“Because you’re my best friend, you idiot,” Gabby said. “What kind of question is that? And what do you mean, all of a sudden?”
Ryan shook his head. “Forget it,” he said. He wasn’t thinking straight; he sounded whiny and stupid and jealous, like the ridiculous person she and Shay thought he was. There was nothing to be won here. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Ryan felt better almost as soon as he got away from that claustrophobic Victorian. He climbed into the Pampered Paws van, instantly recognizable in the sea of dark Volvos and Mercedes SUVs parked up and down the street. It was probably a miracle he hadn’t been towed. He rolled all the windows down even though it was freezing, his head clearing as he took deep sips of the cold, clean December air. Who wanted to spend a perfectly good Thursday night listening to amateur cello music, anyway? Maybe he’d text Remy and some of those guys, see if anybody was doing anything. He was grabbing his phone out of the cup holder when he realized that his route home was going to take him directly past Arcade World.
Arcade World, where Chelsea Rosen worked.
Ryan put his phone back down.
Arcade World was a massive windowless building off the side of Route 9 that housed batting cages and an abbreviated nine-hole mini-golf course, plus a dark, dank laser tag setup that was, as far as Ryan understood it, mostly just a place for people to fool around. It been a really popular venue for birthday parties in third grade but also had kind of a seamy quality, like it wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility that you might get stabbed halfway through a game of Iron Man pinball. Inside, it was cold and smelled like feet.
Still, Ryan felt himself cheer up by two massive clicks as he walked through the entrance, the blinking lights of the ancient Donkey Kong and the rattle of the Skee-Ballmachines, the arrhythmic thud of a little kid playing Whack-a-Mole. His step quickened as he headed toward the back, past the virtual horse races and the glassed-off room of pool tables, the line of driving games.
Sure enough, there was Chelsea, standing behind the prize counter, where you could trade your tickets in for dumb plastic knickknacks. She was wearing a bright blue polo shirt with the Arcade World logo on it, her dark curly hair up in that same giant bun as last night. She had a big pair of glasses that made her look a little bit like a teen-movie nerd girl due for a makeover montage, except for the part where Ryan didn’t actually think she needed a makeover at all.
She was handing a suction-cup basketball hoop off to a middle-schooler when she saw him; she looked surprised for a moment, then smiled a slow, easy smile. She didn’t say hello or call out or anything, just stood there with perfect calmness and waited for him to approach, hands on the glass-topped counter in front of her. Ryan liked that about Chelsea, how it already felt like she was onto him somehow.
“So okay, can I ask you something?” he said, leaning across the glass counter a little farther than was strictly necessary and nodding up at the ten-speed mounted on the wall behind her. “Does anybody ever win the bike?’
Chelsea thought about that for a moment. “I can’t say with any authority that nobody has ever won a bike,” she told him. “But Icansay that’s definitely the same one that’s been up there since I started working here.”
“I’m pretty sure it’s the same one that’s been up there since I was eight.”
“Could be,” she agreed. “Do you come here a lot?”
“I mean, I did when I was eight,” Ryan said.
Chelsea raised her eyebrows. “And now?”
“Now? No,” Ryan admitted. “I, uh, heard you worked here.”
“So you decided to come bother me at my place of business?” she asked.
That took him by surprise. “Am I bothering you?” he asked.
Chelsea looked at him for a moment. “No,” she said finally, and smiled. “You’re really not.”
GABBY
“So are you coming tonight or what?” Ryan asked Gabby a couple of Fridays later, the two of them heading downstairs and out the side entrance after eighth period. It was the end of the last full week of classes before the break, everybody rowdier than usual; the lawn inside the big circular drive in front of the building was decorated with a Christmas tree, a light-up menorah, and a giant kinara. “Game’s at the college at seven.”
“I guess?” Gabby frowned. “I honestly don’t think you should play, dude.”
“Oh, really?” Ryan smirked at her as if this was entirely new information, like they hadn’t been having some variation on this exact same argument since the night of the concert. “Well, in that case, let me hang up my skates forever. I’ve been thinking about taking up macramé.”
“Stop,” Gabby said as they crossed the parking lot. She was riding with Michelle and her new boyfriend today, could already see them waiting for her; she knew she only had another few seconds to make her point. “I’m not kidding. Did you ever even tell your mom you got hit again, at least?”
“Gabby...” Ryan rolled his eyes. “There’s nothing to tell her about. My head’s fine.” He shrugged, broad shoulders moving inside his jacket. “This is important, okay? This is the time of year when college scouts start sniffing around. It’s not the time to freak out ’cause I bumped my head.”
“I’m not freaking out,” Gabby protested. She hated that phrase, like just because she had anxiety the things she worried about weren’t real. Still, she’d been carrying around a pack full of dread for the last two weeks, the unshakable feeling that something bad was about to happen, and she wasn’t sure how much of it was valid concern over her best friend doing something dangerous and how much of it was some guilty echo of what he’d said outside Shay’s teacher’s house:Why are you interested in me all of a sudden?
Gabby knew she’d been distracted with Shay the last few months, that much was obvious, but she hadn’t realized Ryan had noticed it, too. She worried she hadn’t been therefor him. She felt weirdly, naggingly at fault.I’m still here, she wanted to tell him, but that felt ridiculous and corny and embarrassing, so instead she worried incessantly about his brain smashing all over the ice.
In any case, she got the impression that there was no way she was going to win this argument right this instant. “Is Chelsea coming tonight?” she finally asked.
Ryan shook his head. “She went home early today,” he reported. “She’s got a cold.”
Gabby nodded. He’d been hanging out with Chelsea Rosen nonstop the last couple of weeks, which probably would have bothered her a little if she hadn’t been reasonably sure it would burn itself out in a few more days. Ryan would get tired of her, eventually, like he always got tired of the girls he hung out with who weren’t Gabby herself. “That’s because he’s never boned you,” Celia had pointed out helpfully, when Gabby had made the mistake of mentioning it some months ago. “It keeps you interesting to him.”
