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

a boyfriend who doesn’t get along this well with Anderson. It would be like having a boyfriend who doesn’t like my face.

Suddenly, the auditorium doors burst open, revealing Noah. I’m surprised he’s here. First of all, it’s not even nine in the morning. Plus, Saturday set building is optional, and Noah seems like a bare-minimum kind of guy. He stands in the doorway for a moment, watching us paint, and I swear, Anderson Walker’s about to get murdered. Because I don’t know how Andy managed to get in my head about this, but Noah definitely looks . . . passable. I don’t even get it. He’s wearing gym shorts and an RHHS baseball T-shirt, his dark hair winging out messily in all directions, but he looks so soft-lipped and sleepy, I feel almost personally attacked. He shuffles over, plopping down beside me without hesitation. “Zhao won’t let me use the drill,” he complains.

“Because you’re wearing a cast? Or because you’re you?”

“Mmm. Both.”

Anderson coughs loudly, pursing his lips out in kiss formation, and I shoot him a lightly homicidal glare. I don’t even know what the worst offense is here—the fact that he actually thinks Noah could distract me from Matt, or the fact that he’s broadcasting it all over his face.

“You should paint,” I say quickly, shoving a brush at Noah. “It’s really relaxing. See? I’m relaxed.” I glob some gray onto the foam backdrop, whirling my brush around frantically.

Noah settles in. “So this is my castle, huh?”

“My castle,” says Andy.

“Not till I die,” Noah says happily. “I’m your father.”

“I am your father,” echoes Matt, in a Darth Vader voice.

Andy looks at Matt and laughs. “You’re cute.”

My heart leaps into my throat. Okay. That was more blatantly flirtatious than I expected. And a part of me’s like, wow, Andy, step up that game. Get yours.

But yeah. A part of me wants to stab him with a paintbrush.

Anyway, Matt’s blushing, but I can’t tell if it’s a swoony blush or an awkwardly-flattered-straight-guy blush. Either way, it looks good on him. And obviously Anderson thinks so too, because now he’s dead silent, grinning down at his hands.

I feel this twinge of—something. Maybe restlessness. It’s hard to pinpoint. But I have this sudden urge to put the world on fast-forward. “We need music,” I say, and Noah’s lips fall open like he’s about to start singing. I clamp a hand over his mouth. “No.”

So Matt starts singing instead—the first verse of “In a Little While.” But he’s singing it as Matt, without Sir Harry’s round knightly vowels. It’s soft and light and actually really lovely. I take my hand off Noah’s mouth and point to Matt. “Yes.” Then I pat Noah on the shoulder, and Anderson bursts out laughing.

Matt only sings four lines—just the first verse—but it makes the whole room go still. It’s just something about his earnestness, or the casual sweetness of his voice. He finishes, and there’s this pause that feels practically electric. But then Noah nudges me with his elbow, breaking the spell. “Kate. That’s you.”

“What?”

“That’s your cue!”

I shake my head.

“I’ll sing it,” he offers.

“NO.” I look up to find Matt, Anderson, Suman, Bess, and Noah all watching me with a range of vaguely amused facial expressions. Then Anderson tilts his head and goes full puppy dog face. I roll my eyes. “Stopppp it.”

Andy starts humming my part of the song.

“Okay, fine.”

I start singing. And I feel weirdly self-conscious about it, even though no one outside our little circle is even paying attention. And it’s not like my singing voice is big news to any of the boys. Matt practically got a whole private concert at Thursday’s rehearsal.

But it’s one thing to sing for a musical, at rehearsals or auditions or even onstage in front of an audience. Singing without structure is another thing entirely. It’s like my heart keeps trying to slide out of my sleeve, and I keep shoving it under the cuff. In a play, everything’s planned out and controlled, even the dramatic parts. But nothing in real life is like that. Real life is chaos. You always end up lurching the wrong way, yelling the wrong thing, and drowning in all the wrong emotions.

And, of course, sometimes you end up on Mira Reynolds’s Instagram.

I shake the thought away and keep singing. And my voice is startlingly crystal clear.

“Pretty,” says Anderson, as soon as I finish, and I flash him a smile. But then, without hesitation, Matt picks it up with Sir Harry’s next verse, and after that, we’re singing straight through the harmonies without any accompaniment. Andy leans toward Suman to brag. “Perfect pitch. Isn’t she amazing?”

I’m not actually amazing, and I don’t have perfect pitch, but there’s something magical about the way my voice blends with Matt’s. A few more people wander over, like there’s some invisible string yanking them toward us. I catch Noah watching me with a face that looks so much like Flynn Rider, I full-on blush and turn away.

When the song ends, Matt shoots me this tiny wink, and I pretty much melt all over the auditorium lobby floor.

“Hey.” Noah hugs me sideways. “That was really good.”

I bite back a smile. “Thanks, Noah.”

I swear, I can feel Anderson beaming mental cupid arrows down on me, which is insanely annoying. Like, I get it. The communal crush isn’t fun anymore. But that doesn’t mean I’m about to force some Noah thing to materialize.

Anyway, it all turns to mush when I look at Matt. I shoot him a tiny smile, like hey, not bad, which makes his eyes crinkle at the corners. And suddenly the world feels ten steps away. Like we made a force field somehow, with our beaming, locked eyes.

Anderson gets weird after that. It’s not that he seems angry, or even grumpy. He’s just quiet, and it lasts the whole afternoon. We leave around four, and Andy asks Matt to just drop him off at home. So I spend half the ride in silence, feeling strange and unsettled but not wanting to