Callie: About everything.
“Guys,” I say to my brothers.
They look at my phone.
“She’s going to blow it all up,” Boone says, awed.
“At the festival,” Wyatt adds.
“Where everyone will be watching,” Iconclude.
Callie: If my dad can hide a romance with the town gossip and my mother’s old best friend while maintaining a thirty-year grudge over bad math and rotten mayo, I can sure as hell claim what I want in broad daylight.
“Is she saying—” Boone starts.
“I think she is,” I interrupt.
“But is she saying it about us or just in general?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Before I can respond, one more text arrives, a photo of Rita eating the mayo receipt.
Callie: Even Rita knows this is all bullshit. She’s literally digesting the evidence of our families’ ridiculousness.
Then:
Callie: See you at the festival. All of you. If you’re brave enough.
“That’s a challenge,” Wyatt says.
“That’s absolutely a challenge,” I agree.
“We’re going to need a plan,” Boone adds.
“We’re going to need more than a plan. We’re going to need a miracle. And body armor.”
“Why body armor?”
“Have you met our fathers?”
But for the first time in a week, I feel hope. Real hope, not the desperate kind that comes from wanting something you can’t have, but the solid kind that comes from knowing you’re about to try for something worth having.Something worth fighting for. Something worth potentially destroying a thirty-year tradition of hatred for.
“We should prepare a speech,” Boone suggests.
“About what?”
“About why she should choose us. Our good qualities. Our potential. Why three boyfriends is actually optimal.”
“Um, no.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“No, again.”
We spend the next hour making lists. Jesse: good with his hands, makes excellent coffee, knows all the words to every John Denver song. Boone: funny, enthusiastic, will absolutely eat anything Callie cooks even if it’s terrible. Wyatt: stable, good in a crisis, owns his own truck.
“These are terrible. And embarrassing,” I say.
