Page 71 of The Accidental Text

I curl my lip. Did he really think that telling me his best friend’s name and how long they’ve known each other is good information about him?

“Men are so bad at this,” I say, shaking my head.

“Bad at what?”

“Sharing things.”

He lets his jaw drop, the toothpick miraculously staying in his mouth. “That’s generalizing.”

“Fine.You’rebad at this.”

“Ah, you got me figured out.”

“Okay, fine. If I were to ask Z about you, what would he say?”

Chase thinks about this for a second. “That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure. I guess he’d probably tell you about the mischief we got into in high school.”

I rub my hands together. “Now we’re onto something. Tell me about that.”

He thinks about this for a minute. “I mean, nothing really stands out. We did a lot of stupid stuff. One time we put a goat in the lunchroom.”

I smile. “Did you get in trouble?”

“Never got caught.”

“Well done.”

“I guess there’s one thing that not a lot of people know about,” Chase says after a few beats of silence.

“Give it to me.”

“I wanted to ask Jennifer Hunt to homecoming, junior year. She was probably the prettiest girl in school. I was more gangly back then, but I had some game.”

“Oh, I’m sure you hadsomuch game,” I say, teasing him.

He probably did. I imagine younger Chase, with that half-smile of his and his dark-brown hair. Gangly or not, the girls were probably into him. I wonder what I would have thought of him if we’d gone to the same high school.

One thing’s for sure, gangly would not be a description used for Chase now. I look over at his extended arm, his hand on thesteering wheel, the sleeve of his gray T-shirt pulled taut over his large bicep.

“Z knew where her locker was, so I put a big sign on it asking her and decorated it with balloons.”

“Aren’t you cute,” I say.

“Well, my mom and sister helped.”

Chase pauses, the toothpick stilling in his mouth. I’m quiet, moving my eyes to the dashboard of his car. I know these moments well—the realization that she’s gone. It’s so easy to forget sometimes. I’m nearly five months in and sometimes it still hits me.

I wonder if I should put a hand on him. Just on his arm, to let him know I’m here and I get it. But something holds me back. I get a feeling that might be too much for Chase. I just need to let him have his moment.

He clears his throat and swallows. “I … I didn’t put Jennifer’s name on it because it was her locker and I was going to pop out right after she saw it. My mom and sister didn’t know her name, and when they asked me—or really, grilled me—I didn’t offer much. It’s embarrassing to talk about girls with your family when you’re in high school.”

Funny, that was not the case for me. Devon was rather open about the women in his life. He still is. I sort of wish he’d been a little more like Chase in that way.

“So,” Chase continues, “the next day at school, Z and I hide near the locker and wait for her to show up. You can see where this is going, right?”

“Oh, yes … wrong locker.”

“Yep.”

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