Page 29 of Home Field Advantage

Fuck, our date has been three seconds long and I’m already a goner.

I at least have the presence of mind to lean over and push open her door, and when she slides in with a sultry “Hi, there,” it’s all I can do not to leap over the center console. Sage and Morgan would be laughing so fucking hard if they could see me now, smitten by a walking Barbie doll. We talked again last night, though we replaced real conversation with bingeingLove, Victor, completely avoiding talk of Amber. I haven’t even told them about this date, just in case it turns out to be as big a disaster as everything else has since moving to Atherton, though I did—with Miguel’s blessing—clarify the other stuff.

“Hi, yourself,” I say, because clever words have escaped me. “So, where are we going?”

“Somewhere you can show off all that athletic prowess.” She holds up her phone, then puts it in the little bracket thing that sticks out of the air-conditioner vent. “Don’t worry. I put the address in here. Just follow the directions.”

Being as new to town as I am, I had no choice but to let Cheer Girl pick the spot; the only remotely cool place I’ve been outside of school and that one shitty night at the diner is the batting cage I went to with my dad when he visited last weekend. I didn’t think Amber would be quite as into it, not to mention that there’s no way we wouldn’t run into anyone from school there.

I shudder to think where we might be going that won’t have a single Atherton teen there on a Saturday night.

But let’s be real—I’d follow this girl anywhere.

Still, I can’t help teasing. “I’m not sure you can be trusted. Promise me there’ll be no clowns?”

“Oh, come on. Give me a little credit.” Her phone declares a left turn and I follow. “But good to know your feelings about clowns.”

“Aren’t those everyone’s feelings about clowns?”

“I for one happen to find clowns extremely sexy,” she says, and it’s so deadpan and unexpected that I laugh hard enough to miss the next turn. Eventually I get back on the right path, and Amber promises to stop distracting me, only to sing along to the radio in the most tone-deaf fashion possible.

“For some reason, I thought you had to at least be able to carry a tune to lead a cheer. I’m really learning a lot about you on this ride.”

“There is a difference between chanting and singing, thank you very much. And it’s not my fault you listen to weird emo shit.”

“You’re the one pretending to know the words!” I point out.

“I didn’t say I don’t also listen to weird emo shit!” She turns up the dial, and then we’re both singing along, anxiety and inhibitions forgotten as we continue toward our mystery destination.

When we arrive, I have to blink three times to make sure I’m actually seeing what I think I’m seeing. “We’re going bowling?” I ask, only vaguely aware I’ve already asked this at least twice.

“Okay, please stop being ‘too cool’ for this and at least give it a shot,” Amber says with a roll of her blue-green eyes. “First of all, it’s fun. Second of all, no one else from school ever comes here. And third of all, if you’re afraid I’m going to embarrass you by bowling you under the table, you’re right, I will. But it’s still fun. Maybe more for me than for you.”

“You know I’m the quarterback of the football team, right?” I can’t help returning, even though she has it all wrong. I’m charmed as fuck that this is where a cool, sexy cheerleader brought me on a date; it’s a whole dorky side I didn’t even know she had, and it’s a-fucking-dorable. And yeah, we’re here because no one else at Atherton would be caught dead at—I squint at the half-burned-out neon sign—Gutter Kittens, but she also clearly likes it here.

And if she thinks I’m going to let her beat me just so I cansee her do a cute little victory dance… Okay, she might be right.

“You know I’m a cheerleader, right?” she counters. “I lift and throw girls in the air, do stunts that would make you weep, and I’m waaaay more limber.” She lets the words stretch out in the most infuriatingly teasing way that makes all my clothing feel too tight. “Prepare to eat dirt, QB.”

“Prepare to eat those words, Cheer Girl,” I shoot back as we get out of the car, but I still hold out my arm for her to take with her dainty little hands, because I am nothing if not a gentlewoman.

Miguel and his boyfriend are already inside when we enter the wonderland of sensory overload that is Gutter Kittens, looking adorably couple-y as they crack up over some joke I’m guessing from their gestures revolves around the fascinatingly glittery collection of bowling balls, which emerge from creepy-ass returns designed to look like gaping mouths. It’s by far the lightest I’ve ever seen Miguel, who usually requires heavy machinery to pull his lips into a smile. Next to me, Amber radiates a sort of warm joy at the sight. It’s clear she really cares about him, more than I even realized, and I wonder how tonight is going to balance between Miguel My Cautious Teammate and Miguel My Maybe-Future-Girlfriend’s Best Friend.

If the latter is as impossible to impress as the former, this may end up being Cheer Girl’s and my only date.

My concerns are confirmed when Miguel spots us, and it’s like someone dimmed all the brightly colored lights in the room. (And there are alotof brightly colored lights, weirdly placed in Gothic chandeliers and reflecting off the shiny harlequin wallpaper.) For a moment, I worry that somehow they got their lines crossed, and Amber was never supposed to bring me here. All the “Intruder! Intruder!” feelings I get from practice and weight-lifting class and even just wearing the uniform come rushing back. But then Miguel smiles and Amber squeezes my arm as she gently pulls me over and I see that they’ve already input our names—right below “Better M” and “Best M” are “Loud McCloud” and “QB1.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding tight. Okay. We are in the right place, right time. Okay.

Amber skips over to the boys and I follow, trudging on the dusky paisley carpet like I forgot how to move like a normal person. Miguel’s smile widens a few notches when Amber ignores him completely to give Malcolm a hug, and I have to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from biting them.

“Malcolm, this is the one and only Jack Walsh. Jack, this is Miguel’s extremely better half, Malcolm.”

“I like her better and better every day,” Malcolm says to Miguel before extending a hand to me. “And you’re the famous Jack! It’s great to meet you. Thank you for making it one hundred percent less embarrassing to be an Atherton football fan.”

“I likehimbetter than both of you,” I inform Amber andMiguel, and the genuine laughter that follows feels like slipping into a warm bath after a game.

“So how does your bowling arm compare to your throwing arm?” Miguel asks, and there are so many snarky things I want to say in response, things about how it doesn’t matter because they’ll probably all treat me like I suck anyway. It’s not exactly fair—Miguel doesn’t treat me like shit the way the other guys do. He’s just neutral. But neutral hasn’t helped me, and it’s hard to hang out with him like we’re friends when he hasn’t been a friend to me at all.

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