I was pulling up stats on the National League line-up when a voice broke into my preferred source of entertainment.
“Brooks Mason?”
It was a girl’s voice.
I lifted my eyes, trying to be polite. She was cute. I mean, she had brown eyes and dark brown hair. A nice face. “Hey.” I responded because it wasn’t polite not to, but I wasn’t sure what else I was expected to say.
“YouareBrooks Mason!” The girl’s eyes sparkled like she knew me.
Maybe we’d met before?
I didn’t know.
I managed an awkward smile. Again, trying to be polite.
“I’m Jenessa.” White teeth. A nice smile. Her lips were shiny. Lip gloss like my younger cousin in middle school used. I thought she’d called the shade “puke pink,” or something like that. No. That’s whatI’dcalled it. I bit back a laugh.
“Hey.” I said again. Because it was eitherlolat the girl’s lip gloss—which wasn’t bad, it just reminded me of my sister’s—or respond with a question. And I didn’t have any questions.
“So, how long have you been here?” Jenessa wasn’t giving up.
“About a week.” We’d moved in last Monday.
“Cool!” She bounced in her seat. “So do you miss Asheville?”
“Asheville?” I parroted.
“Yeah. North Carolina?” She smiled again and leaned forward in really obvious interest in me. I smelled a whiff of something sweet. Fruity. Maybe it was hand lotion. Or her hair product.
“I don’t—” I fumbled for something to say. This was the second person to mention North Carolina to me today.
“I was in Asheville a year ago.” Jenessa continued, and I let her. It seemed safer. “My cousin lives there. Do you know Aubrey Nieman?”
“Um. No.”
“Shoot. Okay. Well, I thought you might.”
The teacher turned then and Jenessa dropped her voice so it was quieter. Her eyes twinkled like she and I shared some mutual information, but I had no clue what her issue was.
“Anyway! It’s cool to meet you. I can’t wait to tell Brielle we’re in physics together.”
And then Jenessa was quiet as the teacher started class.
North Carolina?
Bruh. I’d never been south in my life.
And who the heck was Brielle?
Chapter 3
Brielle
I made it a point to try to slip past Jenessa when I spotted her down the hall by the lockers. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her. I did. We were just . . . really different, and some days I just didn’t have the patience for our peculiar friendship. On again and off again, that was Jenessa and me. Jenessa had a way of inserting herself into everyone’s business under the guise that somehow they needed her to be there. She was the one who started rooting for me to get a boyfriend. She was so persistent, I thought she might have a long-term future in matchmaking, only she was a horrible matchmaker. Still, she got all sorts of girls at school to agree that I was the last holdout. The boyfriendless loser girl whose biggest show of excitement was when a special edition volume of a latest release showed up in her mailbox from the bookstore in the UK.
“Here’s my philosophy,” I had told Lia ages ago. “I don’t plan to get married when I’m sixteen, so why date anyone? It’s a waste of time and a complete guarantee of a broken heart. I’d rather be friends, you know? Then someday, when I’m older, I’ll meet that one guy and I’ll know God was thinking of me when He created him.” I held my hand over my heart because, I will admit, it did start beating a lot faster than usual. “He will be so freaking amazing.”
Lia had squealed then.
