Page 60 of You Say It First

“I don’t think she’ll be a bitch to you or anything, but—” She broke off. That wasn’t true, strictly; in fact, she thought there was at least a 50 percent chance Emily would be a bitch to him. “Maybe just don’t take anything she says personally, that’s all.”

“Noted,” Colby said. He squeezed her hand and bumped their shoulders together, easy, though she could tell from the tone of his voice he was a little bit tense. “It’s fine, Meg.” He grinned. “Anyway, I’m really tough.”

“Oh, right.” She smiled back at him, she couldn’t help it, his eyes and his jawline and how tangible he was, here in her town, where she lived. “My mistake.”

Her friends were sitting on the patio outside the fancy ice cream place, an indie situation with flavors like herbal chai and ginger molasses that Meg normally loved but that seemed faintly ridiculous to her with Colby by her side. “Hey!” she called, her voice just a little too loud.

Emily looked up from her waffle cone, her eyes widening faintly at the sight of them. Then she tilted her head to the side. “Hi!” she called, hopping up out of her chair and offering a megawatt smile. “You must be Colby.”

Colby smiled back. “You must be Emily.”

“My reputation precedes me, I see,” Em said grandly, then motioned him over. “Come here so I can interrogate you at great length about your intentions, please and thanks.”

Colby shot Meg a sort of helpless look, but he did what Em told him, sitting down in the empty chair beside her and gamely answering her string of cheerful questions. She was trying, Meg realized; both of them were trying, because both of them cared about her. She didn’t actually think she could ask for anything more than that.

“Cones are on me,” she announced, kicking gently at Colby’s chair on her way into the ice cream shop. She grinned at Emily once before she went.

Half an hour later, Meg balanced on the patio railing, the warm night air ruffling her ponytail as she listened to Emily tell Colby the story of the time they’d accidentally locked themselves in the student council storage room at Overbrook without their cell phones. She couldn’t believe how well this was going. She’d expected things to be awkward between Colby and her friends, hostile even, but instead it was like they’d all known each other for ages. Maybe she’d been worried for nothing after all.

Colby wandered back over in her direction once Emily was finished, his cheekbones even sharper than normal in the neon light from the shop. There was a half-moon scab the size of a dime beneath his eye that hadn’t been there the last time she saw him; he’d gotten hit with a stack of boxes at work, he’d explained when she’d pointed it out. “So, what’s your summer looking like?” he asked, leaning against the railing beside her.

Meg thought about that for a moment. “I’m going to work a few more hours at WeCount,” she said. “Spend time with my mom, I guess. And also, you know...” She glanced at Emily, who was standing across the patio talking animatedly to Adrienne about the bedding she wanted to get for her dorm room. “Get ready for Cornell.”

Colby followed her gaze, his eyes widening. “You still haven’t told her?” he asked quietly. “I thought you said the interview with the Annie Hernandez people went well.”

“Shh,” Meg hissed. Then, barely above a whisper: “It did. Really well, actually. But that doesn’t mean I’m a hundred percent going to get it. And even if I do...” She trailed off. “I don’t know. What about you, huh? What are you up to this summer?”

Colby made a noncommittal sound, fussing with the napkin around the base of his cone instead of looking directly at her. “I think I’m going to take that job after all,” he said finally. “With Doug.”

“Seriously?” Meg grinned, hopping down off the railing and flinging her arms around his neck. “Colby! That’s such good news!”

He shrugged, all broad, embarrassed shoulders. “I mean, we’ll see. Don’t get too excited yet. It might be a disaster.”

“Oh, whatever, of course I’m excited. I’m proud of you, you know that?” Now it was her turn to be embarrassed, a little; still, it wasn’t like it wasn’t true. “Is that weird to say?”

Colby rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “As long as you don’t, like, ruffle my hair.”

“I’m not going to ruffle your hair, asshole.” Meg punched him lightly in the side. She could tell he was proud of himself, too, the way he ducked his head and jammed his free hand into a pocket of his khakis; more than that, though, she could tell he was proud to be telling her. As soon as Meg had the thought, she was hit with wave of fondness so fierce she almost couldn’t breathe for a second. It felt like when they’d gone to the beach in New Jersey when she was a kid, like getting caught in a riptide.

Just like that, she was done with her ice cream, tossing her cup into the trash and wiping her hands on her dress. “Um,” she said, clearing her throat a little, “do you want to get out of here?”

Colby looked at her over his cone, surprised. “Now?”

“Yeah.”

“Where do you want to go?” he asked, and Meg shrugged, lifting her chin to look him in the eye.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Anywhere.”

All at once, he seemed to take her meaning. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple moving inside his throat. “Um, sure,” he said, finishing his ice cream in two giant bites and sliding his rough hand into hers. “Let’s go.”

They said good night to Emily and Mason and Javi and Adrienne, then took her car and drove around for a while. She showed him the WeCount office and her favorite bookstore and the park where she’d broken her wrist when she was little, hanging by her knees off the monkey bars. “It took my parents a full day to take me to the doctor,” she confessed, remembering. “I was trying to be brave and act like everything was fine.”

Colby smirked in the green glow of the dashboard. “That... is extremely on brand for you.”

“Shut up.” Meg reached over to nudge him in the shoulder; he caught her hand and kept it, linking it with his in his lap as she drove past the food co-op and the hipster salad place. “I’m sorry,” she said finally; she was aware of trying to gather her courage, of anticipation hanging in the car between them like a physical thing. “Is this boring? This, like, extended Life and Times of Meg Warren tour I’m taking you on right now?”

Colby shrugged, leaning back in the passenger seat. “Why would it be boring?” he asked. “I want to know everything about you.”

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