I pull out my phone and show him the message.
“God, what a nightmare.” His lips quirk.
“Marcus!”
I reach out to shove him. I’m touching his chest before I realize that Marcus Riddick and I are not the kind of friends—or acquaintances, or dream buddies—who touch each other.
I pull my hand back as if electrocuted, and his laughter fades.
“You’re the worst,” I say.
We walk in silence for a second.
“So whose ring do you think it is?” he asks.
“Either Jason’s or somebody else’s. If I knew which, I wouldn’t be asking you for help.”
“Okay, okay,” Marcus says. Then, “Do you even know who Sly and the Family Stone are, or does the shirt just go with the theme of the day?”
I blink at him, because I’m confident I’ve misheard. “Excuse me?”
As he tears through his second granola bar in as many minutes, he nods at my shirt. Dad’s shirt. The wordsSly and the Family Stonehave been pressed on the black fabric in red. “Are you an actual fan, or is it an on-theme thing?”
Never mind that Marcus must have been looking at my shirt to know what it says; the words he’s saying are simply not possible.
“On-theme? There’s notheme.” I sound like there’s a theme.
“No? I’d have sworn there was, given that you’ve worn something black every day since the breakup.”
I’m frozen. How can Marcus Riddick of all people have figured out my open secrets? I finally say, “Maybe I’m going goth.”
“Please. You’re clearly upset about the coma and in mourning over the breakup. Probably will be until you know Jay will be okay and that he wants you back.” My mouth has fallen open. Marcus grins. “Am I close?”
Furious and flustered, I blurt out, “Stop paying attention to what I do.” I realize after I’ve said it that it’s an admission and not the reprimand I meant it to be.
Marcus surprises me by shooting me an annoyed look. “Sure,” he says. “I’ll get right on that.”
We’ve arrived at his truck now, and he looks at his phone. “Look, I have to be somewhere at five.”
“That’s in fifteen minutes,” I point out. Luckily, you can get most places in Sterlingwood in ten minutes. But if Marcus is too annoyed to help me with the Instagram situation, who else do I have?
I glance around. “I could…come with you?” I offer. “To talk?”
“Uh…fine?” Marcus says, clearly caught off guard. He opens his door, and I climb into the passenger side of his truck. I try not to notice how many players and spectators might be witnessing me getting into Marcus Riddick’s truck. Hopefully they’ll just assume we’re doing something for his cousin.
As soon as the engine goes on, a man’s evenly paced British voice fills the cab, an audiobook. Marcus turns it off right away.
“So?” he says.
The night we met, Marcus told me one of his favorite things to do was listen to audiobooks while he drove, built things, or worked out. I’ve seen so little evidence of this person I met last July that I’ve started to feel like he was make-believe.
But I remember everything he said.
“Do you still make birds?”
Marcus gives me a weary look. “I carve birds,” he says finally, the slightest hint of a smile on his face. “I’m not, like, the Creator God.”
“You promised to show me,” I say before I think better of it. The beat of silence that follows feels excruciating.
