Quentin groans and tosses a pillow at her.
“It’s time. We gotta pick freshmen,” she continues.
Marla drops her phone and sits up straight.
Robert claps, throwing a fist in the air. “Fresh meat! Let’s do it!”
Nikki opens a frayed green binder and pulls out a stack of papers containing photos and bios of all the potential freshmen. The binder had been handed down from Toastmaster to Toastmaster for who knows how long. Hell, maybe Mr. Beaumont even saw it. It holds all the official Players rules—how to nominate freshmen, specific songs and chants we had to learn, guidelines for creating pops, and, of course, the initiation rules. Only seniors are allowed to see the binder, and when last year’s Toastmaster, Derek Garry, passed it to Nikki before he left for Yale, we spent hours poring over its contents. When we reached the initiation section, we scanned it desperately, seeking answers for what had happened, but there was nothing.
Today, we’re stuck on the nominations chapter. We’d heard the whole stupid process could take hours. I remember Adam told me it took them the entire weekend and they pulled two all-nighters in a row to pick our squad. But Derek used the same line last year.
“You guys ready for this?” Nikki says, a grin spreading across her face. She’d been memorizing the binder all summer, preparing to lead us into a new year. She was ready to finally control the Players.This year will be different.
“First up, Sierra McKinley. Quentin, she’s your nom. What’s her deal?”
“Sierra’s in my AP drawing class—as a freshman, which is amazing—and she’s actually super talented. I told her so last week and she didn’t get all nervous the way the other freshmendo when I talk to them. She just said thanks and drew this insane-looking bird and I was like, damn, that is very cool. Plus, she’s got that sick house up near the tollbooth and has like three acres of beach access. Mom went there for Fourth of July last year and they set off their own fireworks. Very good party house.”
Nikki smiles. “Anyone dissent?”
“She won’t put out!” Robert yells.
“How do you even know that, asshole?” I ask.
He smirks. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“You wish, Robert.” Nikki straightens her back and flips her hair over her shoulder. This was a bad week between them. “Next up, Bryce Miller.” She points to me. “Your pick?”
“Adam’s brother,” I say as a way of explanation. Heads around the room nod, but Henry looks down and starts thumbing through Twitter again. “I thought at first he was a little shit but he’s been super cool to Jared, bringing him around for band practice and stuff. I’m into it.”
Nikki nods in absolute seriousness. “Thoughts?” Her eyebrows shoot up to the group.
“It’s a no-brainer,” Marla says, and I thank her silently for having my back. “Legendary is in his blood.”
“All right then,” Nikki says. “Moving on.” For the next three hours, Nikki runs through a dozen more names. We debate Gina Lopez’s suspicious gluten allergy, Carl Franklin’s excessive sneaker collection, Aditi Kosuri’s actually-pretty-good attempts at being a style influencer, and Larry Kramer’s wild growth spurt that landed him near the seven-foot mark this spring. The boys demand a thirty-minute break to shoot around a basketball, while Marla, Nikki, and I laze next to the pool with a bag of Cheetos and a box of Pocky.
“We’re almost at Jared, Jill,” Nikki says, wiping cheese dustoff her fingers. “What do you want to do?”
Marla nods. “Like I said, heiskind of cute.” She giggles.
“Mar, I swear,” I say, and swat at her arm. I try to think. “We decided that things would be different. We would be different. Nikki, you’re Toastmaster now, the first girlever. So we’re in charge.”
They nod. “I want him here, if we’re still in on that promise,” I say. “Nothing bad can happen to him or any of the others. We can change everything. We can make this fun, the way it’s supposed to be.”
“Hell yeah,” Nikki says. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“If that’s the case, if that’s really the case, I’m all in,” I say.
Everything is going to be different.
Jared is voted in, obviously, along with Sierra, Bryce, and a few others.
I let Adam know the good news.
Fuck yeah, he responds in an instant.
Keep it cool, tho. We want it to be a surprise.
Obvi, Newman. I got this... wish I was there to celebrate with you.
