Shuffle, Repeat(58)

Lily looks down at the bags in her basket. “But they’re already chocolate candy,” she says. “They’re shaped like little hearts.”

“I know,” says Zoe. “But after I’m done melting and pouring, they’ll be shaped like little teddy bears. Way cuter.”

“Are they a present for someone?” Darbs asks, and Zoe shakes her head.

“I wish. They’re for home ec, which is bullshit. It’s supposed to be an easy class, but somehow I’m failing it. My GPA is all screwed up, so I have to cook for extra credit over spring break—how shitty is that?” We all agree it’s shitty, and Zoe continues. “Even Oliver Flagg—who only took it because of that bet with Theo—even he’s getting a better grade than me. When a jockstrap like that is schooling you in flambé, you know you suck.”

Anxiety tickles my insides. I forgot about the bet, and I never found out what it was about. Suddenly, I feel like I really, really would be better off in blissful ignorance.

Darbs is the one who asks, “What bet?”

“Oh, you don’t know this?” Zoe sets her basket on the floor at her feet. “So Oliver started dating Ainsley sometime last year, right?”

I hearken back to eleventh grade, when Itch moved to town. When I was the girl who got the new guy. Back then, I wasn’t exactly paying attention to Oliver, but now that I think about it, Zoe’s time line seems right.

“It was around this same time,” Zoe says. “Spring break adjacent. Oliver bet Theo that he could get into Ainsley’s pants by the Fourth of July.”

“No.” I don’t realize I said it out loud until everyone looks at me. “Oliver’s not like that,” I say as an explanation.

“Please.” Zoe snorts. “They’re all like that. My brother’s on the track team. He’s the one who told me.”

I turn into a statue. Cold. Hard. So still that I can’t turn my head to look at Lily or Darbs.

“All the letter jacket guys knew about it,” Zoe says. “Oliver didn’t make the deadline, so he had to sign up for home ec. And yet he’s still killing it while I’m flunking the class.”

The waves of horror wash up and over my statue self. I’ve been feeling jealous of Ainsley when really I should have felt sorry for her. And Theo—thinking he’s the devil incarnate, but now it turns out Oliver is just as terrible. Or even worse. Because Ainsley is his girlfriend. He’s supposed to cherish her, protect her, be kind to her. Not treat her like an object.

Oliver.

I am so disappointed in him I could cry.

Zoe is still talking. Something about how she also needs to do an extra-credit sewing project and do we think latch-hook counts. I don’t answer and neither do Darbs and Lily, because they’re both looking at me.

Looking at me with pity.





I’m already on my porch when the behemoth rumbles down Callaway. I’ve been preparing for this all week, and now that it’s here, I’m ready. In fact, I’m more than ready. I’m ecstatic. I no longer have to wrestle with some moronic crush on Oliver, with my stupid feelings for him. All that has vanished in one heartsickening moment, with the knowledge that he is exactly the person I thought he was the very first time I climbed into his giant gas-guzzling monster of a car. I have been reminded that Oliver Flagg is a dick boy making dick bets, and that means it was just an attraction. That’s all. Stupid chemistry. Nothing else.

This is a relief.

Oliver pulls into the driveway and I’m there before he unlocks my door. I fling it open, launch myself inside, and slam it. Then I turn to look at him, and I give myself full permission to notice his man-beauty, all the muscles and angles and everything. All of it nothing but a mask for his true self: a misogynist, woman-using prick. Everything that I loathe.

He flashes a glance at me before backing out onto the road. “You okay, Rafferty?”

It barely computes that he’s back to calling me by my last name.

“Fine,” I snap, folding my arms across my chest.

Oliver drives. He doesn’t start the playlist. Neither do I. He doesn’t speak. Neither do I. Finally, I realize that his jaw is set and his eyes are narrowed. He looks every bit as furious as I feel.

Well, screw him, then.

We get all the way to Main Street before we come to a red light and Oliver finally turns to me. “What is your problem?” he asks in a voice that is rough and angry.

I glare at him. “I thought you were different.” I spit the words out between gritted teeth. “I would be so pissed if I found out that Itch had made bets about our private life.”

Color rises up Oliver’s cheekbones, docking in the tips of his ears. Those dark circles within his eyes deepen, and his muscles tense in his neck. We stare at each other, and for a second, I’m almost afraid of him, because he looks so, so livid.

But then he turns back to the road. He steps on the gas. His fingers tighten on the steering wheel and his knuckles go white. He doesn’t say a word for the rest of the drive.

? ? ?

I manage to avoid Ainsley by arriving late to physics class and scooting out early. Later, I catch sight of her in the cafeteria, but I make a fast turn and head in the other direction. I can’t explain to her why I’m not going to sit with her and her friends at lunch today. Or tomorrow. Or ever.