‘Put a lid on it, Jordan,’ I grumble and smack her right back. She just giggles uncontrollably. This girl hasn’t had a drop of alcohol all night, and she’s giggling. But this entire Colt/Dylan thing is news to me. Maybe it’s that the night of my quince was a whirlwind, and I probably blacked out on account of stress through most of it. Maybe I just didn’t pay attention. Either way, I’m rifling through my vague memories of the party all of a sudden, desperate for evidence. It takes too long for me to catch myself and realize that if I were truly over CJ Bradley, I wouldn’t be doing these mental gymnastics in search of signs from middle school.

I’m truly not over him.

‘I had y’all’s first-dance song picked out,’ Lexi raises her hand.

Lexi? LEXI? My jaw is literally slack. ‘Girl – you had what picked out, now?’

‘Oh, Lexi!’ Maddie claps her hands gleefully. ‘This is gonna be good.’

‘“Lady May”,’ says Lexi proudly. ‘Tyler Childers.’

Awwws ring out around the entire table, all corny smiles and goo-goo eyes and clasped hands.

‘But seriously, May.’ Jordan holds a hand out, and the girls gradually quiet down. ‘Are you … okay?’ The knowing in her eyes is a different kind from what the rest of the team has shown me over the past week, and they are truly sweet, each and every one of them, but only Jordan is aware what really went down between us. And only Jordan watched me go through what I did when he left the first time. ‘Not gonna run away to New Haven in the middle of the night?’ she teases gently. ‘Leave us high and dry for the natty?’

‘Nah.’ I manage to push a smile across my face. ‘I won’t.’

‘But are you doing alright?’

The smile wavers. Am I doing alright? I’m a little bit angry at everyone, including myself. I’m a little confused, and I’m a lot conflicted.

‘I’ll be okay,’ I tell her.

I need to be okay. I have a team to lead into battle in less than twenty-four hours.

Chapter Forty-Five

Natty Day

May

Hours after the sun rises in Boston, Massachusetts, the entire team, all thirty-six of us, and Coach, are awake, although we also already know that not one of the thirty-seven of us slept peacefully, and that we have all been up since before sunrise. This has only been years in the making. A couple of hours of sleep are nothing to lose.