We end up at a brewery that serves overpriced burgers and like two hundred different beers. They all look the same to me, so I don’t bother counting. Maggie’s already waiting for us there with a few guys and the Black girl from the barbecue. She gives Brian a quick peck on the cheek, and I wonder if they’re toning it down because I’m there. I could remind them that I’m sixteen and not easily corrupted by PDA, but then, I really don’t mind them keeping it PG.

Maggie takes down all of our names, and we huddle around the table as she shouts, “Okay, if you know the answer, come tell me—but not too loudly—and I’ll write it down. I don’t want other teams stealing our points.”

It seems pretty redundant since I can barely hear what she’s saying two feet in front of my face, and frankly, I’m not particularly eager to get any closer to her than I already am.

I wait until Brian decides to order something before ordering too since I can’t pay and I know he won’t leave me washing dishes. The questions fly by, and I try to think about the first few, but I’m terrible at trivia, and I don’t even know what the emcee is talking about. I just keep checking my phone, watching my follower count crash and burn worse than the emcee’s shitty jokes.

My DMs are loaded with some pretty nasty messages too. Some people call me a liar, some people call me an abuser, and some people call me things so vulgar, I skim over the words because it feels dirty to even acknowledge that they’re there. And yeah, there’re a few positive messages, a few people asking me to refute the claims against the Diary, but my mind fixates on the attacks. I know I shouldn’t respond to them and fuel the fire, but I kind of want to curse a few of them out to get some of this rage out of my system.

“Oye, enough with the phone,” Brian snaps, reaching to pluck my phone out of my hand.

I swat his hand away before he can touch it, but I guess he wins this round anyway since he got my attention off the Diary. “Stop being a nag.”

“Live a little,” Brian says. “Your blog friends can wait.”

“They’re called followers, which you would know if you weren’t born at the dawn of the millennium,” I say.

Brian splutters.

“So, how are you liking Denver so far, Noah?”

I turn to see Maggie smiling at me. She’s got the thinnest lips on this side of the Pacific, but she makes it work with a touch of lip gloss.