CHAPTER ONE
JAMIE
I don’t like birthdays.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some good parts about them. I enjoy presents, because who doesn’t, and I’m never going to turn down cake. It’s just that, given the complicated nature of my family, birthdays have a way of bringing up feelings I’m usually able to keep shoved down in the deep, dark recesses of my soul, where they belong.
My best friend, Max, nudges me. We’re sitting at our booth at our favorite restaurant, Anchor Bros diner. I look up and see why she got my attention.
A ridiculously cute guy is looking at me.
My friend group’s overly lively conversation, which has been trying to lock down a definitive ranking of the Studio Ghibli films—Spirited Away is number one, obviously—is halted by a cute boy, which is admittedly the best way anything can be halted.
Said cute boy, who has sandy-blond hair and blue eyes and is therefore the epitome of my type, has emerged from the kitchen, even though I’ve never seen him before. Given how much time my friends and I have spent here, it means he must be new. He swings into an empty booth directly across the diner from us, pulls his phone out of his pocket, and starts scrolling.
But then he looks directly at me and smiles a little. And it’s like: hello, eye contact. I get that I’m not exactly inconspicuous at the moment, given my party hat and the BIRTHDAY BOY ribbon stuck to my chest. Still. Sometimes I’m oblivious, but even I can’t miss his flirty expression.
Max nudges me again. I look back at the guy, and—oh shit. He has a Pokémon phone case, and it’s not even of the ones everyone knows. It’s of the latest generation. Be still, my heart.
“Go talk to him,” whispers Max.
I nearly laugh. What, go up and talk to a stranger? Who does that?
I shake my head and sip the mint milkshake I’m currently halfway through. Earlier, my friends and I had a discussion about the difference between shamrock shakes and plain old mint shakes, and I decided that it needs to be near Saint Patrick’s Day for it to be called a shamrock shake.
Anyway, I, Jamie Johnson, am a lot of things. I know way too much about movies, video games, and mint shakes, apparently. I’m also weirdly good at soccer for someone otherwise spectacularly unathletic and like to think I can occasionally crack a good joke. What I’m not is the type to talk to strangers, especially ones of the hot variety, which this dude clearly is. It might be particular to me, but the modern Pokémon phone case? I can’t imagine anything hotter.
“What about your challenge?” asks Max. Sometimes, okay, all the time, I wonder how I got lucky enough to have a best friend as cool as future punk-pop superstar Max Delgado. Not only is her future so exciting, but she’s also ridiculously kind and takes no shit from anyone. She’s my hero, truly. “Don’t you want to get out of your comfort zone?”
“Yeah,” I say. “But there’s that and there’s bothering someone at work.”
“You wouldn’t be bothering him,” says Ren, one of my other best friends. He’s tall and kind of gangly and is always overly animated. His black hair is cropped short, and he has an earring shaped like a dagger dangling from his left ear. “Every time you look away, he checks you out.”
It’s still a no, but now I’m at least entertaining the idea. I do want to push myself out of my shell now that I’m seventeen. I don’t want to be known as the quiet guy forever. I want a lot out of life, and I’m starting to think that won’t happen if I don’t go for it. Maybe I need to push myself out of my comfort zone, and going over and talking to that guy might be the perfect first test. What’s the worst that could happen?
I imagine him laughing in my face, and suddenly the stakes feel impossibly high.
I grab a french fry from Ren’s plate and glance out the window. It’s pitch-black outside, and the diner is only half-full. Classic rock is coming from the jukebox, “Always” by Bon Jovi, which I recognize because my stepdad, Mike, is a chronic classic rock fan. It’s basically all he listens to.
In my pocket, my phone starts ringing. I check, and it’s from Mom. I flip my phone back so it’s facedown. I’m sure it’s nothing major. She knows I’m with my friends and she also knows I’m not the type to lie about what I’m doing. I’ve been to a few house parties so I’m not totally inexperienced when it comes to being around alcohol or drugs, but I’ve always told Mom the truth. It might be my birthday, but I’m spending it exactly the way I want to: sober, with my closest friends and nobody else.
“Anyway,” I say. “Everyone’s free to come over tomorrow to watch the video, right?”
I’m referring to Max’s music video we have spent most of the past week shooting in Spencer’s mansion and some of the landmarks around Providence. It’s for Max’s first-ever single, “Ashes.” The video has been a group effort. I have all the clips we filmed on my phone, and it’s my job to assemble the whole thing.
“I will be,” says Max. For the shoot she dyed the ends of her blond hair a pastel pink, hoping to create a branded look. She’s spent a fortune on this single: booking studio time isn’t cheap, and she didn’t want her song to seem low-budget or too indie, even though it’s both those things.
The music video is a bonus. According to Max, all people really care about is the song. Still, we have all put an absurd amount of effort into it, because we love Max, and being a musician is her dream. I will do anything to make that a reality.
“I can’t wait,” she says.
“Same,” says Amara. She proudly told me earlier that her entire outfit was thrifted, and she told me the exact amount of pollution her decision has saved. Honestly, if Amara Eze winds up saving the entire world one day, I won’t be shocked. “People are going to freak out when it drops, I know it.”
Max knocks her knuckles on the table.
According to Max, most agents now want either nepo babies or musicians with an already sizable online following. Given the former is sadly off the cards, she needs to do it the hard, grassroots, “throw yourself on the mercy of the internet” way. The plan is to post the video to YouTube, the song to Spotify and Apple Music, and then to post a bunch of TikToks about it. Our summer will be spent making Max a bona fide star, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Who cares about the video right now,” says Ren, keeping his voice low. “No offense, Max.”
“Some taken,” she says. “It’s just my dream, but whatever.”
“One of the finest guys I have ever seen is checking out my boy,” says Ren. “And everyone knows Jamie desperately needs to get some.”
“Hey,” I say.
“Truth hurts, buddy,” says Ren. “You’re cute, you’re smart, and you’re a good person.” He puts his arm around me. “You have so much potential.”
“Ren,” says Amara, in the tone she only uses to playfully scold him. “Jamie is perfectly capable of deciding when and if he wants to start dating.”
Ren recoils in disgust. “I was talking about a hookup, obviously.”
I glance across the diner, and the boy is actually checking me out again. Like, he truly is.
“Do you think I should say hi?” I ask.
“Yes,” say both Ren and Max emphatically. Amara says, “No.”
We all turn to Spencer. He hasn’t spoken in this conversation, which is actually pretty normal for him. As opposed to me, he’s the cool kind of quiet: he only speaks when he wants to. Like Max, he dyes his hair, so now it’s a bright shade of platinum blond.
“Sure,” he says. “He’d be lucky to meet you.”
Three to one. I should do this. Okay, Jamie. If Max is brave enough to put her music out into the world, then I am brave enough to talk to a cute stranger. I’m seventeen now. Practically an adult. I can do this.
“Excuse me,” I say.
“There he is,” says Ren, clapping me on the shoulder as I pass him. “You’ve got this.”
I get up from the booth and start making my way toward the guy. He’s returned his attention to his phone, so he hasn’t seen me approaching. My doubts are starting to grow stronger. What am I doing? Just because he looked at me a few times and smiled doesn’t mean he wants me to introduce myself. Plus, this is his place of work, which happens to be the place my friends visit all the time. If I screw this up, it could ruin Anchor Bros for all of us.
At the last second, I swerve and go into the bathroom. Like the rest of the diner, this bathroom is decorated with anchors, buoys, and other nautical stuff. We like it because it has the best burgers and shakes, and it’s cheap. All of us, save Spencer with his mega-rich doctor parents, have jobs, but they’re minimum wage, and my shifts at Cinnabon have been sporadic at best. I’ve liked the reduced hours because I’ve had exams to focus on, but it hasn’t been great for my bank account, which is hovering at around thirty dollars at the moment.
My phone starts buzzing. Mom again. I frown. It’s strange for her to call twice in a row. She usually texts if she wants something.
I swipe and answer the call.
“Where are you?” she asks. She sounds stressed. My blood goes cold. Has something happened?
“At the diner, why?”
There’s a pause.
“You’re out later than I thought you would be,” she says.
I check my watch. It’s past ten, which isn’t that late. Still, the worried tone in Mom’s voice is fairly concerning.
“Is that okay?”
“It’s fine,” she says. “I was hoping I could talk to you tonight. There’s something I need to tell you.”
I’m getting a strong sense it’s nothing good. I struggle with anxiety, but this seems like one of the rare cases where I’m not simply imagining the worst. This time, something has actually happened. There’s no way she’d use the phrase “there’s something I need to tell you” otherwise. That is saved for emergencies.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is everyone okay?”
“Everyone’s fine, but I need to tell you this in person. I don’t want to ruin your birthday, we can talk when you get home.”
“Okay, I’ll come home now. I’ll see you soon.”
I end the call. My nerves are in overdrive. Mom has never talked to me like that. It’s not like her, and we’re very close. It was just us before she met and fell in love with Mike six years ago.
Few people know this, but she’s not my biological mom, who passed away when I was a kid. That whole story is complex, but the gist of it is that Mom was my bio-mom’s best friend. After my bio-mom passed away when I was one, Mom volunteered to adopt me, and the rest is history. People are sometimes weirded out that I don’t know all that much about my bio-mom’s past or family, but it’s not like I don’t have family. Mom legally adopted me, and I have my grandparents, a few aunts and uncles, and a bunch of cousins. And for the past six years, Mike, who is about as perfect as one could hope for, for a father figure. I have more than enough.
Copyright © 2024 by Cale Dietrich
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Copyright © 2024 All Rights Reserved
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
