“Okay.” Wyatt runs the towel over his still-damp hair once again. When it’s wet, the blond curls almost turn brown, and it hangs heavier on his head.

“All ready to go?” he asks, throwing the towel in his hamper and grabbing at his bags.

“Got everything?”

“I think so.”

I grab my own bag. “Then let’s go.”

The Lyft meets us by the roundabout driveway near the front of the school. I sit comfortably in the back seat with Wyatt, unsure if I should talk to him or not. I’d much rather sleep.

I’m just about to close my eyes when he turns to me and says, “Do you think we should rehearse?”

“Rehearse what?”

“Our story, I guess?” He rolls his head back and forth like he’s trying to choose his words carefully. “What if your family asks questions about me? What would you tell them?”

“I’d make something up, but I’ll make sure you don’t sound too interesting,” I tell him.

“Maybe they’ll find me interesting?”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Fowler, but my family is made up of some of the worst, most shallow people you’re ever going to meet. They’re needlessly cruel, mean, and selfish, so if they find you interesting, you shouldn’t take that as a compliment.”

“So they really are your family,” he says.

I don’t have the energy to do anything but glare at him.

“Still, don’t you think we should have a story? Like what happened the other night and how we started dating? Don’t you think Josh will be curious?”

“It’s none of his business, but if he asks, we can just say I was tipsy, we made out, and the next morning we agreed that we liked each other enough to keep it going. Easy-peasy.”

“You really think he’ll buy that?”

“It’s a story; it’s not a big deal. How we act around each other is what’s really going to matter. We have to sell the relationship.”

“I still don’t like it.”

“We’ll be fine. No one is going to care about when we started dating. Josh knows enough details to drive him up the wall.”

Wyatt goes quiet, and suddenly all I can hear is the rush of the wind, and the other cars that are passing us. Even the talk show on the radio is at a low enough volume that I can barely make out any of the words. I pull out my phone, scrolling through Instagram for a few minutes, watching stories. Josh has some more melodramatic posts about his heart being broken.