Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(33)

“I’ll be right down.”

I grabbed my varsity jacket, tiptoed into the hall, and closed my door as quietly as possible. In five seconds I was out the front door and peeling out in Mitchell’s car. The future could wait.

*

“So you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up?” Josie teased.

I’d just told the table about the declaring-a-major question. Josie pouted her bottom lip as she tucked my hair behind my ear. She smelled like strawberry bubble gum and vanilla, and there was glitter dusted across her chest. Actual glitter. Like she was going clubbing in the city and not half sitting on my lap at the damn diner. It made not staring at her chest that much harder, but looking in her eyes was no picnic either. I kept expecting them to be green, not brown. Expecting to see the outlines of contacts in them. For the last year and a half the only eyes I’d looked into this closely were Claudia’s.

“I know what I want to be,” Lester said, chewing with his mouth open. “A video game tester.”

“A what now?” Gavin asked as he sucked down his second chocolate milkshake.

“That’s not a real job,” Josie’s friend Jessa protested. She reached for one of Lester’s fries and munched on it. Yes, Josie and Jessa. Their other two best friends, who thankfully couldn’t make it, were named Jennifer and Jillian. Not confusing at all.

“It is so!” Lester replied, sitting up straight in his seat. “They hire people to test out the games and find the bugs. You don’t even have to leave your house.”

“I just got a flash-forward of you at forty years old sitting in your mother’s basement playing Madden 2040 on a cracked big screen,” Mitchell joked.

Everyone laughed.

“I got no problem with that,” Lester said. “My mom makes a mean pot pie.”

“You should be a writer,” Jessa declared, gesturing at Mitchell with a french fry.

“I should?” Mitchell sat up straight.

“Why not? You’re hilarious,” she replied. “And that description was, like, so vivid.”

Mitchell frowned. “Huh.”

“So you’re the only one without a thing,” Lester pointed out.

“Thanks, man. That’s real helpful,” I replied flatly.

“Whatever. You’re a superstar,” Josie said, messing with my hair. “Whatever you do, you’ll be a superstar.”

I squirmed uncomfortably. Her fingers were too jabby, and I felt hot everywhere and not in a good way. Maybe I was the shit this year at Lake Carmody High—emphasis on this year, because someone else would be next year—but I wasn’t a superstar. I was the only loser at the table who had zero interests and zero talent. I mean, I could hurl a football, but so could ten million other dudes in America. What the hell was I going to do with my life?

The familiar pressure squeezed its way to life inside my chest. I cleared my throat and stole a fry off Jessa’s plate, trying to ignore the feeling. I wished, suddenly, that Claudia were here. She probably would have changed the subject. Or come up with fifteen careers that I’d never thought of that I could totally do.

Why had I broken up with her again?

The door behind Lester, Mitchell, and Jessa opened and my heart completely stopped. It was Claudia. Her hair was up in a tight bun and she wore blue sweat shorts over her pink ballet tights. A gray sweatshirt with the collar cut out hung off one of her shoulders. She didn’t see us. She was busy reading something on her phone. I moved closer to the window, as far away from Josie as I could manage. Which wasn’t far.

“Hey, Claudia,” Gavin said, when she was almost past our table.

She stopped. I shot him a look. She started to smile at him, but then she saw me. And Josie. And she went white.

“Hi, Gavin,” she replied tightly. Then she looked me in the eye. “Peter.” And around the table. “Other people.”

Okay. She was definitely pissed. Claudia was the politest person I knew. She didn’t say snotty stuff like that. She turned and walked up to the counter.

“Takeout for Catalfo?” she said to the waitress.

The silence at our table was bordering on painful. We heard Claudia’s phone beep, and she laughed as she read the text. The sound of that laugh sent chills right through me.

“I should probably go talk to her, right?” I said.

“Why?” Josie and Lester replied at the same time.

“Yeah. It’s weird if you don’t,” Gavin said, sliding out of the booth.

I looked at Josie. She heaved a sigh before very slowly getting out so I could move. I shot her what I hoped was an apologetic glance and wiped my hands on my thighs. Even though I didn’t know why I had to apologize. It wasn’t like we were together. I barely even knew her. And I didn’t want to get into a relationship two seconds after getting out of one. Plus, she was the one always throwing herself at me, not the other way around. Not that I minded. Technically.

I cleared my throat and slowly shuffled toward Claudia.

“Hey,” I said to her profile. “What’s up?”

She sent a text and looked at me, but for, like, a second. Then she stared straight ahead toward the kitchen. “Nothing.”

Another text came in. She read it, giggled, and blushed. My chest felt like the entire team had just stomped on it with their cleats.