“Sorry,” Oliver calls out to us as he walks over, his grin only half-sheepish. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. We should be heading back to the group now though. If you want to continue later, then by all means, go for it. Since I just won two hundred dollars, I’ll even be extra generous and steer clear of our hotel room tonight until curfew.”

“Two hundred dollars?” I repeat with a frown. “For what?”

“Yeah, so, um, there’s kind of a running bet in the group about whether you two would get together,” he says cheerily, following us back down the alley. “And, you know, being the genius that I am, I figured early on that it was a win-win situation if I bet on it happening. If you didn’t like Cyrus, then maybe I’d have a shot with you. And if you did like him, then I’d make some extra money.”

“Why are those the only two possibilities?” Cyrus demands, sidestepping a manhole that Oliver marches right over.

Oliver throws him an incredulous glance. “Let’s face it, bro, it’s not as if there was any chance you didn’t like her. Like, you can barely stand up when you’re in her presence. You look at her like you’re seeing the moon for the first time or some shit. It’s kind of disgustingly obvious.”

“Thanks for that,” Cyrus says, but despite the self-consciousness creeping into his voice, he doesn’t deny any of it.

“Anytime, bro.”

I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop from smiling too wide.

* * *

The most memorable conversation I’ve ever had with Cate Addison took place shortly after I kissed Adam, the popular quarterback.

We were lounging across the chairs in the cafeteria with her friends—because in my mind they were always first and foremost her friends, even if we all went out to brunch and the movies and parties together on a regular basis—when I told her.

“We kissed before lunch,” I said. “Or, well, he kissed me, and I went along with it.” And then I waited eagerly for her reaction. It was ridiculous, but that was the main reason I’d let Adam kiss me in the first place—so I could talk about it with Cate afterward. In those early days, I kept hoping for a breakthrough, something that would allow us to really, truly bond and giggle and whisper together like best friends in movies. Sometimes I just wanted proof that she actually liked me, and wasn’t keeping me around because I made for a nice prop in her social circle.

Cate had glanced up briefly from her blueberry bagel. “Um, who?”

This was after Adam had been texting me for weeks on end—they were mostly emojis, which I had mixed feelings about—and had delivered a bouquet of doughnuts straight to my doorstep. “Adam,” I clarified anyway.