“Oh, duh, I forgot to put in the address.” Chase hands me his phone as he pulls out of the lot. “Can you check my texts? It should be the last one from Paulie.”

I’m basking in the glow of being trusted with his text messages, so it takes me a few beats to realize I already know the address. I’ve been to this house. Picking up and dropping off my mother as needed, even going inside once when she made me wait too long and I had to pee like a racehorse. I remember the bathroom being black marble, presided over by a light-up mirror. I remember very shiny wood floors. I remember thinking, “Jesus, this is a big house for one person.”

But it isn’t for one person anymore.

“It’s thirty-seven Darlington,” I tell him, typing it into his phone’s GPS. His eyes are on the road; he can’t tell I didn’t check. And I don’t want the temptation of his text messages, of knowing what girls’ names I might see. If he and his cheerleader ex, Brielle, still talk, I definitely don’t want to know. If there’s a summer fling filling his inbox with heart emojis, that can stay in the vault.

We fill the space with easy and predictable conversation about the game, where we’re applying for college, and what scouts he hopes are coming to check him out, but I don’t expect any revelations, which is why I’m particularly surprised when he says, “Can I tell you something I haven’t told anyone?”

“Of course,” I say automatically, even though I know all I’ll want to do with the secret is shout it from the rooftops to prove Chase Harding trusted me with special, classified information.

“Honestly, I’m hoping to stay local. Marist is pretty much my dream. It’s D-I ball, and Poughkeepsie is only, like, an hour away. Plus, I look really good in red.”

“I’ll bet,” I say, my heart fizzing at his confession. “Is it Stratford you’re so attached to, or your family, or what?”

“Both, I think,” he says, and I pick up a tinge of a blush in the dark. “My brother goes to Arizona State because he wanted warmer weather and a fun party school, and he almost never makes it home. I don’t wanna be that. I like doing holidays and stuff with my family, plus making my little sister be alone at home for everything would suck.”