Puddin'(11)

She looks to me. “Let’s try it for a few weeks. But no hard feelings if it gets to be too much, okay? Just with work and school and . . .” Will sighs. “Bo, and trying to be a good friend and not go crazy. It’s a lot.”

“I get it,” I say.

Ellen grins. “You know the deal. We’re a buy-one-get-two kind of thing. I’m in.”

And as a surprise to absolutely no one, Hannah is in no hurry to respond. She picks the polish off her entire thumbnail before speaking. “We’re not, like, having pillow fights or anything, okay? And if anyone tries to give me a makeover, I’ll cut off their hair in the middle of the night.”

I swallow. “Understood.” I force out a laugh to lighten the mood a bit. Laughing on command is something that happens to be my number-one talent, and one of the things that will make me a great news anchor one day.

I volunteer to host first and promise to text everyone more details before the weekend. A part of me is nervous, like somehow they’ll all decide they don’t like me anymore or that this will all turn out to be one big embarrassing disaster. But we only have one year left of high school, and the anxiety inside me tells me that if I don’t solidify our friendship now, the five of us will just drift away from one another eventually.

But mostly I’m just bubbling with excitement.





Callie


Four


After school, I hang back for a little while to try to talk to Vice Principal Benavidez about the dance team’s sponsorship dilemma, but he’s no help. I guess he pretended to be helpful. He promised me stuff I know he won’t deliver on, like that he’d check with the superintendent or ask Principal Armstrong if there’s any room in the budget. When I asked to speak to the principal myself, he fed me some crap about Principal Armstrong being a very busy woman, like she’s the freaking president or something.

My back pocket vibrates, and when I check my phone, I find a text from Bryce.

BRYCE: babe im outside where u at?

Just as I’m about to type a response, I collide with a pastel ball of dough. My whole body bounces back as my phone slips out of my hands and slides across the floor.

“Oh my goodness!” squeaks a voice.

I glance up to see Millie Michalchuk, someone I am very much aware of. To be honest, you can’t miss the girl. Freshman year she was crowned the Nottest of Them All according to the Hottest and Nottest List. Luckily for Millie, her name only popped up on the list one year. I believe this year the honor went to Hannah Perez.

I groan. “That phone better not be broken.”

“Oh gosh, I hope not,” she says as she retrieves the phone from the floor. “Shipshape!”

I hold out my hand. “Lucky you.”

She grins. “You’re right about that!” The phone vibrates in her hand as she gives it back to me. “Sorry,” she says. “I was just in here to give your mom the morning announcements to proofread for tomorrow, but I guess I missed her, huh?”

I shrug. “Yeah, I don’t really keep up with her schedule.” Lie. She’s gone to pick up Kyla and take her to dance class. I glance down at my phone to see another message from Bryce. “Right, well, I gotta go.”

Millie steps forward, blocking my path as if she didn’t even hear me. “What a beautiful necklace,” she says, lightly touching my thirteenth-birthday gift from my dad.

The gold circle pendant with an engraved C hangs from a thin gold chain. It’s something I only take off for dance competitions. Besides the tiny diamond studs Bryce gave me for Christmas, it’s the only piece of real jewelry I own. I clear my throat. “Uh, thanks.”

“Tell your mom I stopped by?”

I squeeze past her. “I’ll try to remember.”

Millie just makes me uncomfortable. It hasn’t always been that way. Before the pageant last fall, she was just some random fat girl who always kept to herself and who . . . okay, yes, me and my friends sometimes made fun of. At least not to her face. At the pageant, especially during the swimwear component . . . I don’t know. It was just, like, hard to look at her. It wasn’t like when I’d made dumb jokes about her in the past. This time I just wanted to cover her up and save her the embarrassment. Except Millie didn’t seem embarrassed. Anyway, I guess the judges pitied her, too, because in the end, she got runner-up.

I shoot off a reply to let Bryce know I’m on my way. I sigh with momentary relief.

I love Bryce. Between my mom, my stepdad, my little sister, and sometimes Claudia, my house is constantly in motion. And there’s my dad, too, and all my worries about him ever finding someone and my abuela getting older. Then the never-ending Shamrock drama.

But Bryce. I never have to worry about Bryce. We’ve been together since freshman year. Bryce is The One. We’ve had our hiccups, but what long-term couple hasn’t?

As I push through the doors leading into the parking lot, I find Bryce leaning against his sparkling cobalt-blue Dodge Charger with shiny new dealer plates. Despite what everyone might think, I’m not a materialistic person, but I’ve got to admit: there’s something hot about having a boyfriend with a flashy car. And Bryce has a new car every few months—a perk of his dad being none other than Clay Dooley, owner of not one but four local dealerships. Clover City doesn’t even have a damn Target, but we have almost as many car dealerships as we do gas stations. Anyway, with the last name Dooley, he’s Clover City royalty. If he’s a prince, I’m his princess.