“Three slips in three days. And this is only the third day of the school year. Someone get this kid a medal.”

“Genius observation.” I jammed the slip into the back pocket of my jeans. “I can see why they made you the hall monitor.”

Mr. Hoover sighed. “I thought we were past this, Nick. See?” He gestured around the vacant hallway. “There’s no one out here to impress. It’s no wonder you can’t respect other people, you don’t even respect yourself.”

This is why he can’t get a girlfriend. Although he was the man with the detention slips, I couldn’t help myself. “Whoops, meant to say, genius observation, sir.”

Mr. Hoover ripped another slip with one smooth flick of the wrist. “And we have ourselves a winner. See you after school, Mr. Maguire.”

“Looking forward to it.” The paper’s sharp edges stung when I crumpled it in my hand. Coach Dad was not going to be happy.

Luckily, the first fifteen minutes of gym class account for the time it takes to change, so I jogged onto the gleaming indoor basketball court having barely missed a thing.

“Move along next time, Maguire.” Ms. Johnson, the gym teacher, swatted my shoulder blade and marked me “present” on her clipboard. Ms. Johnson is like thirty-five and used to play Olympic volleyball. She legitimately teaches us sports things, likes her job, loves kids, and doesn’t really care about the rules. In conclusion, Ms. Johnson is a straight-up hero.

I went to stand with my boy Robert Maxin and, unfortunately, Josh Daley. He somehow managed to always be on the periphery of my friend group. Because of this, as per the rules of high school, he got to metaphorically “sit with us.”

Where there are rock stars there are groupies. What can you do?

“Mags,” said Josh, “you seen O’Connor’s sister?” An irritating pain shot up my side as he nudged me and nodded to where Eliza and her friends sat on the bleachers. They were who Austin and I called “cool nerds.” As in, nerds who weren’t “hot” but had great personalities? He probably still wasn’t her type.

Right?

“Don’t let Carter hear you say that. Hey, how’s it going with HG?” I changed the subject to Robert’s favorite topic: Hannah Green.

“Too soon to tell.” Robert put his hand over his heart. “Talking about it will probably put a curse on her and our firstborn child so . . . maybe don’t?”

Douchebag Josh almost doubled over, laughing so hard Eliza and her friends looked our way. I shuffled my sneakers, wincing. Chill, Nick. What kind of universe did we live in where Douchebag Josh was getting to me?

Tweeeeeeeeet. Ms. Johnson blew her whistle to start class, gathering us under the bright stadium-style lights. “All right, gang. It’s Friday, which means . . .”

Oh, heck yeah. Fridays were for dodgeball, and dodgeball meant absolutely dunking on freshmen at 8:00 in the morning.

“Maxin, Daley, y’all are captains,” said Ms. Johnson. “Alternate choosing guys and girls. You know the drill.