‘So …’ Maddie begins diplomatically. ‘Bri, our hair game’s gonna be untouchable, tomorrow, I hope?’

Bri’s face breaks into a huge grin. ‘Just wait till you see the Pinterest board.’

About halfway through the dinner, the thus-far-banned topic of conversation crops up. ‘You know,’ mentions Paige around a bite of the delicious wings we ordered, ‘we’re only about two and a half hours from New Haven.’

All eyes around the table swivel towards me expectantly.

I did a pretty great job of deflecting about the entire thing, initially. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s keeping my personal life locked down, even in a tiny-ass town like Prosperity, where everyone’s noses are constantly in your business. But once the stuff started to flood social media, and Colt had to post that PR-mandated mess explaining our ‘peaceful parting of ways’, I kind of couldn’t keep the act up any longer. I mumbled some hasty shit about overwhelming differences and hoped that would satisfy the girls.

‘Guys, he’s at training camp,’ I tell them exasperatedly. ‘I am not going to New Haven. And he is not coming to Boston.’

‘Why not?’ Brianna asks, fiddling with her dark brown curls. ‘You clearly had it bad for one another.’

‘Ooooh,’ the team croons shamelessly. God. Can’t these girls let a breakup be a breakup?

‘Do any of y’all who went to Prosperity remember,’ yapper Jordan starts as she leans forward dramatically, ‘when May had her quinceañera, and she chose that Dylan Wright to be her main chambelan?’

I feel my cheeks heat up at the mere mention of the event. Okay, so I’d chosen Dylan. But I’d only chosen him because Colt, the dumbass, had his head so far up his butt he couldn’t tell he was giving me the most mixed signals in history around the time of my quince, and so all I could think about was how embarrassing it’d be if I asked him and he said no. Or worse – that he’d do it as a friend.

‘How could we forget?’ croons Maddie. ‘He wasn’t hotheaded, Colt, but when it came to May … he pulled out every stop.’

‘He looked like a cat straight out of the bathtub during May’s dance with Dylan.’ Jordan cackles, smacking my back so hard my soul almost jumps out of my body. ‘Sittin’ there all grouchy with his feathers ruffled while y’all promenaded.’