“I was just thinking the same thing.”
Holly must sense us staring, because he looks up, his eyeswidening once he sees us. “What?” he says as he walks toward us. “Why are you staring at me?”
“No reason,” Theo says. “Just talking about how ugly you are.”
“So ugly,” I agree. We only say this kind of stuff about Holly because the internet has very loudly branded him the best-looking guy on our team. We take our responsibility to keep him humble very seriously.
“Cool,” Holly says. “For our next topic, can we discuss who Carter’s been staring at all day?” He tilts his head toward the tent next door.
My face flushes with heat. I haven’t been staring. At least not obviously.
Or so I thought.
Beside me, Theo starts to chuckle. “He’s staring at Brick’s sister.”
Holly’s eyebrows lift. “For real?”
“I’m not staring,” I say. “And it doesn’t matter.”
“You want to know what Brick asked him?” Theo says, stepping a little closer.
I shoot him a look. “Dude. I doubt he wants everyone knowing about that.”
“I’m not telling everyone. I’m telling Holly,” Theo says. “It’sHolly.We tell him everything.”
“Well, now you have to tell me,” Holly says.
I glance over my shoulder toward the volunteers at the front of our tent. The event is almost over, and there’s nobody else waiting to see us, which means there’s no one who could overhear. But I still drag them both to the very back of the tent, stepping outside to make sure there’s no one anywhere outside it.
Once I’m sure we’re completely alone, I fold my arms overmy chest and give Holly a shortened version of Sarah’s circumstances and how Miles wanted to fix them.
“Are you going to do it?” Holly asks when I finally finish. His words are measured, like he’s trying hard not to seem like he has an opinion on the matter. It makes me nervous. Outside of my brother, he’s my closest friend on the team, and I care about what he thinks.
“Of course not,” I say. “I already told him no.”
“But you’ve still been staring at her all day,” Theo says. “So…are yousureyou’re telling him no?”
“I was not staring at her.”
“You reallywerestaring at her,” Holly says. “I saw you looking that direction at least a dozen times.”
“It doesn’t even matter,” I say. “He’s probably already asked someone else. Or maybe he realized it was a dumb idea and decided to let the whole thing go.”
Holly clears his throat. “Either way, she’s on her way over here right now, and I’m guessing she wants to talk to you.”
I spin around and spot Sarah walking toward us, carrying a small square box. We make eye contact, and she lifts her hand in a wave.
“Hey, can you guys take one more?” a volunteer calls from the front of the tent.
Theo claps me on the back. “We’ll handle this. You go talk to your fiancée.”
I give him a playful shove as he walks away. “Theo, I swear…”
He laughs as he and Holly move forward to help a little boy wearing a Jaguars jersey with Holly’s number on the sleeve.
“Hey,” I say to Sarah as I approach.
“Hi.” She pushes her hands into her back pockets. Herbrown eyes are wide behind a pair of green glasses, her dark blond hair long and loose around her shoulders. The glasses are different than the ones she had on the last time I saw her, and they make her eyes look more hazel than brown. “Had a good day?”
