“Really?” I can’t hide my surprise. It never occurred to me that Jason would have been the one getting broken up with. He’s just so . . . likable.
“Yeah. Really.” He grimaces. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to go drink a bunch.” He doesn’t even look up at me, just turns and starts walking away.
“Is drinking a good idea right before you’re about to climb?” I ask, but he holds up his hand like he hears me but can’t bother to respond.
At least he didn’t give me the middle finger.
Gah, maybe I deserve the middle finger. I feel awful, the guilt like a fist in my stomach. I didn’t want to hurt Jason; I just didn’t think he’d be good with Emily. Definitely not as good asTate.
I sigh, wishing I could run over to Brendan and tell him how bad I feel about all this. But Brendan’s on a date. With a really pretty girl—god, why do I have to actually pick attractive ones?—who is leaning toward him rather obnoxiously. Give the guy some breathing room, lady.
He’s not exactly leaning in himself, but he’s not leaning away, either. He’s smiling at whatever she’s saying, and the fist in my stomach turns and turns.
Being jealous sucks. Especially when I’m jealous because of a plan I came up with.
But if it works . . .
No, not if.When. When it works, it’ll have been totally worth it.
Brendan looks over at me, and I give him a little wave. He smiles with this challenging expression like,so, where’s your date?
I give him a look back, like,hold your horses, I’m working on it.
I try to push Jason’s hurt expression from my mind—really, he and Emily are so different, they probably wouldn’t make each other happy, anyway. Right? I also fight my instinct to watch and pick apart every detail of Brendan’s date.
I look back at my food truck dating options. Neither of those guys are at the end of their lines anymore, andBreaking Baddude’s now talking to a girl.
Screw it. I’m just going to pick a place to eat first and worry about finding a date after.
Trying to put myself back into a better mood, I take another sip of my Big Gulp, then quietly sing the first thing that comes to mind—the melody from that old song that starts “Jeremiah was a bullfrog,” but with the words “Su-Lin loves the food trucks.”
“Do you always sing about lunch?” asks a voice right behind me, and I jump.
“Sorry!” he says. It’s that guy I danced with at the prom. (Warren, I think? Yeah, that sounds right.) He’s got his hands up in this “don’t shoot” kind of gesture. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You waved to me before, so I thought you saw me walking over here.”
“I . . . what?”
“I was standing right over there, and you waved at me and . . . oh.” He’s gesturing over to where Brendan is having his date, and understanding dawns on both of us at once. He winces and stuffs his hands into his pockets self-consciously. “You were waving at your friend there.”
Crap. As if I didn’t already feel like a jerk today.
“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t see you there.” I pause, trying to think of some way to not be a total ass. “But I would have waved at you if I had!” I add cheerily. Because maybe I would have? I do wave at a lot of people.
His expression relaxes. “Yeah? Good.”
I blink, taking in what he’s wearing for the first time. He’s got on this old-timey-looking long-sleeved shirt with a double row of decorative buttons down the front, and he’s got goggles on his head. I might think he’s going for a steampunk look, except for the shirt is this bright yellow and the modern goggles look like they came straight from a high-school chem lab.
“I’m actually kind of surprised I didn’t see you, what with . . .thisgoing on,” I say, indicating this odd outfit.
He laughs. “No kidding. But even cosplay tends to blend in at a place like this, I suppose. It’s Dr. Malodorous,” he adds, because it’s probably pretty obvious I have no idea who he’s dressed as. “From the Chem-Guys vids?The ones where they try out all these old theoretical formulas and really just end up blowing stuff up?”
“Oh yeah! I saw their booth earlier. I’ve never seen the show, though.”
“It’s pretty great. But I’m seriously rethinking this shirt. It works well for the evil doctor, but these buttons keep making me afraid I’m about to be attacked by tiny suckling piglets.”
I giggle at that image, and his smile widens.
“So do you work with one of the shows here?” I ask. We’d talked a bit at the prom, but embarrassingly, much of it had been about my show. And Brendan. Oops.
