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“Tessa,” I say. “Come with us.”
She takes one headphone off. “What?”
“Food. On Beall. They have really good fries.”
She smiles. “No, thanks.”
I count it out. “You’d have to be outside for eleven minutes total, I’ll feed you, and we can have fun.”
“No, thanks, Kylie.”
“Okay,” I say, and get my jacket. At the door, I stop. “I really wish you would.”
“I know.”
“This isn’t high school, Tess,” I say, gently.
She goes still for a second. Then she nods and puts her headphones back on.
The place on Beall is loud and bright and smells like a fryer, with long tables and plastic baskets, and on a Thursday night it’s full of students. There’s a line, and there’s a wait.
Paige says, “Oh,” in a voice that makes me look up and follow her eyes.
Rafe is at the end of a table with his hood up and his arms crossed, looking at his phone. Koda is across from him with an entire basket of something, already halfway through it. And Nash is on the inside, facing the room. His lip is healing and the swelling’s down, though his knuckles are still wrecked, and he sees us about two seconds after Paige does.
Koda turns all the way around in his seat. “Blondie!” he yells across the whole restaurant.
“Oh my God,” I say to Paige, who is looking at me like she doesn’t understand why the guy she’s sleeping with noticed me first. I don’t either, so I shrug.
“Blondie,” Koda says again. “Get over here.”
“There’s four of us, and one of us is blonde,” Bianca says.
“That’s my blonde,” Paige says, pointing at Koda.
We end up at their table, because Paige has already sat down next to Koda. Kenzie and Bianca take the two seats across from him, which leaves me at the end by Rafe. And then I look at Nash properly.
He’s sitting with his back against the wall and his arm along the back of the bench. I blink twice when I notice that he’s wearing my shirt. I bought it at a beach store in Myrtle Beach when I was fifteen, for eleven dollars, in an extra-large because I wanted a sleep shirt, and it has been my sleep shirt for three years. The sleeves sit halfway down his upper arms instead of past my elbows. There’s a faded palm tree across his chest. His forearms are on the table because he’s got a basket in front of him, and he’s wearing it like it’s his.
“Is that my shirt?” I scoff.
Nash looks down at himself like he needs to check. “Yeah.”
I almost laugh. “Why the hell are you wearing my shirt?”
He shrugs. “It’s mine now.”
I turn my head to the side. “No.”
He looks at me for a moment. “You gave it to me.”
He’s not wrong. I sit down. “Okay, but that doesn’t mean it’s yours. I let you borrow it.”
He eats a fry. “Yeah, and this is me borrowing it.” He leans back. “It’s a good shirt.”
“Your face looks better,” Paige tells him.
Nash doesn’t look at her. He looks at me. “You think so, too?”
