Summer had come and gone, and now Jazz and Nathan were in their final year of high school together. She took honors classes, while he avoided core classes like the plague, opting for a strange hodgepodge of art, gym, and computers to fill out his schedule. This, of course, meant that they had zero classes together, but Nathan still walked Jazz home from school every day and worked alongside her at the tutoring institution in Brooklyn.

Well, she worked. He volunteered.

The shared ride into the city gave them plenty of time to catch up on their separate weeks. Today he revealed that he’d quit the football team in a blaze of glory earlier that day.

“Why would you do that?” Jazz asked, shocked. She thought he enjoyed being on the team. He’d never said anything to make her think he didn’t.

He wrapped his hands tighter around the steering wheel and then let it go, driving the next stretch of the parkway with his knees. “Dunno. I started football to get girls, but I don’t really need it anymore.”

Nathan was so self-unaware. Did he really think girls liked him for his athletic ability and not his good looks, charm, or killer sense of humor? Jazz could have pointed this out to him, but her feelings would be far too obvious. Besides, maybe Nathan was turning over a new leaf. Maybe he’d stop playing the field and find a nice steady girlfriend closer to home. Maybe it would finally be her.

Yeah, right.

“Is that honestly the only reason? You didn’t like playing? Or hanging out with Red and the guys?”

With a shrug, he put one hand back on the wheel. “It’s all right, I guess. It just feels so… unimportant, you know? I mean, it’s a game. People spend ridiculous amounts of time and money, even stake their whole lives on a game. Doesn’t that seem ridiculous to you?”

Whoa. Jazz had never heard him talk like this and had no idea what to say, but she settled on, “Maybe some people need a break from the harder parts of life.”

“Sometimes I feel like all I do is take a break. Like I haven’t done anything that matters yet.” He looked at her, and the car drifted over to the shoulder. “I need to do something that matters, Jazzy.”

She placed a hand on the wheel, guiding them back to their lane. “Well, what about what we’re doing now? We’re making a real difference in these kids’ lives by helping them with their reading and writing. Their schools are over-extended, and the teachers don’t have the time for students who need extra help, and the parents don’t have money for private tutors. That makes what we’re doing so important. You see that, don’t you?”

He placed a hand on top of hers, and they steered together in the slow traffic. Her skin tingled as if it were waking up from a wonderful dream. Nathan was changing—she’d heard it in his words a few minutes ago—which meant their relationship status could finally change, too. She still wanted that. More than anything.

“Maybe.” He focused on the road. “I don’t want to be a teacher my whole life, though. I’m a crappy student. How can I be a good teacher?”

“You’re helping to keep these kids in school and out of gangs. That means something, Nathan.”

“But what next? I’m almost eighteen.” He sounded exasperated and more than a little confused. “What do I do with the next seventy-plus years of my life?”

So Nathan expected to live to eighty-eight. Why was she not surprised?

“I can’t answer that for you, but maybe we can find out together. Besides, I still don’t know, either.” She slipped her hand from under his and turned her eyes toward the window. Nathan didn’t know who he wanted to be yet, but he had already tried on so many different personalities—the athlete, the player, the bad boy, the boy next door—while she had always just been Jazz. Did it mean she felt secure in who she needed to be, or rather, that she was too afraid to actually go and find out?

Nathan smiled as he watched the traffic ahead. “You’re going to be a writer, Jazz. You’re so good with words.”

She sighed and ran her fingers up and down the shoulder strap of her seatbelt. “Maybe, but I’m still not sure.”

“A writer’s life could be nice,” he explained, making wide, animated gestures with his hands—the Italian in him coming out—and letting go of the steering wheel. “You get to work from Brazilian beaches, Parisian cafes, anywhere you want. You write a nice story and then you make millions of dollars. Sounds like the perfect life to me. Only I suck at writing.”

She turned back to him and couldn’t help but smile. He wanted the best for her as much as he wanted it for himself—and that meant something. This was their senior year. Everything in their world was about to change. Why couldn’t they make those changes together? “I’m not sure writing works exactly like that, but it sounds like you want a job that comes with lots of… um, freedom.”

“You know what? You’re right. I’m going to live a life of freedom, love, and passion. No strings. No obligations. Just enjoying every single second.”

Without her? She hoped not. “That sounds like quite the ambition. Now you just have to figure out how to get it.”

“Stumped again.” He shook his head and laughed. “Why do you always have to be so rational?”

“Because that’s how I am. You’ll figure it out, and I’ll help you. Who says you can’t live life that way?”

And who says that one day Nathan won’t look at you with a whole new set of eyes? Who says that he’s not your happily ever after, prince charming, and best friend all rolled into one? Jazz silently asked herself.

Nathan frowned. “Who says I can?”

“Me. I do. You can do anything. Be anything.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Her heart shouted yes. She wanted so badly to tell him everything in that moment, to reveal that she found him to be absolutely perfect, that she wasn’t just saying these things to make him feel better, but rather, because she believed them with every fiber of her being and then some. But it wasn’t the time. Nathan had too much to figure out about his own life without trying to find a way to fit his square peg of a best friend into the round hole of a girlfriend.

She placed her hand back over his on the wheel, feeling a tingle pass from her fingers into his once again.

Nathan sucked in a deep breath but kept his eyes straight ahead and his mouth closed. Did he feel it, too?

“I believe in you,” Jazz said at last. “And if there’s one thing I’ve learned in these past twelve years, it’s to never bet against Nate the Great.”