“I found him. Max Bradford.”
“Are you kidding me?” I practically yell into the phone. “What are you talking about?”
“I remembered that paper with his number on it was in my back pocket so I found the jeans I wore yesterday and Googled it.”
My stomach tightens and I’m suddenly annoyed with my best friend. “I don’t want you to Google him,” I say. “You’ll ruin the fun to talking to some random guy.”
“No I won’t,” she says. “Don’t you want to know if he’s cute?”
I sigh. “Is he?”
She laughs. “I have no idea! Google his number and click on the first result. I’ll wait.”
Now I wish I hadn’t told her anything about Max because, although yeah, Idowant to know what he looks like, I don’t want Abigail knowing. What if he’s some seventh grader or something? Ugh, she’d never let me live it down.
I go to the computer and search for his phone number. The only thing that comes up is a Facebook post. It’s on the group page for the Summerfield ISD Varsity Football Team. Summerfield is the next town over.
It’s an old post, from almost two years ago. People are talking about getting together for a fundraiser for the team. Someone named Max Bradford commented:
I’m down. Call me, and then he put his phone number. The same number I’ve been texting.
Now I know why Abigail said she can’t tell if he’s cute or not. His profile doesn’t have a user image on it. I click on his name and nothing comes up but a totally empty profile.
“We don’t know if that’s him,” I say.
“Well it’s the same phone number and the name Max, so…” Abigail sighs. “I wish he had a photo. I can’t allow my best friend to chat up some ugly guy.”
“Whatever happened to inner beauty?” I say sarcastically.
She laughs. “There’s nothing wrong with being shallow every now and then.”
I stare at the Facebook post, doing some math in my head. If he was on a high school football team two years ago, that would make him around my age, maybe even older. But definitely not younger. I feel weirdly excited about this.
“Abby? Will you promise me something?” I ask.
“Sure,” she says. “Anything for my best friend.”
“Would you please not look him up anymore? Like, don’t investigate it or anything. I don’t want to know what he looks like, okay?”
She groans. “Okay, fine. I have to get off the computer anyhow so I can get ready for this party.”
“I just don’t want to know what he looks like. I mean, it doesn’t matter. We’ve just been texting stupid stuff, so it’s not like we’ll ever meet.”
“But you keep texting him back, so you must at least think he’s cool,” she says.
“I’m just doing it to keep myself occupied while my parents are gone,” I say, but even as I say it, I kind of feel like it’s a lie. “Once they’re back and I can go hang out with you again, I won’t need to text some random guy.”
“For real,” she says. “And we’ll go find you a guy we actually know.”
I laugh because I have been hopelessly single for over a year now. Every time I think I like a guy, he’ll end up being a jerk, or being disgusting, or just stupid. It’s hard to get my hopes up about dating right now when all the guys are idiots.
I let Abigail get off the phone so she can finish getting ready for Chase’s party, which will probably be epic and have photo evidence of the epic-ness all over Snapchat tomorrow. But I tell myself there will be other parties and that I can make this sacrifice of my weekend for my parents and their stupid retreat. If anything, it’s going to win me so many brownie points with them that they’ll even let me take their car next time I want to go somewhere with Abigail.
I try to focus on that, my future life of parties and meeting guys, and tell myself not to think about Max too much. He’s just a guy I’m texting to fight the boredom of being stuck at home. That’s all.
Chapter 4
An entire hour passes before Max texts me again.
