sank in that (a) Celia was truly going out with someone named Thad, (b) she’d been the one to move on first, and (c) Ashish’s first real relationship had been a spectacular bust.

Ashish had been irrationally optimistic that he’d get to the moving-on stage first. He’d had to suffer the indignity of being dumped; the universe had to hand him the consolation prize of dating someone new before Celia did, right? Instead the universe decided to blast out a cute little song called “Ashish Is a Loser and Everyone Should Know It.” Well, screw the universe. Screw it all the way to the Milky Way. He was Ash-freaking-shish. He was debonair. He was brilliant.

Okay, so he hadn’t had a date in three months. So his basketball game was suffering a bit. His mojo wasn’t gone, though. It was just … on hiatus. Kicking up its shoes on the table, snoozing. Taking a little trip to Hawaii or something. For frick’s sake, even his über-nerdy, Boy Scout–level goody-two-shoes older brother, Rishi, now had a serious girlfriend.

Pinky handed the phone back to him. “So what?”

He glared at her as they rounded the corner to the cafeteria. Oliver, Elijah, he, and Pinky had eaten breakfast together before school started every morning since freshman year. Now that they were juniors, it wasn’t even a tradition anymore—it was just a habit. “Easy for you to say, Priyanka. You’re not the one who’s in serious danger of damaging your playa rep.”

“It’s Pinky,” she said, glaring at him like her eyes were blades that could slice and dice. “Only my grandma calls me Priyanka.”

Ashish felt a prickle of guilt. He was being petty; he knew she hated to be called Priyanka. “My bad,” he mumbled.

Pinky waved a hand. “I’m going to let that go because you’re obviously having a bad day. But seriously. Just date someone else. Come on.” She pushed him with her shoulder and scanned the other students at the lunch tables. “Oh, look. There’s Dana Patterson. You’ve had the hots for her forever. Go ask her out, right now.”

“No.” Ashish pushed back, but not hard enough to knock Pinky over, though he seriously did consider it. His palms felt tingly, like they might be on the verge of sweating. At the thought of talking to a hot girl. What the hell was happening to him? “I—I don’t want to ask her out, okay? It’s just—it’s weird to ask girls out in the cafeteria.”

Pinky snorted. “Really? That’s the excuse you’re gonna go with?” They got in line for breakfast burritos.

“What’s weird?” a familiar male voice said from behind them.

Ashish turned to see Oliver and Elijah, his two other partners in crime since middle school, saunter up to join him and Pinky. Oliver was the taller of the two, but Elijah had the muscles that just about everybody in school swooned over. They were both black, but Oliver was paler than Ashish, while Elijah was a shade or two darker than Pinky.

The four of them had been Richmond Academy’s “Fantastic Four” since seventh grade, when they’d coincidentally—some might say fatefully—all concocted the same harebrained excuse about why they hadn’t done their book reports on The Scarlet Pimpernel. Apparently, Mrs. Kiplinger, their English teacher, found it hard to believe that all four of their mothers’ water had broken on the same exact day. The excuse was totally ridiculous, considering Mrs. K. found out they were lying with a quick phone call to each of their moms. Despite (or maybe because of) their shared lack of finesse in executing subterfuge, they became instant best friends in detention.

Pinky answered before he could. “Ashish suddenly thinks it’s weird to ask girls out in the cafeteria.” She smiled at him spitefully and he rolled his eyes.

“Since when?” Elijah said. “You ask girls out in the greeting card section at Walmart. What’s the difference?”

They’d laugh until they choked on their own spit if he told them he was nervous. “Nothing.”

Oliver, the more empathetic of his best friends, put his arm around Ashish. “Aww. Tell Ollie what the problem is.”

He didn’t have to say anything, though. Pinky filled them in on Celia’s latest text.

“I don’t get it,” Elijah said, frowning. “You were already broken up, right? Ever since you went to her dorm and found out she was out with that guy Thad. So what’s the big deal?”

“The big deal,” Ashish said, annoyed that his friends really didn’t get it, “is that I thought this whole thing with Thad was supposed to be temporary. She said it wasn’t serious. She was just … bored or experimenting in college or whatever. We were still texting. There was still the possibility that we might …” He stopped abruptly, feeling more like an idealistic loser than ever. He’d really thought they might get back together at some point, hadn’t he? God. He wasn’t the basketball-playing Romeo/GQ model he’d thought himself to be at all; he was a freaking Teletubby. And he was now seventeen. One year away from being an official, card-carrying adult. Why couldn’t he keep a girlfriend?

Oliver, sensing his embarrassment, pulled Ashish closer. “I’m telling you, Ash, you gotta just get back up on the horse again. Just do it. Celia’s doing it.”

“Yeah, man,” Elijah added. “It doesn’t even have to be a particularly nice horse. Any old mare will do.”