“Maybe dinner?” It isn’t the most creative, but a lot easier than renting out a movie theater. I have no idea how to pull off the latter and I feel like that kind of thing might take days or weeks, and I don’t want to wait that long.

“Dinner?” Maverick’s face twists up in clear disappointment. “Dinner is so… dinner. Unless…” He sits forward, elbows on knees. “You buy out the restaurant so it’s just the two of you and then—”

I cut him off. “Let me stop you right there, buddy. `Preciate your dedication, but I don’t want it to feel like I’m being someone else for the night.”

Some of my favorite memories with Ginny over the past semester have been hanging out with our friends or chilling just the two of us. None of that was elaborate or over the top, but maybe this is different? Maybe big and bold is what I need.

I scrub a hand down my face and then look to Adam. “Does anyone know her favorite song?”

“You’re going with that one?” Rauthruss’s eyebrows shoot up. “This I gotta see.”

Maverick fist pumps. “Yeah, I love that one.”

“Of course, you do. It was your idea.”

39

GINNY

Dakota and Reagan sit on one end of my bed, their concerned faces staring back at me. Ava’s gone for the weekend visiting Trent, and when I’d told my friends I was going back to my dorm alone after the game, they insisted on coming with me.

My phone pings on my desk and Dakota reaches to get it for me.

“Read it for me.”

“It’s Adam. He says he didn’t see you at the game and wants to know if you’re in your dorm watching Notting Hill?”

She looks up to me for an explanation.

“When I was in like seventh grade, my first boyfriend broke up with me and I was so devastated I watched Notting Hill on repeat for an entire weekend. Something like twenty times. It became my go-to breakup movie.” I could so go for watching that movie on repeat about now.

“I love that movie,” Reagan says. “Julia Roberts is a goddess.”

Dakota sets my phone on the bed. “Guess they didn’t see us. That’s good.”

“Yeah,” I agree. I mean, I think it’s good. I’m not sure what difference it would have made, but there was no way I could sit in my usual seat so close to the bench where he could read the sadness on my face. The game was brutal enough as it was.

Instead, the girls and I sat at the top of the student section blending in with the sea of blue and yellow. It was hard to watch them lose, but it fit my depressing mood nicely.

My phone pings again, and this time I reach for it.