Page 85 of Don't Hate the Player
“I would have made you guys buttons too, but I didn’t know what to put on them,” Penny said once Matt received his honors. “First I made ‘Unity’ ones, but that seemed kind of vague. Then I used up a few trying to fit ‘Guardians League Champions’ on there in blue glitter, but I kept spelling it wrong.”
“It’s really okay, Penny,” Emilia sighed. She must have heard this story in the car. Jake held her hand to lend her patience and/or give her something to squeeze in case she ran out.
“Then I just kind of lost it and made ones that said ‘Jake!’ and ‘Emilia!’ but, like, what would be the point of that? Like I haveno idea. I was really tired. Anyway, let me know when your mom wants her button maker back, Matt.”
“You could have done the blue cross on a black pin,” Jake offered, trying to be helpful. “You know, put it on the little circles.”
“Who am I, Kandinsky?” Penny said dismissively. “Let’s go in.”
He really only had 12 percent of an idea of what Penny was talking about at any given time. She had the same effect as Emilia, making him feel smarter by association.
Jake took a few steps forward and was about to get the door for his new squad when he remembered something.
“Em, I have something for you.” Jake couldn’t believe he almost forgot. He’d found it in his room when he tore up his closet and sort of planned his whole night around this moment.
“Aw, you didn’t have to get me anything. But what is it?” Emilia asked.
Before Jake could grab it from his pocket, the school doors exploded outward. Audra Hastings barreled out of them and nearly crashed right into Matt.
“Audra,” Penny said coolly. “Happy homecoming.”
Audra might have been a backstabbing jerk, but whatever she’d been through looked like karma had gone slightly overboard. Her face was unnaturally red from nose to chin, and her blown-out hair had already met its maker in the rain.
“Did you see him?” Audra gasped through heavy breaths. “Does he know I’m out here?”
“Who?” asked Emilia.
Audra looked up to see who she was talking to. Her face fell when she realized she’d run up to exactly the wrong crowd.
“Connor,” she said miserably.
“You mean your date?” Matt asked.
“Yeah, duh,” she spat. “He’s rolling out his plan to make this the best homecoming ever, and if he finds me he’s going to keep . . . rolling it.”
“Oh. Oh no,” Emilia said, suddenly serious. “What was it? Did he stuff your locker with confetti and now it’s everywhere? Bring you chocolate but it’s all the shitty pink stuff that’s barely chocolate?”
“Yes and yes,” Audra sniffed. “But throw in a giant bouquet of flowers that I am clearly allergic to; like I didn’ttellhim I can’t have hydrangeas near me.” She gestured to the rash on her face, which in Jake’s estimation would not be going away anytime soon. “And he spilled a jar of honey on me in the car.”
Emilia nodded empathetically. “Because you’re his honey. Been there. If you have any alcohol, it’ll get the stickiness out.”
Audra brightened up. “I have vodka in my water bottle! I need to get to the bathroom. Thank you.” She checked for Connor through the door’s slim rectangular window and dove back inside.
Jake thought Emilia handled that remarkably well. If Muddy turned up complaining that people were being mean to him online after Fury dumped him from their roster, Jake would kick him in the dick, not give him advice.
“Hey, Emilia.” Matt tilted his head. “Vodka doesn’t get honey out of fabric.”
“Oh, I know,” Emilia deadpanned. “But the chaperones are going to smell her a mile away. Give it twenty minutes; they’ll call her parents.”
Penny’s eyes widened. “For real?” she asked.
Emilia shrugged. “Yup. And good luck to her, getting Klein to bend any more rules that screw over my best friend after that.”
“I love you.” The confession tumbled out of Jake’s mouth before he could stop it. Truth was stupid like that.
He could barely explain it—one second he was watching Emilia disguise pettiness as kindness, and the next he was stuck in a time-stretching moment again.
Jake was eleven years old and completely in awe of the bossy, curly-haired girl who showed him the shield trick inKnights of Darknessand waited for him to get pizza. He was twelve and thirteen and feeling his heart leap into his throat every time he went to a party and saw her there, knowing she’d want to play. He was fifteen and hiding from her in the arena, and she’d found him anyway. He was caught in the rain, and she basically kidnapped him. She opened up to him, she saw him, and told him he wasn’t stupid.
