You Have a Match(2)

But whatever else it knows about me is abruptly cut off by the hum of my phone. It’s from Leo, texting the group chat: DNA results came in. Big fat nothing.

It’s the kind of text that I don’t even have to wait for anyone to respond to in order to know we’re all going to head over to Leo’s. Still, I wait a few minutes, putting Kitty in her case and popping some gum in my mouth, giving Connie a chance to catch up to me so we’ll get there at the same time.

“Where are you headed, kiddo?”

Allow me to clarify, because in the last few months of him shifting into working from home more often, I’ve become semifluent in Dad. In this case, Where are you headed, kiddo? loosely translates to I’m pretty sure you haven’t finished rewriting that English essay you tanked, and I’m 100 percent using this as a loving, yet still deeply passive-aggressive way to bring it up.

I tighten my grip on my helmet, keeping my eyeballs as still as I possibly can even though resisting an eye roll right now might actually be pressurizing something in my brain.

“Leo’s.”

My dad pulls one of those affable, apologetic smiles of his, and I brace for the usual segue into the routine he and my mom have been perfecting since the start of junior year, when my GPA first took a swan dive.

“How’s the old Abby Agenda?”

Ah, yes. The infamous “Abby Agenda.” This chipper turn of phrase includes, and is not limited to, all the exhaustive tutoring sessions my parents signed me up for, the student-run test prep meetup for the SATs they keep making me attend, and a giant running list of all my homework assignments put on a whiteboard in the kitchen (or as I like to call it, the Board of Shame). I will give them points for creativity, if not subtlety.

“Dad. There are like, five days before summer vacation. I’m good to go.”

He raises his eyebrows, and just as he intended, there’s a fresh wave of guilt—not because I care all that much about anything on Abby’s Annoyingly Alliterative Agenda, but because he looks straight-up exhausted.

“I’ll be good to go,” I correct myself. “But it’s Saturday. And it’s illegal to talk about homework on Saturdays.”

“Says the kid with two lawyer parents.” His smile is wry, but not enough to let me know I’m off the hook.

I blow a stray strand of hair out of my face. “I’ve got another draft ready, okay? I spent half the day on it. Now can I please go look at the sun before it swallows up the earth?”

He nods appreciatively. “We’ll take a look at it when you get home.”

I’m so relieved by my successful jailbreak that I basically tear holes into the street with my skateboard on my way to Leo’s. It’s only after I roll to a stop and shake the helmet head out of my mass of curls that I see the text from Connie, who is yet again held up at a Student Government Association meetup, and has essentially left me for dead.

“Well, shit.”

If this were a few months ago, hanging out with Leo one-on-one would have been just another Saturday afternoon. But this isn’t a few months ago. This is right the heck now, and I am standing like an idiot in his driveway, the shadow of the BEI creeping over me like an extremely humiliating, pheromone-ridden ghost.

Before I can decide what to do, Leo spots me and opens the front door.

“That’ll be the Day,” he says.

In lieu of nicknames, Leo’s greetings of choice include any and all idioms about the word Day, which happens to be my last name. I start to roll my eyes like I usually do but pause at the sight of him in the doorway—the sun is starting to set, casting warm colors on his face, honeying the brown in his eyes and gleaming in his dark hair. I’m itching to know what it might look like through my camera lens, an itch I’m not so familiar with. I almost never photograph people.

Actually, these days my parents keep me so busy I barely photograph anything at all.

Leo’s expression starts to shift, probably because I’ve been staring too long. I look away sharply and pop a wheelie on the way up to his front porch.

“Show-off,” he says.

I prop my skateboard by the door and stick my tongue out at him. It’s a relief to be on teasing terms again, but it’s immediately punctured by what he says next.

“Where’s Connie?”

He winces as soon as he asks, but I do what I do best and walk it off.

“Busy with last-minute details for tomorrow’s Keyboard Wash for the junior class fundraiser.”

“Keyboard Wash?” Leo’s a senior, along with his non-Connie-and-Abby friends, so he’s out of the loop on half of our goings-on. “Like a car wash for keyboards?”

“I’ve watched you use yours as a dinner plate, so I’ll pencil you in.”

I follow him into his house, inhaling warm butter and burnt cheese and, as always, the faint waft of cinnamon. Leo flicks on the front hall light, which exposes the precarious tower of pans, pots, and miscellaneous ingredients crammed into the small bit of counter real estate he has in his kitchen. His laptop is propped up on the table, open and exposed enough that I figure his parents and his sister, Carla, must be out.

I’m about to ask about the DNA test results displayed, but he puts a plate in front of my face first.

“Lasagna ball?”

I pull a wrapper out of my pocket and spit my gum in it. “Hell yeah.”