Kate in Waiting by Becky Albertalli (ereader with android txt) 📕

Ellen combined have just four suitcases of stuff, which is less than the volume of clutter and storage boxes Mom just moved from the guest room.

“Maggie, I can’t thank you enough,” Ellen says. “And you kids. Honestly—”

“Hush. We’re family.”

“Are you three still heading out?” Ellen asks. “I’m just so glad Matthew’s finally making real friends here. I thought he was going to spend the whole summer just playing that animal island game. I swear, every day, he’d come home from camp and—”

“Mom. Not every day.”

“Just the second half of the summer.” Ellen winks. “After Jessi left.”

“Ooh, who’s Jessi?” Mom asks.

“Matthew’s ex-girlfriend. Sweet girl, absolutely beautiful. Of course, she doesn’t hold a candle to Kate.”

“Okay! I think we’re heading to dinner,” Matt says loudly.

“Have fun! Drive safe,” Mom says. “Love you guys. Mwah.”

Matt cringes all the way to his car. When we get there, I surrender the passenger seat to Anderson without hesitation. It’s not that Anderson’s super tall, but I’m easily six inches shorter than he is.

I smile out the open back seat window, replaying the whole conversation in my head. I feel strangely giddy about it. So many fascinating updates. Like the fact that Matt’s clearly single. I mean, this Jessi girl is apparently out of the picture, and I doubt Matt replaced her by playing Animal Crossing nonstop like a dork. Like an adorably breathtakingly beautiful dork.

I bet you anything Jessi’s the girl in the formal dance photo. Though if Ellen thinks I’m prettier than that girl, she needs to get her eyes checked. If this were a teen movie, Jessi would be the supermodel love interest, and I’d be one of the extras sitting in math class.

“She thinks she’s so funny.” Matt rolls his eyes. “I didn’t play Animal Crossing all summer.”

“Mm-hmm.” Andy grins at him.

“Don’t be jealous I’m a bellionaire.” Matt starts backing out of our driveway. “I can’t believe I actually know you guys now. You were so funny at camp. I remember you always had ice cream after breakfast.”

I nod. “Breakfast dessert.”

“You always got mint Oreo,” he says to Andy. “I remember that.”

“Gay people have to love Oreos now,” explains Anderson.

“Yeah, but mint.” I rest my hand on the back of Anderson’s seat. “That’s like eating chocolate with toothpaste.”

“Kate, we’ve been through this. I like toothpaste.”

That’s true. He used to beg his mom to let him eat it by the spoonful. Even now, he brushes his teeth twenty billion times a day. That’s actually the main thing I remember about kissing Anderson: his minty freshness.

Matt smiles at me in the rearview. “And you always turned your cone upside down in a bowl.”

I smile back. “I can’t believe you noticed that.”

It’s too early for sunset, but I swear there’s a sunset feeling. We’re taking Matt to Alessio’s pizza, a squad institution. Anderson sets his R&B/hip-hop playlist on shuffle, and thirty seconds later, he’s off and running on the topic of Lizzo’s genius vocal inflections in “Truth Hurts.” I let my mind drift, remembering yesterday’s rehearsal and Jessi the ex-girlfriend and the way Anderson actually didn’t get into hip-hop until last year. He said he always felt this weird pressure to love it, which made him avoid it, but then he finally gave it a shot and fell hard. I’ll never forget the day Anderson played me Scum Fuck Flower Boy from start to finish. He kept glancing sideways at me, beaming, and then monologued for a full ten minutes about how Tyler, The Creator is the most underrated storyteller in history.

The song flips to “Old Town Road,” and now Matt and Andy are singing along so loudly, they’re practically yowling.

It makes me wish you could film a whole entire moment. Not just the visuals and vocals. I want to hold every piece of this. I want to save the details for later: the breeze ruffling my hair through the open car windows, the soft warmth of my flannel. The feeling of being sixteen on a Friday night in September. The pull of the seat belt over my greased lightning heart.

It’s early enough that we land a table right away, and we proceed to order both pizza and fries. I cup my chin into my hand, gazing at our spread. “I read somewhere once that the longest fry is called—”

“The loomster!” Matt smacks his palms on the table.

“Yes, the loomster!”

“Sounds fake,” Andy says.

“I know. But they’re not fake. Andy, this is like a core piece of life trivia.”

“I think I found it.” Matt holds up a fry of extraordinary length. “The loomster.”

“But what’s the point?” asks Andy. “Do you get to make a wish? What do you do with the loomster?”

“We just appreciate its length,” says Matt. “And eat it.”

The tiniest dimple impresses into Andy’s left cheek, and I’m one hundred percent sure he’s thinking of a dick joke. But he’d never say it out loud in front of Matt. It’s weird how much you have to hold back when you’re secretly in love with someone. But then again, the whole point of love is getting close enough that you no longer have to hold back all the dick jokes. Or farts, or all the other gross parts. I’m pretty sure at some point love makes room for the gross parts.

It’s finally getting dark out by the time we finish and pay, which means normal teens are just winding up for the night. Mira Reynolds is no doubt practicing her duck face in her selfie cam. And I’m sure Jack Randall’s hard at work making sure he’s wearing his hat stupidly enough. But we have to wake up early for set design tomorrow—and anyway, none of us are particularly in the mood to be called Fiona by drunk f-boys. So the three of us just head straight home with vague plans to watch Tangled, which Matt’s never seen.

“Have you been living under a rock?” Andy asks, as we buckle our seat belts. “Tangled is one of the top three movies of all time.”

“What are the other