Page 45 of You Say It First

“Hey,” Colby called back. “I was wondering if you were working today.” The hair salon was in the same strip mall as the CVS.

“Could have texted,” she pointed out, raising her eyebrows teasingly. “Found out for sure.”

Colby knew that, actually. He hadn’t on purpose—one, because his face was so fucking busted right now, and two, because he didn’t know exactly what to say to her. They hadn’t talked since Saturday night when Meg was in town. “Yeah, well,” he said, jamming his hands into his pockets. “Didn’t want to scare you.”

She nodded. “You’re pretty ugly,” she agreed with a smile that suggested she didn’t actually think so. “Jordan told me about you and Matt, but I thought he was exaggerating.”

“Yeah, not so much.” Colby shrugged. “We went after each other pretty hard, I guess.”

Joanna seemed unperturbed. “That’s what brothers do, right?” she asked. “Mine used to beat the shit out of each other every day before Pete went to college. Jordan broke his collarbone once throwing him off the side of the deck.”

Colby smiled at that, though he guessed it wasn’t actually funny. Still, he knew what she was trying to do, and he appreciated it. Talking to Joanna always made him feel like his fuckups weren’t that big of a deal. “I remember.”

Joanna nodded. “So,” she said, rubbing her palms over her bare arms as the breeze rustled through the trees that ringed the parking lot. “Your friend Meg seemed nice.”

Colby’s eyes widened, at the mention of Meg’s name in the first place, and in the second place because he was fairly certain that whatever impression she’d given off that night in the parking lot, nice was not it. “She said the same thing about you, actually.”

Joanna smiled, a little uncertain. Colby could see she was considering asking him what the hell his deal was. He knew he should take responsibility for the situation—apologize, or at the very least explain what had happened. Jo deserved better, that much was for sure. Still, the truth was he was pretty sure she’d let him off the hook rather than push it, and he was right. “Are you going to this thing at Micah’s tomorrow?” she asked, tucking some imaginary hair behind her ears. “The pig roast?”

“What?” He’d known there was a party, though he hadn’t really thought about it. He guessed he hadn’t thought about much, since Meg’s visit. “He’s doing a pig roast?”

“I mean, I don’t know,” Joanna amended. “He says he is. Where he thinks he’s going to get a whole pig is beyond me.”

“Hope the security’s good at the petting zoo,” Colby joked, and Joanna groaned.

“Gross,” she said, kicking him lightly in the ankle. “Anyway. I think you should come.”

Colby nodded. “Maybe,” he hedged. “We’ll see what my face is looking like, how about.”

“Send me a picture,” Joanna instructed, turning on her heel and heading back across the parking lot. “I’ll let you know if you’re too scary for young audiences!” She was gone before he could think of a reply.

Back in the car, he saw Doug had called while he’d been in the pharmacy. He’d called yesterday after their breakfast, too, to ask a question about Colby’s availability, but with everything that had happened with Matt, Colby hadn’t gotten around to calling him back. He sat there for a moment now, thumb hovering over Doug’s name in his contact list, before dropping the phone in the cup holder and turning the key in the ignition. He’d do it later, he promised himself, then pulled out of the parking lot and headed home to take a nap.

Twenty-One

Meg

That night, Meg was sitting at her desk eating a granola bar and working on her independent study—she’d gotten an extension, and permission to research Maxine Waters instead—when her phone dinged beside her with a text. I really miss you, Emily had written. Can we hang out this week?

Meg frowned. We hang out all the time, she typed, then deleted it letter by careful letter and told herself not to be such a bitch. After all, it wasn’t like she didn’t know what Emily was getting at: they may have had almost every class together, and they may have shared a bag of Pirate’s Booty in the cafeteria every day, but they hadn’t seen each other outside school since last Friday with Mason at Cavelli’s. Meg had texted both of them when she got back from Colby’s to apologize, to promise she’d just been freaked out about her dad’s engagement and everything was totally fine, but still there was something weird and chafe-y about their friendship the last few days, like a shoe rubbing a blister on her heel.

Now she sat back in her desk chair, her eyes landing on Colby’s gray hoodie slung over the armchair across the room. It still smelled like him: a little like Dial soap and bonfire and a little bit like the hamper. She’d worn it to bed every night since she’d gotten back from Ohio.

I need to get a dress for my dad’s wedding, she told Emily finally. Actually, the wedding wasn’t until Memorial Day, but it felt like a good low-stakes activity, the kind of thing they could do without talking too much about Mason or Cornell or anything else. Shopping tomorrow?

They went to the Short Hills Mall after school, loading themselves down with dresses and cramming themselves into a tiny Nordstrom fitting room just like they had before junior prom last year, both of them trying as hard as they could to act like everything was okay. “Oh my God,” Emily said, as Meg pulled a long blue dress off the hanger and over her head. “Did I tell you Andrew walked in on my mom and dad having sex the other night?”

Meg whipped around so fast she almost busted a seam, her eyes wide. Andrew was Emily’s brother, a sophomore at Overbrook with big ears and a goofy smile. “No!”

“He showed up in my room looking like he’d just seen the freaking Babadook,” Emily said with a grimace. “I guess he just, like, barged in there looking for clean laundry and got an eyeful of my dad’s bare ass? I don’t even know.”

“I mean,” Meg said, trying not to giggle and mostly failing. “I guess it’s nice to know that your parents are still, you know, attracted to each other?” She snorted. “You know, like... theoretically?”

“Is it, though?” Emily asked, and by now both of them were really starting to lose it. “Is it really?”

They wound up doubled over laughing, the weirdness dissolving between them as they cackled so loudly the saleswoman rapped on the door and demanded to know if everything was okay. They were finally pulling themselves together when Emily frowned. “Wait a second,” she said, reaching out and tugging the strap of Meg’s dress aside. “Is that a hickey?”

“What?” Meg startled. “No.” Shit. Meg hadn’t even realized hickeys were a real thing until she’d seen it in the mirror when she got home from Colby’s three days ago, her whole body lighting up like a pinball machine at the memory of his mouth on her neck. It had faded since then, but not all the way; she’d put a thick layer of her mom’s concealer on it in the bathroom this morning, but it must have rubbed off as she was trying on clothes.

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