chapter five

I wake up early the next morning to get in some exercise before Andi shows up. When she knocks on the door at 10:02, I’m freshly showered and wearing sweats and a San Francisco Giants T-shirt, ready to bake.

“Hey,” I say, stepping back to let her in.

“Hey.” She unzips a yellow hoodie to reveal she’s paired her sweatpants with her much beloved Oakland A’s T-shirt. We are dressed almost the same.

She takes in my shirt and gives me a dirty look, as she always does when she sees the Giants logo. I’d like to say nothing has changed, but we might have been wearing these same shirts the night everything changed. I’m still desperate to know what happened at that game, but I’m afraid to ask and shatter whatever tentative thing we’ve got going here. When it comes to feelings, our unspoken policy has always been to leave everything unspoken, and that part is still very much the same.

“Come on up,” I say, leading the way. I hear her socked feet following on the steps and think of how many times we’d done this before, hanging out in secret as children so no one would know I was friends with a girl; hanging out in groups because Andi refused to be left out; following her quietly up the steps to her bedroom the first time we had sex. I clear my throat when we stop at the top of the stairs, desperately trying to hop off that train of thought. “This is it,” I tell her, pointing at the rooms as I name them. “Kitchen, bedroom, office, bathroom, living room, dining room. The home of Kellan McVey. No flash photography, please.”

“This isn’t a dining room.” She raps her knuckles on top of the tiny table at the top of the stairs. “It’s just a table in a weird spot.”

“I’m so glad you came, Andi.”

“I’ll bet.” She’s about to say something else when she squints at the DVD sitting on the coffee table. It’s Federico Fellini’s 8 ½, the film we slept through yesterday. “You found the movie?”

“I borrowed it from the library.”

“You found the library?”

“Ha ha. I thought we could play it in the background while we make the cookies. Maybe we’ll absorb something by osmosis.”

I start the movie and Andi trails me into the tiny kitchen. There’s a fridge on one end, stove and sink along the wall, and a countertop that overlooks the living room on the third. It’s small enough that if you have the oven and the fridge doors open there’s nowhere to stand. Even now Andi’s close enough that I can smell whatever soap she uses, something plain and no-nonsense that smells like soap and girl. Not that I notice. I will not notice.

“Are you auditioning for that sports job?” she asks casually, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “The one with Ivanka Ling?”

The mention of Ivanka makes me feel squeamish and guilty, even though I did nothing wrong. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” I lie. “Are you?”

“Yeah. Probably. I mean, I don’t think I’m quite what they’re looking for, but...”

“What’s that? Smart? Into sports?”

“Glamorous.”

I think about how polished and, well, glamorous Ivanka was. “You don’t have to be glamorous,” I say. “Maybe they can add that after. With special effects.”

Andi snorts. “Thanks.”

“You should send in an application.”

“If you’re applying, there’s no point. You win everything.”

“You never know if you don’t try.” She’s probably waiting for me to add more, but guilt urges me to change the subject. “I thought we could make peanut butter sandwich cookies,” I say, passing her an apron. “They’re easy enough and I already had most of the stuff.”

“Okay, sure.” She fiddles with the apron as she puts it on, then says, “I wanted to ask you something.”

I look at her, waiting for her to ask how long Ivanka has been visiting my home. My conscience is ready to spill everything, but as she continues to stall, pulling out her hair elastic and refastening the bun, I start to think this might not be about me after all. As I wait for her to continue I watch the fine muscles in her arms shift, the way her torso lengthens. I look away.

“What is it?” I feel a strange tightness in my chest, something that might be hope. Maybe she had reasons for agreeing to come here that had nothing to do with cookies.

“I need to know how to flirt better. How to flirt at all, really.” Her cheeks are so red they’re almost glowing and she’s not making eye contact. I know this because my mouth is hanging open as I gawk at her, but I can’t speak. I can’t even think coherently right now. Andi, flirting? With whom? I’m not conceited enough to think she’s asking for advice on how to flirt with me, which means her reasons for coming here had nothing to do with cookies...and not much to do with me, either. The tightness in my chest increases.

I’m not aware of Andi having had any boyfriends before our summer together. She wasn’t my first kiss, but I always kind of thought I might be hers, though she’d never confirmed it. She was the first good kiss, though. The first one that felt like I might be doing something right.

“You...I...When...How...” I can’t settle on a question. I have so many.

“Never mind,” she says hastily, starting to untie the apron she just put on. “I can’t believe I—”

“Who?” I blurt out. “Who is it?”

“No one. Forget it.”

I grab her hand. “Don’t,” I say, tying the strings back together like that’ll keep her here. “I’ll teach you whatever you want. Don’t go.” I have absolutely no idea what I might teach her and I really don’t want to, but more than that I want her to stay.

Her shoulders are stiff and her jaw is tight, cheeks and neck flushed with embarrassment. Andi never asks for help with anything.

She studies her toes. “When you came to Burnham you started ‘living,’” she says, every word sounding like it’s killing her to utter it. “And I don’t want to ‘live’ quite as much as you, but I do want to...live.”

“Live with who?” Obviously I know she means, well, fuck, but I can’t picture myself saying the word. Not to Andi. About this.

She mumbles a name.

“I didn’t catch that.”

“Does it matter?”

“Kind of. What if he’s a douche?”

She rolls her eyes. “He’s not a douche. He’s on the basketball team and I met him when I showed up early for practice one day, and we played for a bit and he’s pretty hot but I didn’t know what to say and he’s probably going to come to the bake sale...”

My heart stops. Choo. It’s Choo. Oh no. He’s not a douche at all. I should be happy for her, but I’m not. “Did he, um...try to sell you tiki torches?”

She frowns. “What? No.”

So probably not Choo. “What’s his name?”

“Julian Crick.” She mutters it like I’ve just waterboarded her for six hours and she’s ashamed of caving.

Instead of relief she’s not interested in one of my friends, I feel oddly bereft that if she’s interested in someone else—and asking me for help—it’s because whatever feelings she’d harbored for me are gone. I know it’s selfish, but knowing that Andi cared about me all those years, even if those feelings went unacknowledged, was its own kind of comfort. An unspoken backup plan.

“I don’t know him.”

“Why does that matter?  I just need to know what to say. What to do.”

“You shouldn’t say or do anything you would typically do,” I tell her. “Act a hundred percent different.” I’m stalling. I know to flirt and what kind of things I like, but I don’t know that I want to help Andi seduce someone else. I’m not a masochist.

“Let me write that down.”

I turn on the oven then drop sticks of softened butter and peanut butter into two mixing bowls. I figured since we were quadrupling the recipe we’d just double it twice, each handling a batch. Now I’m grateful for the extra work, pretending I’m preoccupied with my task instead of dreaming up ways to sabotage her flirtatious plan. “A cup of white sugar, a cup of brown,” I say, passing her a measuring cup and watching as she scoops. “As for Crick, I mean, if he liked you playing basketball, he probably thinks you’re fine just the way you are.”

“That’s the problem,” she says, stirring the butter and sugar together a little too vigorously. “Just the way I am means just friends. When the other girls showed up I could tell he... I don’t know.”

Okay, I’m definitely selfish. If Andi has this fear, I contributed to it. All those years I took hidden pleasure in her unrequited feelings, and all those years she tried to keep them secret, watching me flirt with other girls, never saying a word.

“If he can’t appreciate you—” I begin.

“I just want to let him know he can...appreciate me,” she interrupts. “That I’m interested in something.”

“How much something?”

She squints at her bowl. “I don’t know. Maybe a little. Maybe a lot.”

The vise that’s gripped my chest tightens its fist. I don’t know what the fuck is happening. Maybe I’m having an allergic reaction.

“Um...” I hustle over to the windows to make sure they’re open. They are. The sun is tucked behind the clouds and cool air wafts in, but it’s not helping matters.

“You don’t have to help me,” Andi says when I return and crack eggs into each of our bowls, not trusting her with the task. “It’s stupid. I’ll ask someone else. I’ll ask a girl. I thought maybe you’d know what guys like.”

“Guys like me aren’t the right guys to try to impress.” The words come out before I’ve even thought them through. “We’re not looking for someone like you—someone real,” I add, before she can punch me. “We’re looking for something quick and easy. You’re definitely not easy.”

“He’s not like you. Just tell me what to say when I see him. If I’m at the bake sale, selling my wares, and he comes up to the table, what do I do? And don’t lie to me, either. I’ll know if you’re setting me up.”

I glance at her. She looks deadly serious. And somehow, despite the jut of her jaw and the flat line of her brows, she looks vulnerable, too.

I sigh, feeling guilty for a brand new reason. “Okay, first of all, don’t say ‘selling your wares.’ Second, assuming he’s not a douche...just smile at him.” Uttering the words feels like chewing on glass.

Andi appears oblivious to my torment. “Okay. Then what?”

“Say hi. And say something to remind him that you met before and you remember it, but not in a creepy way. Don’t be like, Hello Julian Crick, we met on September thirteenth at four-twenty p.m. Do you remember me too?”

She laughs. “I guess I can do that.”

I see the chipped tooth and think about her smiling at Crick, him smiling back. Buying cookies I helped bake. I’m stirring the batter a little too roughly and make myself stop. “Then you can, uh...” I add vanilla to the mixture, then swap out our bowls so we can mix the dry ingredients.

“Why are you taking my bowl?”

“You mix wet and dry separately,” I say. “Put three cups of flour in each.”

She starts scooping. “Okay. Then I can what?”

“Um...” I try to imagine the scenario, but I just see Andi smiling at me, saying we met before, offering me a cookie. She offered me a sandwich cookie once in third grade, but she’d put a worm in it. “He’s playing in the exhibition game?”

“Yeah.”

“Ask him about the game. About himself. Ask if he’s excited. Tell him you’re looking forward to watching him play.”

“That’s not creepy?”

“Well, don’t say it in a creepy way and it won’t be.”

“All right.”

We get the dry ingredients combined and carefully fold them into the wet mixture. When the batter is ready I pull out two trays and arrange them on the counter, taking a spoon for myself and giving one to Andi. She bites her lower lip as she works, a strand of hair flopping into her eye. I reach over to tuck it behind her ear and she looks at me. For a long moment I can’t turn away. This whole setting feels very domestic, very...normal. All the things I’m pretty sure I don’t want.

“Don’t get hair in the food,” I say, ruining whatever moment that was.

She frowns. “I wasn’t.”

“Good.”

We fill the trays, a dozen cookies each, and I stick them in the oven and set the timer for twelve minutes. I bought two more trays for today, so we fill those with neat rows of cookies—well, mine are neat, Andi’s looks like a kindergartener did it—then we wait. Silently. And, if I’m not mistaken, a little awkwardly.

“Sorry,” Andi says.

I look at her. She’s not really much for apologizing. And I’m surprised she’s aware that asking me to help her flirt with Crick is bothering—

“I haven’t paid any attention to the movie,” she confesses. “I’m not going to be able to tell you anything about it. I didn’t even understand the part I watched yesterday.”

I don’t know why I feel disappointed. It’s not like I really thought we’d absorb the story by osmosis. “Don’t worry about it. It’s the first movie of the year. It’s probably not important.”

“Why are you even in that class?” she asks. “I thought you were a sociology major.”

That’s been my story for the past two years, and now that I’m supposed to deliver the lie—again—I’m realizing that I don’t know why I started it in the first place. And I don’t want to lie to Andi. “I’m undeclared. I’m taking general curriculum courses that could be applied to the sociology degree, but I haven’t actually decided on anything.”

“In your third year?”

“Yeah. I just kind of wanted to figure things out, see what felt right. So far, nothing has.”

“And you thought film theory was a good bet?”

“My course advisor did. I’d applied for a course I didn’t have the pre-requisites for, so he chose for me. I don’t know why he picked it.” I try to recall what Bertrand said on the walk to class yesterday, but it’s already a distant memory. “What about you? What are you doing in there?”

“I’m doing a kinesiology degree,” Andi says, “and my other four courses are pretty demanding. Someone said I should take an easy class just to get the credits, and since I need an Arts credit anyway, I picked this one.” She scoops out a leftover bit of batter from the bowl and licks it off her thumb. “I thought maybe you were there because your girlfriend was there.”

“I don’t have a—Marcela is not my girlfriend, no matter what scheme she comes up with.”

“What really happened at Chrisgiving? Besides the good gravy.”

“It was great gravy, and basically some truths came out. Marcela and I were pretending to date so she could make her coworker jealous, and he came to the dinner with his girlfriend, and by the end of the meal they were fighting.”

“What started it?”

“Um...” I start rinsing bowls and spoons and arranging them in the dishwasher. “I had kind of done something the year before and forgotten about it...and that came up.” I don’t know what Andi thinks about our summer together, but for me it was the best sex I’d ever had—well, it was the only sex at that point—but to date it’s still the best. I don’t want to admit to her that I barely remember the sex I’ve had since, and that I fucked my best friend’s future girlfriend in a closet at a party and didn’t remember it, even when she became my roommate.

Andi peers at me suspiciously. “Did you rob a bank?”

“Of course not.”

“Kill somebody?”

“Andi.”

“How about accidentally?”

I sigh. “No.”

“Then what?”

“Let’s start making this filling. I thought raspberry would be good.”

She doesn’t budge. “You’re really not going to tell me?”

I study the label on the jar of jam. “I had sex with Nora—Crosbie’s girlfriend—at a party the year before and forgot about it. He learned about it at Chrisgiving and it kind of broke his heart.”

For a long second she just stares at me. “Wow.”

“Also, just in case you hear about this later, I had to go through those names on the bathroom wall to try to find out who I’d gotten the...thing...from and I didn’t remember a lot of them, either. At least, not their names. It was a shitty thing to do, and I’m not proud of it.” I’m gripping the jam like it’s a lifeline, my knuckles turning white.

I’m not going to admit this to Andi, but when she froze me out that summer, it broke my heart. So when I saw that same pain on Crosbie’s face at Chrisgiving, I knew exactly what he was feeling and hoped he didn’t make the same mistakes I did trying to get over it. I hoped he didn’t bury his head in the sand and his cock in any willing body to convince himself he didn’t care at all, because then he’d never be able to patch things up with Nora and he’d never forgive me.

He didn’t do that, as it turns out. He went home, moped, got over it like an adult, and didn’t get gonnorhea.

“It was different with you,” I mumble, still focused on the jar. “Just...you know. I remember it all. Don’t think it’s the same or anything.”

“Okay. Kellan, put that jar down. You’re going to break it.”

The oven timer goes off and we jump. I use an oven mitt to fish out the trays, swapping them for the last two.

“Ooh,” Andi says, rubbing her hands together as she studies the cookies and the smell of peanut butter fills the air. “These look delicious.”

I stare at her for a second, but she’s fixated on the food. If she hasn’t already forgotten about my confession, she’s doing a great job of pretending she has. I don’t know why I don’t feel more relieved that she’s dropping the discussion; it’s not something I’ve been overly excited to mention. But I do feel disappointed. Kellan 2.0 wants to clear the air and God forbid Andi and I talk about something that matters. But instead of probing the topic and risking losing her again, I say, “We have to let them cool. Don’t touch.”

“I’m just looking.”

“You’re looking awfully closely. With your fingers.”

She backs away, wedging her hands in her pockets. “How do we make this filling?”

“Um, butter, icing sugar, jam, obviously...”

“Obviously.”

“I was trying to pay you a compliment.” I blurt it out so clumsily I feel like the entire apartment cringes.

Andi wipes flour off her nose. “What? When?”

“When I said that I remembered that summer. The sex.” The word hangs in the air between us, as visceral and pulsing as a neon light. Even while we were doing it we hadn’t really discussed it, we’d just...kept doing it. Until she called things off, without ever saying a word. Apart from the moment I propositioned her, this might be the only other time we’ve ever said out loud that we’d had sex.

“I don’t understand.”

I feel like a moron as I scramble for a believable cover story. I don’t even know what the true story is right now. “Well, you were asking about Crick,” I say, “and I just wanted you to know that if you got past the opening lines with him, you’d be okay with...the rest. The sex.”

“Okay. Stop saying ‘the sex.’” She looks as uncomfortable as I feel.

“Anyway,” I say, hurriedly dumping ingredients in the bowl and mixing. “Just so you know.”

“Right. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” The response comes automatically, even if it’s totally inappropriate, and the weirdness between us builds the longer I stir. The movie playing in the background suddenly sounds too loud, too complicated, too Italian. Everything feels like too much. This was a bad idea.

A sudden thumping on the front door snaps the tension. The door squeaks as it swings open and we spring apart like a bungee cord breaking. I recognize the sound of Crosbie’s footsteps as he thuds up the stairs, stopping at the top and looking around until he spots me in the kitchen.

“Hey,” he says, cheeks pink from the chill outside. His auburn hair is wet and mussed, like he jumped out of a shower and came right here. “What are you—” He breaks off when he spots Andi over my shoulder. “Oh.” He looks comically stupefied, like he can’t figure out why I’d be in the proximity of a girl.

“Um,” I say, wiping my hands on my apron. “This is Andi. I’m—”

“Yeah,” Crosbie says, “I know. She lives in McKinley. We met at one of the parties. Hey.”

Andi tugs at her apron, like she’s trying to hide the evidence of something. Or maybe she’s just embarrassed to be wearing an apron. “Hi.”

I look between the two. “I was just helping her make cookies for the bake sale. We’re not—”

“Cool,” Crosbie interrupts. “I’m starving.” He reaches past me to snag a hot cookie. “Shit!” he hisses, still managing to fit half in his mouth as the rest crumbles in his hand. “That’s hot.” He breathes out his mouth as he chews. “Pretty good, though.”

“That just cost you three dollars,” Andi tells him.

He grins at her and I feel a strange sense of annoyance. “Why are you here?” I ask, trying not to show my irritation. “Did we have plans?”

“Nope. But I know you don’t have class until two, so I thought we could play Target Ops for a while.”

“Which one?” Andi asks.

“Brutality. We beat Fury last year. Do you play?”

“Sometimes.”

Andi absolutely destroyed the boys at video games when we were growing up. She was the only girl in our group, often by her own invitation, but because she wasn’t simply obsessed with blowing shit up and actually paid attention to strategy, she could always beat us.

“Nice,” Crosbie replies. “What are you guys watching?” I’m equal parts relieved and bothered that he’s not reacting more to Andi’s presence.

“Um...” I can’t recall a single instance in which I’ve ever asked Crosbie to leave my house or which I’ve ever wanted him to. Until now.

“It’s called 8 ½.” Andi answers when I don’t. “It’s for a class. We’re supposed to be absorbing it by osmosis.”

Crosbie drops onto the couch and crosses his socked feet on the coffee table, watching the movie. “Ugh. It has subtitles?”

“Maybe that’s why the osmosis wasn’t working,” Andi says.

We exchange a look, an unspoken agreement to shift gears, forget whatever weirdness had been brewing, and get back to normal. We make the filling, finish the cookies, and Crosbie offers his stamp of approval after eating three as part of his role as quality inspector, a job for which he nominated himself.

“How much time do we have?” I ask, glancing at the microwave. “When does the sale start?”

“In half an hour. Just enough time to run these over to the gym. Thanks, Kellan.”

“I’ll drive you. This is a full-service company.”

The cookies fill three plastic containers and I tell Crosbie I’ll be back in twenty minutes as I follow Andi outside to my car. I drive a black two-door coupe, parked at the curb out front. I hold the door as she slips into the passenger seat, then balances the containers on her lap.

“I didn’t realize you knew Crosbie,” I say as I stick the key in the ignition.

“We met on my first day.” She squints into the side mirror as she restyles her hair in a slightly neater bun, probably to impress Crick. “It looks like everything that happened at Chrisgiving has been forgiven.”

“Yeah. Forgiveness is a great thing.” I say it with great meaning, but when I glance at Andi she’s just picking at a hangnail and missing my not-so-subtle hint. “You thinking about Crick?”

“I’m thinking about how much people are going to love these cookies.”

“You’re thinking about how much Crick will love them.”

Her blush gives her away. I try to act like it’s funny and not annoying that I just helped baked cookies to woo a guy.

The sale is at the school’s second gym, a huge building on the west side of the campus. The parking lot is packed when we pull in, and even though we’re fifteen minutes early it looks like the sale has already gotten started. Long tables covered in gingham cloth line the front of the building, decked out with all manner of baked goods, each table hosted by members of the volleyball team, identifiable by their Burnham jerseys.

“Where’s your shirt?” I ask as I snag prime parking in the front row. Andi doesn’t mock my luck when it benefits her too.

“In my bag,” she replies. “I’ll change it now. Can you take the cookies?”

“Yeah.” She passes over the containers then roots around in her satchel until she comes up with the jersey.

“Fourteen?” I frown at the number printed on the back. “That’s not your number.”

She shrugs. “It was a misprint from last year. There wasn’t a name on it, so they just gave it to me. It doesn’t matter.”

“It totally matters. You refused to play on any team that didn’t give you number thirty-three.” She’ll deny this to anyone who’ll listen, but growing up Andi was absolutely obsessed with Jose Canseco when he played for Oakland and she’s worn his number ever since. Even when he started down the rocky road to reality TV and other crimes, she never lost faith.

“I needed the scholarship. They needed a player. It worked out.” She grips the hem of her T-shirt and yanks it over her head, revealing a plain black sports bra and lots of bare skin. A second later she’s replaced it with the jersey, but the vision is burned into my brain. Which is stupid, because I’ve seen Andi in a sports bra a million times. She doesn’t even own any other type of bra because she doesn’t have much to hold up. She told me this during that last summer, and I didn’t care much one way or the other as long as she let me take it off. Since Andi I’ve been with more voluptuous girls, girls whose lacy lingerie and tempting cleavage are far more appealing...but I can’t recall any of that right now. The sight of Andi’s skin is like a stamp over all other memories.

“Okay,” she says, taking back the cookies, blissfully unaware of my thoughts. “This is going to sound bad, but could you not come by the table?”

It takes a second for the request to sink in. “I just spent hours baking these cookies!”

“I know, and I appreciate it. But I don’t want to hear the Kellan McVey fan club cheer today, and if Julian comes by, I don’t want him to know you had anything to do with this. Just in case he gets the wrong idea. No offense.”

I see what she’s getting at, but I am deeply offended, and whatever goodwill we’d just stockpiled is immediately forgotten. “I’m coming to the bake sale,” I say stubbornly, as though I’ve been dreaming of this moment all my life. “I’ll go to all the tables and I’ll act like I don’t know you. But that’s it.”

She sighs. “Kellan.”

“If I need an example for how to ignore people, I’ll just follow your lead.”

“It’s not that I’m not grateful—”

“You’re very ungrateful,” I snap, climbing out. I stride away before she can say anything else, but the person I’m most angry with is myself for feeling anything at all.

The crowd around the tables is three deep and I say hi to people I know as I wait. There’s every type of baked good imaginable, from banana bread and shortbread to chocolate cake and cheesecake. I’m six feet, but still it’s hard to see past the basketball players that have come to support the sale in advance of their game. I peer discreetly at every jersey that walks by, searching for Crick.

“Hey, Kellan.”

“Hey,” I say, not looking over my shoulder at the person who greeted me. I vaguely registered a female voice but I’ve said hello to at least thirty people so far, plus I’m trying to spy, so—

“I wanted to thank you,” says the same voice.

“No problem,” I reply, craning my neck to see farther along the row. There’s Andi, six tables down, arranging her cookies in an empty space next to a teammate. She hastily scribbles on a scrap of paper and sets up a tiny sign that says $3.00. These are pricey cookies, but then again, Burnham’s a pricey school. Students stroll by with their hands full of cupcakes, tarts and brownies—

“We met at the party?” the voice says tentatively.

That hardly narrows it down, but I stifle a sigh and turn to see this persistent person, doing a double-take when I actually know her. “Jackie!” I exclaim a little too loudly.

She recoils a tiny bit at the volume, but then beams at me. “You remember!”

“Of course I do,” I reply, one of the few times I’ve delivered that line and had it be true. “How are you?”

“I’m great. We’re here for the game. I just came out to window shop beforehand.” It finally dawns on me that she’s wearing the blue top and orange skirt of the Burnham cheerleaders, her ponytail threaded with colored ribbons.

“What?” I say, when she keeps talking and I stop listening.

“I asked if you were here for the game too,” she repeats.

“Oh, uh, no. Not exactly. I was just passing by and saw the...commotion.”

It takes a second, then she laughs uproariously. “You can just admit you came for the bake sale. I won’t tell.”

As we talk we inch along the table at the pace of the hungry crowd, and now we’re just two tables away from Andi’s display. She hasn’t noticed me, busy as she is selling the cookies I pretty much made by myself. She has a healthy audience, but I can see one head towering above the others, buzz cut brown hair, sharp jaw, and perfect grin aimed straight at her. I don’t need to see his jersey to know it says Crick.

Still, I should probably check.

I ease out of the line just enough to peek through the crowd, standing on my toes to see the white-printed letters stamped between his shoulder blades. C-R-I-C-K.

Fuck.

“What are you doing?” Jackie asks.

“Oh, just, um, checking to see if there’s any...lemon loaf left.”

We’re one table away. Six people. I study an assortment of cupcakes, at least five different flavors ranging from appealing to appalling.

“Hey, Kellan,” says Lin, the assistant captain selling the cupcakes. I know her name because she’s one of the girls I had to track down during my did-you-give-me-gonnorhea investigation last year. She hadn’t, and fortunately she hadn’t been terribly offended by the question, either. Not-so-fortunately, Andi hears my name and her eyes fly to mine, then flicker to Crick, then back.

“Hi, Lin,” I say, giving her my best smile. “This is my friend Jackie.”

“Oh,” Lin says, looking surprised. “I didn’t know you had a...friend.”

“Well, good ones are hard to find.”

I can practically hear Andi’s eyes rolling, but I ignore that and focus on Crick’s words as Jackie quizzes Lin on the cupcake flavors.

“...really shouldn’t,” he’s saying, “but I don’t know how to turn to down a peanut butter cookie.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Andi tells him. “No one can resist a homemade cookie.”

“You made these?”

“All by myself,” she says definitively.

I want to throw a cupcake at her.

“With no help whatsoever,” she adds.

I give her a mean look.

She passes Crick a cookie, he passes her a few bills, and their fingers touch far longer than necessary.

“I’ll save this for after the game,” Crick says. “I can’t handle sugar or caffeine when I’m already hyped.”

“Same,” Andi answers. “I only drink coffee on weekends.”

“Yeah?” he says. “Do you know Beans?”

My mouth opens.

“Beans?” Andi asks. “Like the food?”

My mouth closes.

Crick laughs. “No. It’s a coffee shop downtown. I think they have an Open Mic Night coming up. Maybe we could check it out.”

I’m pretty sure the entire crowd stops talking, stops breathing, stops everything, straining to hear Andi’s reply.

“Definitely,” she says.

“Cool.” Crick pulls out his phone. “Let me get your number. “

“...has the lemon loaf,” Lin says.

I blink at her and the world resumes spinning. “Sorry, what?”

“You wanted lemon loaf? It’s down at the end. Penny made it.”

“Penny,” I echo. “Great. Thanks.”

We’re pushed along by the crowd, stopping in front of Andi’s table. “Ooh,” Jackie says. “What are these?”

Andi points to her handmade sign. “Peanut butter sandwich cookies with a raspberry jam filling.”

“They have better cookies at Beans,” I tell her. “It’s a coffee shop in town. I know some people who work there.”

“I know it too,” Jackie replies. “My roommate’s performing at their Open Mic in a couple of weeks.”

“No kidding? My friend Crosbie’s performing, too.”

“No way! Maybe we could go together,” she says. “To watch them.”

“Absolutely!” I say, too cheerfully. “We should always support our friends.”

The table jolts, and I’m pretty sure Andi just tried to kick me. It’s too far to reach, but just in case, I back up a couple more inches.

“Always,” Jackie says earnestly.

“In fact,” I add, “several of my friends are auditioning for the on-air spot on She Shoots, She Scores. And so am I.”

“No kidding!” Jackie exclaims. “You’d be so great.”

I slant a glance at a scowling Andi. “We’ll see.”

So maybe everything and nothing has changed, after all.