Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys)(19)

Understand that guys have no idea what they’re doing so just go with it.

Don’t act like my mom.

Don’t ask me to dance.





Riley’s Advice for Guys on How to Get Girls to Like You


Listen to good music.

Don’t be boring.

Have good hair.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


I forget to turn my phone on vibrate during practice on Saturday, and between songs I hear it ring. I’m sure it’s Milo, and it’s like a straight shot of caffeine. Once we’re onto the next song, I throw some showy stuff into my last run-through of the new fill. My sticks pummel the snare, capped off by a few extra accents on the sixteenth notes. It ends in a buzz that vibrates my teeth.

Reid notices, because Reid notices everything you don’t want him to.

“Fancy,” he says once the song’s over.

So, “Fancy,” I chipmunk back at him.

“Do you need to check that?” Lucy says because outside of the matter of honesty she’s the nicest person in the world.

“No, it can wait,” I say with as much Most Casual Attitude Ever imbued into those four words as I can manage. “We need to really nail ‘Riverside Drive.’ The fall formal is, like, any day.”

“Riley’s right,” Nathan says.

“Yeah, your family’s one thing,” Reid says. “The whole school…”

The four of us stare at each other like we’ve just realized there are ten billion ways this could go wrong.

“Guys, we’re going to rock,” I say, like it wasn’t me who just started the HEY-LET’S-PANIC-THE-DANCE-IS-AROUND-THE-CORNER train speeding down the tracks. “The whole of Edendale High isn’t going to judge us, except on a scale of awesome.”

“I love the scale of awesome,” Lucy says. “Riley’s right. Let’s just get serious, and it’ll go great.”

“I’m always serious!” Reid says, which is true.

“It’ll be great. We can do this,” I say.

We play through “Riverside Drive” a few more times, move on to “Incandescent,” and finish up with our cover of Ted Leo’s “Me and Mia.” I try to put myself in the mind space of a typical Edendale student and take us in like we’re brand-new.

Reid’s bass is solid, an unrepentant throbbing rhythm pulling us all into a connection. More and more lately, the beats and the crashes and the thrum of my sticks sound bigger than me and also somehow totally me at once. Nathan’s and Lucy’s vocals are sweet and salty together, like maple bacon ice cream, somewhere between 1960s dreamboats and back when Jenny and Blake still happily sang together in Rilo Kiley and something that’s uniquely us.

After practice I discover something that ruins any chance of my new amazing casual attitude lasting any longer: the missed call and voice mail are totally not from Milo. They are from Sydney Jacobs–doer, Garrick, and I think of his shaggy hair and his science/kissing skills, and I smile, and then I think of Sydney Jacobs again, and I turn that smile upside down.

“That Guy?” Reid asks me.

“I wouldn’t say that.” I’m not going for vaguely mysterious but somehow pull it off anyway. I start to explain, but it’ll go into the Passenger Manifest later. So I wait until I’m alone in my car to listen to Garrick’s voice mail.

“Hi, Riley, it’s Garrick Bell. Your chemistry partner.”

HOW IS GARRICK A GENIUS WHEN HE SAYS THINGS LIKE THIS?

“I just wanted to see if you were doing anything. Probably you’re going to a cool underground secret show at the Smell tonight.”

HOW DOES GARRICK KNOW ABOUT THE SMELL?

“But if you’re free, I was thinking about hanging out, maybe seeing a movie at the Vista. Okay, talk to you later, or not, I guess see you Monday otherwise. Bye!”

I don’t know what this means. If this were a normal guy, I’d consider this an ask-out, which would make hanging out a date. But of course it seems I don’t even know any normal guys, because while I was figuring out if a scientific genius was an okay sort for a rock star (in training) to date, I was now struggling with figuring out if a lowly civilian was an okay sort for a celebrity-sex-haver to date. Or even just make out with.

After all, I still want to make out with Garrick. Even if Ted Callahan reigns supreme as the Crush and even if I might have plans at some point in my life with Milo, That Guy.

I call Garrick as I’m driving home.

“Hey, Garrick, it’s Riley.”

“Hi, did you just have practice? I remembered right after I left you a message.”

“Yeah, but it’s cool. When do you want to hang out?”

“I don’t know, soon? And great! Do you want to meet me here? My house, I mean. Or there? The Vista, I mean. You know what I mean, so I don’t know why I just explained both of those.”

“I can meet you at your house.”

“Great.” He sounds like he means that.

He lets me in right away when I get to his house, and his parents are clearly out, so instead of talking about chemistry or going to a movie, it’s an instant smush of our faces together, right there in the Bells’ front room, like we can’t wait a second longer. It always sounded exaggerated in songs, but now that I was in this moment, I couldn’t wait a second longer.