Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys)(16)

Oh my god, Riley. Shut up.

But Ted just says, “Cool!” and disappears back into Ms. Matteson’s classroom.

I try to appear casual and as if I only have the vaguest notion of Ted’s locker location, and he’s out like he says in just a couple minutes and then we’re off down the hallway together.

“Should I take you to your mom’s office again?” I ask him.

“Yeah,” he says.

I wait for him to expand on that or talk about anything else, but he doesn’t. I know Ted’s social circle is Toby Singer, Jon Banas, Brendon Maro, and Brendon’s girlfriend, Aisha Osman. Even when I catch a glimpse of that table at lunch it’s not like Ted’s the life of the party. So I’m accepting that maybe he’s quiet and it means nothing about my chances with him.

“We have a show coming up.” I blurt it out as I’m letting us into the car.

“Oh yeah?” Ted asks me.

“Yeah, at the fall formal” shoots out of my mouth, which is clearly back to depending on Brain Number Two for its information. I now have no need, no pending information for an email later! How am I supposed to lure Ted into my affections without pending information? “Are you going? Do you have a date or something?”

And so now I have no pending information and I asked a supernosy question I’m not even sure I want the answer to. If Garrick Bell could have sex with celebrities, what is Ted Callahan capable of? Real rock stars? I have no chance.

“I, uh, yeah, I don’t have a date,” he says, kind of blushing (!!!). “But I want to see you guys play. So maybe I’ll just go.”

“You should go,” I say really forcefully, like there’s a blood shortage and he’s the only one left with Type A. “Go! I’ll be there! We can hang out.”

“Yeah, okay,” he says, like I’ve talked him into it. Humanity will survive on the blood of Ted Callahan! “I’ll think about going.”

I pull up to his mom’s office building, and his door swings open and he’s out. Considering I all but just asked him out, it’s a swifter exit than I want.

“See you, Riley,” he says with a wave. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime, Ted!” I call instead of something low-key and cool. I think there is a scary but real chance I am not capable of being low-key and cool. It’s bad news for anyone, particularly a rock star.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



Places to Take Someone That Could Be Romantic, by Reid


LAMILL

Yeah, it’s just a coffee shop, but it’s fancy and expensive, and they’re open later than Silverlake Coffee. You can walk there from the Satellite, so it’d be a good quiet place to take someone before a show. Also they have that shot of espresso that tastes like a jelly doughnut, and I bet you could blow a girl’s mind with it.

Griffith Observatory

One of the most romantic things you can do with someone is look at the stars together.

Edendale Grill

I haven’t been here, but some guy took my mom on a date here once and she said it was very romantic, which isn’t something you want your mom to tell you, but I still noted it.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


I don’t have much homework, so after I drop off Ted, I drive down Sunset to Amoeba Music, where I have probably logged more hours than any other building except school or home. Reid’s a snob about actual vinyl, and Lucy’s in love with her iPod, and while I have a record player as well as my own iPod, CDs are easy and go right into my car stereo, and I love picking up these shrink-wrapped square plastic boxes knowing they very well could contain something super life-changing.

Mondays are a weird day to shop for music, since new releases are out on Tuesdays, but at this point I’m mainly catching up on things. I can only afford to buy one CD today thanks to the sad amount of cash Mom and Dad call an allowance. I’d love to get a job, like here or maybe one of the cooler coffee shops on Sunset, but my parents enforced their United Front to let me know my priority should be school, and also that there was nothing I desperately needed that couldn’t be paid out of my allowance.

Obviously the parents and I have different definitions of desperately.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and it seems like the right timing to be Lucy, but it’s Reid.

“Hey, what are you doing?” he asks. “Can we talk about algebra homework?”

“I’m at Amoeba right now.”

“Whoa,” he says, as if we’re both four years old and I’m next in line to see Santa.

“It’s just Amoeba,” I say, and it’s not all the way out of my mouth before I feel guilty, and stroke a CD bin with my free hand to let the store know I don’t think of it as a just. “I mean, we go a lot.”

“Together,” he says. “We go together.”

“Are you mad I didn’t invite you?”

“No,” he says. “I’m pointing out, Ri, that this could be very good for you. Look around right now.”

I do. The store’s not packed, but there are plenty of people flipping through CDs. Big deal.

“Most people are alone,” he says. “Right?”

Actually that’s true.

“You could meet someone there,” he says. “Someone cooler than—”