Audre & Bash Are Just Friends

by Tia Williams

Genres: YA Contemporary Romance; YA Contemporary

Synopsis

This sweet, funny, electrifying romance stars sixteen-year-old Audre Mercy-Moore, first introduced in the NYT bestseller, Seven Days in June. Perfect for fans of Jenny Han and Nicola Yoon!
 
MEET AUDRE. Junior class president. Debate team captain. Unofficial student therapist. Desperately in need of a good time.
 
MEET BASH. Mysterious new senior. Everybody’s crush. Tall, floppy, great taste in jewelry. King of having a good time.
 
It’s the last day of school at Cheshire Prep, Brooklyn’s elite academy—and Audre Mercy-Moore’s life is a mess. Her dad cancelled her annual summer visit to his Malibu beach house. Now? She’s stuck in a claustrophobic apartment with her mom, stepdad, and one-year-old sister (aka the Goblin Baby).
 
Under these conditions, she’ll never finish writing her self-help book—ie, the key to winning over Stanford’s admissions board.
 
Cut to Bash Henry! Audre hires him to be her “fun consultant.” His job? To help her complete the Experience Challenge—her list of five wild dares designed to give her juicy book material. She’ll get inspo; he’ll get paid. Everybody wins.
 
He isn’t boyfriend material. And she’s not looking for one. Can they stay professional despite their obvious connection?
 
SCORCHING-HOT SUMMER. SCORCHING-HOT CHEMISTRY. But Audre and Bash can’t forget—they’re just friends.
 

Release date: May 20, 2025

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Print pages: 384

Sample

“Let’s get back to your issue, Sparrow.” Audre sat perched atop a toilet, resting her chin on her hand.

“Wait, which one?” asked Sparrow. She was splayed out in an empty bathtub, gulping vodka from a motivational water bottle. (STAY HYDRATED! NO EXCUSES! KEEP DRINKING!)

“Well… your love life,” she reminded her gently.

“Oh. Right.”

It was the last day of school, which always felt like a holiday. A day when all previous beefs and dramas were put to bed. No matter who they were—emo boys, anime girls, theater heads, full-glam baddies, fake thugs, K-pop queens, rich kids, scholarship kids, and people of all sexual preferences, genders, and astrological affiliations—everyone got along. It was only 4 PM, but almost every Cheshire Prep junior she knew was wasted, and hanging out at Reshma Wells’s multimillion-dollar house. It was one of the bougiest brownstones in one of Brooklyn’s bougiest neighborhoods, Park Slope.

As usual, Audre Mercy-Moore was at the party, but she wasn’t partying. In fact, she only heard the muffled party sounds (Ice Spice and screechy laughter) through the walls. But she could imagine the rest. No doubt the air was thick with the scent of fruity vape smoke, Sol de Janeiro perfume, and pizza. Assorted sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds were hooking up all over Reshma’s parents’ furniture. Her classmates were wearing a copy-paste blur of Brandy Melville and white Air Force Ones. This party was identical to every other party.

Honestly, all Audre Mercy-Moore wanted to do was go home and pack for “Dadifornia”—that is, her annual summerlong stay with her dad and stepmom in Malibu Beach, California. The trip was her heaven, her summertime reward for busting her ass all year to be a model student. Her dad’s cottage was so cozy, with its sun-faded teal exterior and seaside deck. Audre’s bedroom window faced the beach, where the roar of the ocean lulled her to sleep every night.

Yes, she was a born-and-bred city girl. But Dadifornia was her happy place. For many reasons, she couldn’t get there fast enough. But right now, she had a job to do.

Focus, thought Audre. This is about Sparrow. Are you doing your “active listening” face?

She snuck a quick glance in the floor-length wall mirror—doe eyes, dimples, a tousled tumble of gold-streaked goddess braids. Thrifted slip dress and Adidas. She was cute, and honestly? She’d earned it after years of acne treatments, braces, and a brutal keratin “treatment” that destroyed her natural curls in tenth grade. (On the bright side, without that keratin trauma, she wouldn’t have started the Protective Styles Club, which was a hit among all five of the Black girls at Cheshire Prep.) Her only pieces of jewelry were gold hoops and a cameo ring—the good luck charm that had belonged to her great-great-grandma.

On a good day, she felt above average. But she would’ve killed to be dangerously sexy. Hot. Unfortunately, she landed just on the outskirts of hot. The suburbs of hot.

It’s fine, she thought. College is when my life will start. When my sexy chapter begins. Now focus on Sparrow!

On any other day, Audre would’ve loved helping Sparrow through her latest mental health crisis. She was one of her favorite lifers. At Cheshire Prep, “lifers” were the kids who’d started Lower School in kindergarten. They’d witnessed every stage of each other’s lives. Identities were established early, and they stuck like glue. Audre’s identity? The person you hoped to run into in the school bathroom if you needed to cry, vomit, reapply lip gloss, anything.

She wasn’t just junior class president, she was also the unofficial therapist of Cheshire Prep—a title she’d given herself back in middle school, when she used to charge classmates twenty-five dollars a session. (These days, she demanded forty-five. Cash only.) For as long as she could remember, people were drawn to her, dying to share their troubles. And Audre loved “therapizing” her friends. She had every intention of becoming a world-famous psychologist one day, so she needed the practice. Who better to study human behavior on than kids she’d literally grown up with?

Audre was everyone’s rock.

The thing about rocks, though? They’re hard on the outside and on the inside. They don’t have insecurities. Or doubts. Or panic attacks, like the one she’d had earlier that day.

“Talk to me, Sparrow,” said Audre in her kind-but-firm professional voice.

“So, I’m at the diner on Monday after school.” As she spoke, Sparrow was peeling off her press-on nails and dropping them into the tub. “At the register, I realized I forgot my ATM card. And then this guy… this angel… shows up and pays for my bacon-egg-and-cheese.”

Sparrow paused to sip her vodka. After a moment, Audre realized she wanted her to guess. “Who was the guy?”

“Bash Henry. That new senior at Hillcrest Prep? Moved to Brooklyn in February? Well, he’s not a senior anymore—he must’ve graduated today. He’s. So. Fine. Do you know him?”

Audre knew of Bash Henry. Hillcrest and Cheshire Prep were rival schools—and Black private school kids were always on each other’s radar, since there weren’t a ton of them. At most, they were friends. At the very least, they’d nod at each other in Silent African American Solidarity. But she hadn’t met Bash yet. Rumor had it, he’d hooked up with three people at Rae Drake’s Sweet Sixteen (with no official invite). And that some Hillcrest kid had a psychotic break in health class while tripping off mushrooms Bash gave him. For a new kid, he already had a wild reputation.

“He paid for your lunch?” continued Audre. “He’s fine and generous.”

“I know, right? Our eyes met and there was this COSMIC. SPARK. We both felt it.”

“Love this. So what’s the problem?”

Sparrow peeled off another nail. “Today, Marco told me he likes him, too. Look, Marco’s my best friend, but you know how competitive I am. I’m an Aries moon—I go feral. It’s why I had to quit the chess club.”

Audre grimaced, remembering. “Hmm. So, do you know if Bash likes guys?”

“Unclear. It’s more that he has this energy where everyone’s attracted to him. He’s just a vibe. He wears lots of rings and thrifted shit, and is floppy and lanky, and just seems, like, slutty but in a spiritual way?”

“Sounds like you really got to know him at the diner. How long did you talk?”

“About thirty seconds.” Sparrow’s face crumpled into a sob. “Fuck. I miss him.”

“Good, good, just lean into the discomfort,” said Audre, struggling to keep a straight face. “What do I always say?”

“It’s not love, it’s adrenaline.”

“Did I say that? I don’t remember that.”

“Yeah, at my twelfth birthday party.” Her voice was getting squeakier the more she drank. “I burst a nose capillary after crying for three hours over that Bieber doc. Remember, you left early cause your mom never let you go to sleepovers.”

Audre stiffened at the mention of her mom. Nervously, she fidgeted with her cameo ring, twirling it around her finger. Once Audre’s biggest fan and fiercest protector, these days her mom was practically a stranger. She didn’t even come to the awards ceremony. She must’ve just… forgotten? Two, three, four years ago, that would’ve been unthinkable. Their relationship, once as cozy and impenetrable as a well-knit sweater, had been slowly unspooling all year.

Another reason why she couldn’t wait to get to Dadifornia.

“Yes, but I also say, decenter boys. You’re the star of your life. You’re the prize.”

“But Bash is so beautiful.”

“He’s beautiful, Sparrow, but he’s also just a boy. Not to be gender normative, but have you met a boy? There’s no reason to be intimidated by one.” She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “They barely have a coherent thought in their heads.”

“That is… pretty gender normative.”

“My point is, if you pursue Bash and he likes you back, cool! If not? His loss.”

“But why would he like me? He could date anyone. I’ve heard that he has.” She slumped down in the tub, walking her sneakers up the tiled wall. “Would I be hotter with highlights?”

“Sparrow, there’s someone out there dying to love you. Don’t ‘fix’ yourself before they get a chance to fall for the real you.”

Damn. Audre wasn’t even on her best game, and she gave herself chills with that one.

“My ex was into the real me. Dumping him was a mistake.”

“Your ex was a cheater, Sparrow. He gave you and half our class mono.”

“So it’s a no?”

“Yes. Going back to him would be toxic settling.”

“Toxic settling?” asked Sparrow, accidentally dropping a press-on nail into her vodka.

“It’s when you return to a situation that’s bad for you. If it was bad once, it’ll always be bad. Think of it this way—if you see the same tree twice in the forest, it means you’re lost.”

Sparrow gasped. “You’re so. Fucking. Wise.”

Let’s hope Stanford University thinks so, Audre thought, her mind accidentally wandering. College applications were due next fall, which was practically tomorrow. Stanford had the best psych program in the nation. And with her high school record—class president, debate team captain, AP everything, insane PSAT scores and extracurriculars—she should’ve been a no-brainer. But almost everyone applying would have her stats. It wasn’t enough.

So, Audre had figured out how to wow the admissions board. Along with her application, she’d turn in a special project. Extra extra credit if you will. A self-published self-help book for teens. Rules for thriving based on her best advice! It was an excellent idea.

Well, it would be an excellent idea as soon as she figured out what to write. Unfortunately, brainstorming wasn’t going well. Yet another reason she couldn’t get to Dadifornia fast enough. In the laid-back paradise of Malibu, she could finish writing by summer’s end—just in time for applications in the fall.

As Audre opened her mouth to answer Sparrow, Reshma Wells burst into the lavish bathroom. Hurricane Reshma.

Therapy session over.



Reshma Wells was the party hostess. She was also Audre’s best friend. Well, usually. At times, their extremely alpha personalities sort of clashed. When they were good, Reshma was her platonic soulmate. When they were bad, Reshma was her Regina George. But they were used to the ups and downs; they’d been friends since childhood.

“Audre!” she exclaimed in her British-inflected accent (she’d moved to New York City from London in fourth grade). Leaning in the doorway with her huge, smoky eyes, wild black waves, bralette, and slouchy jeans, she looked like an exquisite, haunted baby doll. “Bro. Ellery told me that Akilah knows who’s responsible for Coco-Jean’s pregnancy scare.”

Sparrow gasped, sitting up poker-straight in the tub. “Tell us.”

“We’re in the middle of a session!” Audre loved Reshma to death, but she always did this. Showing up and sucking all the air out of the room.

“First of all, this is my house. Secondly, this is urgent.” She draped herself over Sparrow like a blanket, entangling their feet together. Sparrow’s eyes practically crossed, she was so mesmerized. Reshma had never spoken more than five words to her.

“You don’t mind if I cut in, do you?” purred Reshma in her permanent rasp. She’d had bronchitis last October and kept the voice.

“I don’t mind,” gushed Sparrow, who had a nail stuck in her bangs.

“Great,” sighed Audre. “To protect your confidentiality, let’s finish tomorrow, okay?”

Audre knew when to pick her battles. And Reshma was a force of nature. They’d been besties since Reshma showed up in her fourth-grade class and Audre was assigned to be her “buddy.” She was Indian by birth, adopted by British pop star parents, and was posh, beautiful, and five steps ahead of everyone. While most Cheshire girls were reading Dork Diaries, she was reading Mafia boss romances.

Though they were only nine at the time, Audre and Reshma were socially savvy enough to know they’d been buddied up because they were The Only Kids of Color in Mrs. Jones’s Class. It didn’t matter, though. Because they’d bonded in seconds! They both loved pink Simply Lemonade, poetry, and roller-skating. Reshma taught Audre how to eat with chopsticks and do winged eyeliner. Audre taught Reshma about horoscopes and horror movies. They decided they were a dynamic duo.

Their biggest trait in common? Both girls wore confidence as armor. The second-biggest one? They kept their deepest emotions to themselves.

If she were being honest, Audre wasn’t sure she trusted Reshma with intimate secrets. Reshma was so self-centered (a result of her parents both spoiling and neglecting her), and Audre saw how she plowed through crushes, clothes, and interests. She didn’t want to be discarded, too.

“Here’s the story,” continued Reshma. “Remember when Coco-Jean told us she missed her period? That same day, someone saw Bash Henry buying Plan B at CVS.”

“My Bash Henry? Coco-Jean got to him first? They had actual sex?” Sparrow looked crushed. “God, why am I this upset about a boy I barely know? I’m so broken.”

Before Audre could answer, Reshma jumped in.

“Everyone’s broken, baby. It’s about being just broken enough to seem sexy and interesting.” She took Sparrow’s hand. “Look. You’re a bad bitch. You speak fluent Latvian…”

“Latin,” corrected Audre.

“… and you’re brilliant on the tambourine.”

“Trombone,” corrected Sparrow.

“… and it seems like pulling a cishet boy would be easy. Just be mean to them.”

“Easy for you. But I’m not you.” Clumsily, Sparrow disentangled herself from Reshma and climbed out of the tub. “Look at you! Perfect body. Perfect clothes. Your parents are goals. Mine hate each other and hate me. How am I supposed to understand functional relationships?”

Reshma snorted at this. “Goals? My father’s fucking his plastic surgeon and wears violently skinny jeans. Mum’s in a baby food weight loss cult and hasn’t eaten anything solid since 2016.” She pointed at Audre. “Her life is perfect. Fine-ass stepdad. Cool mom with the most incredible, random facts. One time, she told me that if you see a huge cluster of mushrooms out in the wild, it’s growing over something dead.”

“I hate mushrooms,” sighed Audre, marveling at how quickly this conversation went left.

Sparrow was scowling. “Why am I talking to you two about boys, anyway? Reshma, you’re extremely gay.”

“I’m a child of God,” she said.

“And Audre? I’m saying this as a friend, not a client.… You’re anti-romance.”

Audre gasped. “Not true! I’m just currently in my self-partnered era, that’s all.”

“I think I’m too drunk for this conversation,” squeaked Sparrow, making her first reasonable statement of the night. “I’m going home, lighting my abundance candle, and doing my manifestation ritual. Bash will be mine by the summer solstice.”

Audre and Reshma watched her stagger out of the room and then looked at each other with deadpan expressions. Reshma burst into throaty laughter.

“You really take that chaotic Swiftie seriously?”

“I support all women,” said Audre. “Well, most. And secondly, stop interrupting my sessions! I love you, but advice is not your thing.”

She giggled at this, knowing it was true. “Speaking of advice, how’s your book going? What’s the title?”

“One, Two, Three, Four… THRIVE! A Teen’s Rules for Flourishing on This Dying Planet.”

Reshma paused. “Can I be honest with you?”

“No,” said Audre quickly. “It’s just a placeholder title! And I haven’t started writing the book. Every time I brainstorm, I get all insecure. Like, am I even qualified to do this?”

“Oh, stop stressing.” Reshma climbed out of the tub and linked her arm in Audre’s. She led Audre out of the bathroom and into the rowdy crowd. “You don’t have to write your book tonight. Wanna come with me to the after-party?”

“Where is it?” hollered Audre over the bass.

Reshma cackled. “Bash Henry’s.”

“Not this kid again.”

“Right? I feel like if we say his name three times, he’ll appear.”

“Like Beetlejuice.”

“Sparrow would immediately die.”

“She better not—she owes me forty-five dollars.”

As the girls zigzagged their way through the galaxy-light-spotted clusters of kids living, laughing, and loving all over Reshma’s manse, Audre couldn’t help but think that she had felt safer in the bathroom. In there, therapizing Sparrow, she was in control. At the height of her powers. But out here, surrounded by unselfconscious people giving in to Having a Good Time just for the sake of having a good time? She felt like an alien. Suddenly, she was too aware of her hands. She felt scrawny. Out of step. Exposed (one of her least favorite feelings).

Parties, drinking, flirting, small talk? Not her skill set. And what even was the point of liking somebody when most high school couples break up before college, anyway? Even tougher, how did you resist the urge to debate when someone lightheartedly brought up a problematic conversation topic? Audre knew too much about human nature, was the thing. She knew why people acted the way they did, and what choices caused which outcomes. How do you let go and just… live… when you knew how every story ended?

Just then, she and Reshma stopped in their tracks. The hallway was blocked by Benji and Delia, two juniors high off edibles and hooking up on a beanbag. Benji was shirtless. Delia, a proud furry, had on bunny slippers and bunny ears.

“Ew! It’s barely 5 PM, have some fucking decorum,” Reshma hollered over the roaring bass.

Audre said nothing. She couldn’t. She stood there, frozen, staring at her phone. An icy, ominous chill ran down her spine. She’d just received a text. It was a version of the same one she’d gotten several times over the past month.

Ellison: pls answer. we deleted the video. pls don’t tell anyone what happened. no one saw the vid. ok?

“What’s wrong?” shouted Reshma.

Audre shook her head. Her chest was tightening; her throat was closing. A weird tingle stung her palms. Hot tears sprang to her eyes. She felt out of control.

She managed to holler, “Gotta run, I’ll text later,” and then hopped over the Delia-Benji pretzel, rushed downstairs, and ran out the back door into the late afternoon heat.

She didn’t stop till she was a block away. Then she sat down on the stoop of someone’s brownstone. With an anguished groan, she clenched her teeth and her fists, fighting off waves of nausea and rising hysteria.

No one saw it. No one saw it. No one saw it.



After several minutes, her breathing slowed to normal. With trembling hands, she deleted Ellison’s text. She always did.

And then she headed home. She lived a short ten-minute walk from Reshma’s—the same neighborhood—but today the walk seemed to take forever. It felt like she was walking in quicksand.

I’m in denial, she thought. A therapist in denial, so dumb. Do I really believe that if I ignore Ellison, he’ll go away? That if I delete the texts, they never existed? That’s not how life works.

When Audre opened her apartment door, her stomach sank—the same way it had for most of eleventh grade. There was barely a trace of the tidy home of her childhood. Now, there were boxes of books, bags of clothes, piles of kitchen tiles (why?), and baby furniture crowded in the living room. The clutter spilled into Audre’s bedroom, which had been demolished.

The disorder drove her insane. Every time she opened the door, she expected to walk into a home she recognized. The home she grew up in. Before it smelled like sawdust and sweaty construction guys. Before her bedroom had been demolished. Before The Goblin.

The Goblin was Audre’s secret name for her year-old sister. Everyone else called her Baby Alice.

She knew it was a terrible nickname—after all, her sister was just a blob, as harmless as an amoeba—but facts were facts, and Audre could trace the disintegration of her life directly back to The Goblin’s birth.

That’s when her mom, Eva, and her stepdad, Shane, decided that instead of moving to a bigger place, they’d split Audre’s bedroom in half and build a nursery (“since you’ll be off to college in a few years, anyway”). That’s when Audre became a displaced person, packing up her bedroom into plastic bags and moving to the couch. No door, no privacy, no good night’s sleep.

That’s also when Eva and Shane started planning a wedding. They’d already gotten hitched at city hall, but for some reason they decided they urgently wanted a big celebration.

Eva had a lifelong medical condition—daily migraines that sometimes required hospital stays. And Shane was a recovering alcoholic. He’d been sober for six years, but still. She’d read enough about alcoholism to know that sobriety was a daily battle.

They had real shit to deal with! So why complicate things with a baby, a wedding, and home repairs? Audre was glad her mom had found her person. It was a relief, not watching her juggle single parenthood, illness, and a big career alone. And Eva and Shane were both authors, so they “got” each other. Great, but sometimes Audre felt like the only adult in the family.

Maybe it’s because they were high school sweethearts who broke up as teens and reunited as adults, thought Audre. Maybe together, they slip back into adolescent behavior. Interesting theory. I’ll research this on mentalhealth.org later.

For the moment, Audre turned her attention to her mom, who was sitting on the living room rug. She was surrounded by toys, books, and bottles. Baby Alice was perched on her lap, taking turns nursing and shrieking.

(Their part-time nanny had just quit to become a nun. But that was a whole other story.)

“Oh, thank GOD you’re home,” wailed Eva. Baby Alice looked at Audre and shrieked.

“Same, kid,” muttered Audre, flopping down on the couch. Aka, her bed.

Baby Alice had Shane’s honey-brown eyes. And, like Audre, she’d inherited Eva’s knuckle-deep dimples. Yes, she was cute. But she was irritating. Like a paper cut between your fingers that also smells like sour breastmilk.

“Shhh, sweetie. It’s okay. You’re fine,” cooed Eva, rocking Baby Alice in her arms. After a moment, she settled down and Eva popped a paci in her mouth. As The Goblin lay wide-awake on Eva’s chest, she glared at Audre with a side-eye so dramatic, it was almost funny.

“I know, the crying sucks,” said Eva through a yawn. She was fully made-up, her coily curls swept into a half-up, half-down style. She was wearing chunky gold hoops, a Wu-Tang sweatshirt, cutoff shorts—and had an ice pack tied to her forehead.

Audre knew what that meant. “It’s bad today?”

“Ehh. It’s a four.” Level four on the 1–10 pain scale. “Sorry Baby Alice is so intense today. She’s stressed out from teething.”

“I’m stressed out, too. But I have an inside voice.”

Eva turned her way, her ice pack tilting to one side. “You’re stressed? What about?”

Audre wanted to scream. Did her mom not realize that she, Shane, and Baby Alice had turned her life upside down—during the year when grades mattered most to colleges? It’s not like she could explain her stressful family to Stanford. What would she even say?

Dear Stanford Admissions Board,

Hi, I’m Audre. My mom was my best . . .