Page 88 of The Baller

“Well, if someone asks you again… you can say yes.”

My gaze darted between the pair of them, both grinning at me like idiots, and I found myself grinning back twice as hard.

“I’m so happy,” muttered Millie, reaching for the rest of her burger.

“Me, too.” I picked up the last fry in the bowl. “Me, too.”

For the first time in a really long time, I could say that I was truly, properly happy. Not just okay, and not because I’d managed to get out of bed and function, or because I’d been for a run.

I was happy. H A P P Y.

“Oh, hey, did you guys see the video with the guy getting glitter bombed?” mumbled Delaney through the final mouthful of her burger.

This time I put the fry down. “Did you say glitter?”

She nodded.

“Glitter?”

“Yes.Glitter,”Delaney repeated as she snatched her cell up. “It’s so funny. The guy’s covered in it.”

My blood didn’t go cold, but it definitely felt like the A/C had been turned way up, even though it was mid-November and freezing outside. There’s no way this was a coincidence.

Millie snatched the phone as Delaney found the video, and held it up so we could all see.

There he was, looking no different than the day he’d left me standing on a street corner as he took off.

Christopher Ellington. The one person I never wanted to see again. The one person who’d almost ruined my life.

The video wasn’t supposed to be of him. It was supposed to be of a girl standing with the White House in the far,fardistance. In the corner of the screen, he walked out of a large office building with some other guys, and took a package from a bike messenger who happened to be walking in. Three seconds later, while they were making their way down the street toward the camera, a kaleidoscopic explosion rained down on him. The girl and the White House were forgotten. The screen zoomed in, capturing the air now filled with every color in the rainbow.

Millie let out a horrified shriek of laughter. Delaney’s shoulders shook as she tried to silently hold it together. Even the guy behind the camera was laughing, based on the trembly, shaky film. And underneath the cloud of glitter stood Christopher Ellington. His suit was no longer dark, but a riot of reds, blues, greens, and golds. His face was pink, purple, and orange.

He didn’t move. Didn’t blink.

The same could not be said for the three guys he was with, who were all bent doubled and laughing so hard one collapsed on the ground.

Every single person walking past stopped and stared. Expressions ranged from being identical to Millie and Delaney’s, as well as outright amusement and ill-concealed smirks, while most crossed the street to avoid the glittery rain coating them before continuing with their days.

Christopher Ellington had yet to move.

It was entirely perfect and glorious.

Delaney had enough of holding it in, and her head fell back with a loud roar of laughter that had the surrounding tables turning to find out what was so funny. Millie was in a similar state, trying and failing to keep the noise down by muffling her mouth with not one, but two hands.

“Oh my God… oh shiiit… this is so awesome. Can you imagine…”

I turned to Delaney. “When did this happen?”

“Last week, I think. Someone posted it Friday, and it’s already had ten million views.”

Three times Millie scrolled it back to the beginning, and it was only on the fourth time of watching, after she wiped the tears from her eyes, that she paused it and zoomed in.

“This guy looks…” she stopped, her gaze shooting to mine and back before a gasp escaped. “Radley…”

“I know.”

“Did you know about this?”

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