Chapters (43)
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Books by Ben Philippe
- Back Ad
- Copyright
- About the Publisher
I let out a full cackle. “That’s going to be so much fun! Please record your conversations. Did she not know she was moving in with the treasurer of the Black Student Union?”
Corinne shakes her head and steals a huge sip of my coffee.
“Get your own!”
“Screw off,” she says, nibbling orange cake with her fingers. “How’s the Nike application?”
“Good!” I Smile.
She pokes me at my rib, nearly spilling coffee. “The lies, Haltiwanger. The lies will get you!”
“I wrote one sentence in two hours and then crossed it out, so technically that’s progress.”
She reaches out and pokes at my cheek in admonishment.
“You know our deal, Haltiwanger: you have two more weeks and then I’m taking charge of that application. I told my mom about the internship, by the way.”
“Corinne,” I whine.
“She approves! She even offered to write you a recommendation letter if you need one.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“And then laughed at her own joke for like five minutes.”
“That wedding is going to be fun,” I groan in dread. After a lot of discussions and family dinners, Chantale Troy’s mysterious international lover—Shamus—is now officially moving into the Wyatt with a very shiny and expensive wedding ring as his offering to the gods. Palm Tree likes him, which is veto enough for me. I’m convinced that being included in this wedding party by Chantale is simply payback for my past high school sins. Auntie Terry said we’re both in the same boat on that front.
“My friend Aaron thinks there’s something incredibly messed up about the fact that we haven’t broken up yet. Statistically, it is an anomaly,” she says.
“I hate us,” I say.
“Oh, we’re the worst,” she agrees, settling back into her seat, eyes already on her book, lost somewhere in Wollstonecraft feminist theory.
And we’re both smiling right now, though neither of us even realizes it.
Acknowledgments
It turns out that being an author just means stumbling into old platitudes that used to make you roll your eyes—and realizing they’ve been true all along. Kill your darlings; avoid unnecessary adverbs; your second book will be harder than your first. True. True. Dear GOD, so very true.
To say that writing this book kicked my butt would be an understatement. Second books are a beast, folks. I still can’t fully explain why.