I lift my head to see Charlie walking down my driveway. My head flops back down and I say, “I wish.”
“I heard a little about it.” He drops down on the grass next to me.
“How mad is Wes?” I ask, unable to hide the catch in my voice.
“Nothing he won’t get over. You know how he is.”
There’s a big lump in my throat. “He’s too nice for us.”
“Whatever. So why are you out here wallowing in self-pity? What else happened?”
“Everything.”
Charlie is pulling out blades of grass and throwing them at me, but they blow away in the breeze before they land. “When Wes got back from the club, he said he ran into Locke.”
I close my eyes and pray for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
“He didn’t say much else about it, but I can read Wes like a book and there’s more to that. Any idea what it is?” Charlie asks.
Now I kind of wish the earth would swallow Charlie up so this conversation would end. “No idea.”
“Okay. Good talk. Better get a shower, because you’re driving me to the party. We’re leaving in an hour and a half.”
As Charlie scrolls through his phone in the passenger seat on the way to the scavenger hunt, I let my mind wander to Leo. I’ve texted him a couple of times to see how he finished the day, but I haven’t heard back. Hopefully he’ll be there with the Evil Joes and I can figure out how to talk to him without Charlie having a fit.
I still have a pit in my stomach over making Wes late, though. It doesn’t seem to be going away, even after seeing pics of them at Sophie’s party where all looks well.
We get to the park and there’s already a big group of people here. The moms hosting have a check-in table set up near some picnic tables, so we head that direction.
Bailey suddenly pulls me aside. “You disappeared again! And you haven’t responded to a single one of my texts. What’s going on? We saw you talking to one of those golf guys.”
I think about what to say, an excuse on the tip of my tongue. But I’m tired of lying to her. And while I still can’t bring myself to admit that my graduation is on the line, I can tell her part of it.
“I’ve been helping with the golf tournament. Coach Cantu, who taught my off-campus class, is in charge and I’m making up a few of the classes I missed by working it.”
Mia walks up just then.
“Where have you been?” she asks.
Bailey repeats my explanation and they both look at me, confused.
“That’s what you’ve been doing all week?” Mia does not look convinced.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“But you said you were working at your grandmother’s shop,” Bailey says. “Why would you lie?”
And this is where it gets hard because technically, Sophie is the one who lied for me, but I’m not dragging her into any more of this than I have to.
“I was embarrassed. I’m sorry.”
I can tell they aren’t quite buying it.
The moms call everyone over, so I’m spared—for the moment—having to answer any more questions. Bailey and Mia are a little frosty to me, which is no less than I deserve. Looking around, I notice the Evil Joes have arrived, but I don’t see Leo anywhere. Why isn’t he with them? The last thing we talked about was him meeting me here.
“Okay, everyone! It’s time to play!” one of the moms yells. “We’re going to draw names for teams. Each team has a captain, and captains are in charge of taking the pictures and videos and uploading them to the team’s Instagram account. This is how we’ll monitor if you’ve completed the challenges and also give your competitors a glimpse as to where they stand. You will have one hour!”
The moms start pulling names out of a big jar and I take a second to try to call Leo again. It goes to voice mail. I’m instantly worried something bad has happened, but the Evil Joes wouldn’t be here if he were laid up in a hospital somewhere, would they?
