“Giving you all the necessary numbers.”

“Hey,” Rowan says before I can ask the next question lingering on my tongue, like Who told you that you can touch my phone? “We’ve got to get going, but I almost forgot to give you this.”

She pulls a plastic grocery bag from her backpack, and at the sight of a sliver of familiar green fabric, I help myself to the contents before she can finish laying the bag on the table. “I never thought I’d see this again!” I squeal, lifting my treasured hoodie into the air.

The week before I started taking classes at the Ivy Tech community college, my parents came with me to the bookstore. Since neither of them had ever gone to college before me, none of us had any clue what we were doing or how to shop for textbooks, but we figured between the three of us and my seven-year-old brother, we could probably figure it out. We talked to a nice employee who helped show us how to find used books for each of my classes, and she assured me I’d be able to sell them back at the end of the year. With all of my books successfully piled in my dad’s arms, my whole family was buzzing with excitement over the fact that I was starting college—college!—next week, and I grabbed some folders, notebooks, pencils, and a pretty green Ivy Tech hoodie to throw in front of the checkout register as well. A face-splitting smile stretched onto my face as the nice employee checked us out, and it stayed there right up until my father’s credit card was declined, and then declined again.

Outside the bookstore, with all of my textbooks and school supplies abandoned inside, I tried not to cry. State grants had covered most of my tuition, and my dad had assured me we could afford the rest, but apparently that wasn’t true. He called the credit card company, who told us our balance, and I begged my mom to wait with my brother outside while my dad and I went back inside to figure out exactly what we could afford. I put the folders back, I put the notebooks back, I put the pencils back, and finally, I hung my hoodie back up on the rack.

I told myself that I had my textbooks and that that was all that mattered—I could make do with my high school folders and notebooks and pencils, and I did. But that still didn’t stop me from bursting into tears when I opened up my first present that following Christmas morning to find the hoodie I had hung back up on the rack. My parents went back to buy it as soon as they could afford to, and even though it’s now five years old and its green color is a little less green, it still means the world to me.

“You forgot it on the bus,” Rowan says as I hug the soft material against my face, emotion catching in my throat.

“I know,” I say as I breathe in the fresh-washed scent. I spread the hoodie out on the table, adding, “In the sink. Shawn tried to help me clean it, but . . .” I trail off as I flip the right sleeve over and over and over. My eyebrows knit together, and I start doing the same to the left sleeve. “Where’s the stain?”

“What stain?”

“The one on the sleeve,” I say, continuing to flip and flip and flip. “It was right here. It was like . . . mud and oil, or something. We couldn’t get it out. It—”

“Mike must have done it,” Dee interrupts, and my eyes search hers for answers, but Rowan is the one to offer them.

“Mike gave me that to give to you,” she says with a soft smile. “I’m just the messenger.”

My head spins with the knowledge that Mike—Mike, rock star, gamer, my cousin’s boyfriend—got the stain out for me. The stain on my favorite hoodie that meant more to me than he could ever possibly know. The stain Danica put there.

“You should call and thank him,” Dee advises, standing up while Rowan packs up her backpack.

“I don’t have his number . . .” I say, sounding as confused as I feel. But Dee just grins and hands my phone over.

“Sure you do. Like I said”—she leans in and whispers—“necessary numbers. You owe me a story.”

Chapter 6

In my room, in my hoodie, with one hand fidgeting with my phone and the other pinching my bottom lip into a weird, squishy U, I’m a cliché. I’m every nervous teenage girl calling a boy in every straight-to-DVD coming-of-age movie ever. Which doesn’t make any damn sense, considering that Mike is just some guy I played video games with one night. Just some rock star I watched perform in front of an entire club full of screaming fans. Just some dude who went through the effort to get an impossible stain out of my favorite hoodie that I never thought I’d see again ever.

I tap my phone against my forehead.

He’s Danica’s boyfriend, for God’s sake. I’m just calling to say thank you. This isn’t a big deal. This isn’t even a small deal. This is no deal.

Resigned, I pull my phone away from my forehead and go into my contacts. Only there’s nothing under Mike.

Nothing under Madden.

I’m scrolling, scrolling, thinking about forgetting the whole thing, scrolling some more—and then there it is. Under S.

I shake my head and hover my thumb over “Sexy as Fuck Drummer,” imagining that Dee’s entire phone is programmed this way. Rowan is probably under “Best Bitch” and I’m probably under “That Awkward Girl Who Smells Like Wet Dogs.”

I groan and press my thumb against Mike’s number before I can chicken out, swallowing hard and holding the phone to my ear.

Please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up—

“Hello?”