I pat his shoulder gently. “I think you might want to rethink the karaoke.”

Alex’s shoulders slump and he nods.

Across the hallway, I see Simone, who was also there this weekend. I wave and she smiles cheerfully. I feel a twinge of regret for not getting to know many people during my four years here. I turn back to Alex. “But I guess it’s always good to have activities planned as a backup? Karaoke could be fun, I guess.”

“Yes!” His puppy-dog energy surges. “Now, that’s a party planning tactic I hadn’t thought of. Backup activities.”

In the choir room, Clem and Kyle are already sitting on the risers.

“Ask him,” Clem says to Kyle.

I settle in next to her with a slight feeling of dread. “Ask me what?”

“You should know,” says Kyle with absolute earnestness, “that I’ve never even unintentionally broken the law, so I’m not entirely comfortable with this potential situation, but—”

“They need booze,” says Clem. “For the party.”

Kyle sucks air in through his teeth and winces. “And now I’m making you all accomplices. I’m sorry, but I remember you being . . . friendly with Lucas Campbell.”

“Ohhhh,” I say, immediately aware of where this is headed. Kyle doesn’t know the full extent of my fling with Lucas, but he did happen to walk into the gas station once while I was walking out of the back room. “I don’t . . . Lucas and I . . .” Lucas is not only the recent high school graduate gas station attendant. He’s also one of the only people in town who will sell beer to minors, but he won’t sell to just anyone. And sure, I know for a fact that Lucas would sell me whatever I wanted, but it would require actually seeing Lucas, which is a thing I had hoped to avoid forever, basically.

“Come on,” Clem chimes in. “We’ve never been to a real high school party, Waylon. This is our chance to make one last memory of our time here.”

The three of them—Clem, Alex, and Kyle—look at me with hope in their eyes. And it’s true. None of us were ever invited to the wild high school parties where people get wasted and dance on tables or make out with six people in one night. We could invite Millie and Amanda and Ellen and Willowdean and all the other kids who were never cool enough to be on someone’s list and for one night, we could run the show.

“Fine,” I finally say. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Alex kisses me on the cheek and Kyle lunges at me in a hug. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” they both sing in unison.

Surprisingly, their close proximity isn’t awful.

After school, in the home ec room, everyone partners up in their assigned pairs automatically, so it’s just me left sitting at the back of the room at a tall tabletop desk, like the kinds we have in science classes, getting ditched all over again. Déjà vu.

“Good afternoon, prom court,” Mrs. Leonard says in a teacher voice.

“Good afternoon,” a few people mumble back.

In front of me, Melissa and Bryce have a whispered argument that results in Melissa scooting her chair a full two feet from him.

“Is everything all right, Miss Gutierrez?” asks Mrs. Leonard.

“Um, no, actually,” Melissa says.

“Come on.” Bryce groans. “Really?”

Melissa throws up a hand to silence him. “My partner seems to think our legacy project should be a yearly official publication of the Hot or Not list.”

“Is that really still a thing?” I ask.

Callie, Hannah, and Bekah turn to me, varying shades of irritation on their faces. “Yes.”

Mrs. Leonard shakes her head. “Bryce, that is highly inappropriate. Melissa, I’m sure Bryce meant that as a joke.”

“Does it even matter if he did?” Melissa asks incredulously.

Just then, the door swings open and Tucker dashes inside, straight to where I’m seated. “Hey,” he says to me, still panting. “Sorry I’m late, Mrs. L.” He turns to me. “Sorry.”

“Where were you today?” I ask in a hushed voice.

“Anyone else like to share an update on where they are with their projects?” asks Mrs. Leonard. “The only group I’ve seen complete one of their tasks was Hannah and Bekah, when they served an omelet bar in the faculty lounge on Friday morning.”

“Actually,” Bekah says, “Hannah found a small support group in town for families whose kids have recently . . . come out.”

Hannah nods encouragingly at Bekah. “It’s called Parenting with Pride.”

Bryce says something under his breath and Callie hisses at him.

“They’re about to lose their meeting space at the library,” Bekah continues, “and they’ve been given access to use another space, but they need help cleaning it out, so if anyone needs more volunteer hours . . .”

“We’re in,” I tell her.

She turns and smiles at me. “That would be great.”

Tucker’s hand shoots up.

“Yes, Tucker,” says Mrs. Leonard.

“Yes, ma’am, Waylon and I were actually hoping you could help us get excused from classes on Wednesday, because we would like to offer teachers free oil changes and we would need the whole day available.”

Mrs. Leonard gasps with delight. “Now, that is an incredible idea. So out of the box! I’ll see what I can do, gentleme—gentlepeople.”

“So I guess this means I should learn how to do an oil change,” I whisper.

Tucker reaches under the table and touches my thigh. “I got you,” he says, his gaze still concentrated on the front of the room.

His hand lingers there for a few seconds, before he pulls back and my brain turns to static for the rest of the meeting.

After our prom court meeting, I decide it’s best to get this over with and drive to the Gas n’ Go. I park on the side of the building, and there’s only one trucker filling up while the rest of the parking lot is completely empty except for Lucas’s truck.

Yanking down my visor, I give myself a good look in the mirror. I swear, every day I have more freckles. One morning I’m going to wake up and find out I’ve turned into one giant freckle.

I practice a few faces in the mirror, from fierce indifference to seductive gaze to calculated chuckle.

“You can do this.” I smile. “I’m so happy for you both,” I say. “You took him to meet your parents? How precious. Oh, wow. He’s so slim and trim. What a bod. You work out together for fun? How darling. You bench-pressed him for giggles? So adorable.”

After making sure everything is zipped and buttoned and smoothed, I saunter into the gas station, the bell above me ringing as I pretend I’m still wearing the robe I wore to the Hideaway this weekend.

Lucas is organizing cigarette cartons behind the counter and doesn’t notice me.

I clear my throat.

“Just a second,” he mutters.

“Lucas.”

“Waylon?” He turns slowly at first, but then once he realizes it really is me, he hops right over the counter.

Ugh, why is he such a charming little puppy?

A display of mini flashlights clatters off the counter and we both reach down to pick it up, our heads colliding.