Again, all the things I shouldn’t say rise to the tip of my tongue, and I bite it. But biting my tongue doesn’t stop me from taking her phone from the center console and putting in my number before handing it over. “In case you find yourself needing a personal pep rally,” I say in as platonic a voice as I can muster.

“And here I thought you were planning to use my window for all your communication needs,” she says with a slight smile as she slips the phone into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie.

“Well, I don’t have your number,” I point out, “so I still might.”

Her smile widens a little, and she bites her lip as if to tamp it down. “Duly noted.”

Okay, we’re flirting. I am a horrible person. But at least I’m not yanking her across the seat by the drawstring of her sweatshirt like I desperately want to, so I guess this counts as self-control.

And then, while my stomach is already fluttering like leaves in the late-summer breeze, she says, “G’night, Cheer Girl,” and lets herself out of my car.

If I don’t crash on my way home, it’ll be a fucking miracle.

-JACK-

Getting back to sleep is not happening.

I can blame being dragged out of my house in the middle of the night, or Maggie’s overbaked biscuit sitting in my stomach like lead, but it’s four thirty in the morning and every time I close my eyes, all I see is the cheerleader putting her number in my phone.

Why would you, an obviously queer girl, put your number in the phone of another obviously queer girl, if you already have a boyfriend?

Or is Amber McCloud actually so heterosexual that we were having entirely different conversations tonight? Am I conjuring rainbow dreams out of nothing?

I don’t know.

Maybe.

Probably.

I wish I could just knock on my mom’s bedroom door to plague her with my girl troubles, but while I never really had to come out—everything from my clothing to my hobbies kinda did that for me—my sexuality still isn’t something we acknowledge beyond the bare minimum. Open queerness isn’t something she grew up around in Niceville, and she’s not exactly the kind of mom who gives the Talk, either.

No, what I really need is for Sage and Morgan to wake up, because I cannot figure this shit out alone.

Say Cheer Girl was flirting—and she did say she was flirting. Would it matter? I’m not hooking up with a girl who has a boyfriend, especially if that boyfriend is my teammate, and my only decent one at that. Besides, Amber’s the closest thing I’ve got to a friend here, and I don’t wanna fuck that up either.

But.

I could really use a personal pep rally.