One call from my agent with an opportunity that wasn’t even locked down and that rare confidence was filtering back in. Slowly, and the texture was different, but I couldn’t deny its existence. What would it be like to have Tabitha Tyler flirting with me if I was about to become a big-time sports announcer—and on my way to Vegas? If my time here was suddenly as fleeting as hers?

I rubbed the back of my neck, easing the tight pressure there. What would it be like to work for a network that encouraged—even glamorized—the violence that had left my body with real scars and permanent consequences for my health?

All of that wasn’t even the real question though.

The real question was if I didn’t take this opportunity, what was I going to do instead?

14. Dean

Fourteen

Dean

I took a minute to towel off and throw on a shirt and gym shorts. Then I shouldered open the storm door and stepped out, barefoot, into a muggy night. It was late, the sun was setting. Past Tenth Street came the sounds of a block party and a mix of loud music from open car windows. Lía, Marco, and a handful of kids walked down the street, eating ice cream.

“You’re here for water ice, I assume?” Tabitha asked.

She was sitting on the top step of her stoop. She beamed at me, crossed one leg over the other. I had to remind myself that we weren’t back in school. That she wasn’t about to perform at a pep rally in her white-and-red uniform with pom poms glued to her hands. And I wasn’t slouched and surly in the back of the auditorium, wondering why I couldn’t have a crush on a regular girl and not the girl.

“So I’ve been told,” I managed.

She extended both containers my way, biting her bottom lip. “I’m not sure what Emily Post would say regarding the apology etiquette for what happens when you see your neighbor half-naked in a towel and kind of spy on him—completely by accident, of course—and then call yourself a pervert loud enough for the entire street to hear? So, I’m hoping letting you choose between the lemon and mango flavors will suffice.”

Feeling my head spin in Tabitha’s presence was par for the course. This time, that feeling was competing with another one. The recognition that mere minutes ago the same woman who made my heart race with every stray glance—not a regular girl but the girl—had openly checked me out. That was the only explanation for why I reached for the container on the right. Reached for yet another thing I’d denied myself for so long.

The very tips of our fingers brushed together. “I haven’t had lemon water ice in a long time. Used to be my favorite.”