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

We chat with Dad for a bit, and the boys tell him about the party—how it’s just a few streets down, near the clubhouse, and how Madison and her sisters are fine, upstanding girls. I mostly just nod along, trying not to think about Madison and Noah being upstanding together against Sean Sanders’s refrigerator.

By nine or so, we step out into the September evening stillness. Just like the block party, it’s a little bit surreal to be spending a Saturday night with Noah and Ryan. Especially Ryan. By the time we reach the end of our block, the boys are already deep into a conversation about sports. I drift a few steps behind them. My mind keeps circling back to Andy and Matt, and whether they’re together, and what they’re up to, and whether they’re talking about me, and how much they pity me, and—

“Hey, space cadet, we’re here,” Noah says.

I realize with a start that ten minutes have passed.

Madison really does live just a few blocks from us, in the kind of house you always see here—overly large, with stucco exteriors, big windows, and potted plants on the doorstep. But there are absolutely none of the usual party trappings. No plastic cups littering the yard, no loud music, no one spilling out of the driveway. Not even a line of parked Jeeps on Madison’s street—that classic f-boy calling card. There’s just a handful of cars parked in her driveway. I squint at Noah and Ryan. “Are you sure this is her house?”

“Told you it was going to be chill,” Noah says. Then he opens the door without knocking. “Hello?” he calls out. “Madison?”

“She’s in the basement,” someone calls back—and her voice, though muffled through a wall, is familiar. I try to place it, with no luck—but then there’s a toilet flush, followed by hand-washing noises, and then the bathroom door opens. It’s Mira Reynolds.

“Oh, hey, y’all!” she says, her voice obnoxiously musical. She’s wearing high-waisted shorts and a shirt so cropped it could legit be a bra, dark hair softly wavy. She leans forward to hug Noah, which feels wrong, and then Ryan, which feels wronger, and then me, which is straight-up nonsensical. I mean, Mira Reynolds. The worst and meanest f-girl of all. Is she trolling me right now? Ella-gate wasn’t even three full years ago, and it was one of the worst days of my life. Does she even remember who I am?

“Maddie’s downstairs. Y’all are kind of early, but no biggie. I just talked to Sean and everyone, and I think people are coming around eleven?”

Gotta love f-girls. Three sentences, and Mira’s already managed to make me feel like the world’s most overeager, irrelevant loser.

“Hey.” Noah grabs my hand. “Should we head down?”

I freeze in place. Because this isn’t the maybe-accidental backswipe hand contact from the block party. This is my hand. Being held by Noah Kaplan’s hand. But in a way that can’t possibly mean anything, seeing as we’re standing inside the house of a girl Noah sometimes makes out with against refrigerators. But still. I like the way his fingers look, curved around mine. It’s our cast-free hands. I mean, all my hands are cast-free. Both. Both my hands. Anyway, it’s Noah’s right hand. And my left hand, which is the one with all the guitar calluses. Great. That’s just great. I bet Noah’s super into calluses.

And just like that, he lets go, and I don’t know what to make of any of it. On the bright side, obsessing over the presence and absence of Noah’s hands makes for a more than decent distraction. I make it all the way down Madison’s staircase without a single thought about Matt and Andy. So props to Noah, I guess, for that.

I follow the boys into the party, which turns out to be . . . legitimately very chill. Besides us, there are only about a dozen people here. Everyone’s tucked onto this curved, wraparound couch, drinking from plastic cups and calmly watching two f-boys play a video game. No grinding or puking or staggering around drunk. Just a quiet, poignant f-boy moment. I really am like an anthropologist. The secret life of fuckboys. Fuckboys: they’re just like us! I honestly should collect field notes. I could get a PhD in Fuckboy Studies.

A moment later, Madison appears, looking unicorn-level gorgeous in one of those tight bodycon dresses. She’s curled her hair for the occasion, and it swings around like a shampoo commercial when she moves in to hug us. Up close, that perfumey floral smell is even stronger than I remember. With girls like Madison, that flowery scent always feels somehow essential, like it’s part of their very humanity. I’m sure I smell like Mom’s laundry detergent.

“Drinks are back there on the table,” Madison says. “We’re low on mixers, but I think my sister just restocked.”

She has this proud-hostess gleam that’s kind of endearing. I don’t think she’s particularly relaxed, or even enjoying herself, but she looks pleased and satisfied. Like a wedding planner surveying her perfectly executed reception. I think Madison’s actually the only one not drinking.

Of course, Ryan and Noah head straight to the booze table. “Little G, Katy Kate, do you want something?” asks Noah.

I shake my head dazedly, watching Ryan throw back a shot, like he’s some teen movie frat bro. Which somehow seems to summon Chris Wrigley, who appears out of the ether to give Ryan a fist bump.

Noah steps closer. “You sure you don’t want anything? Water even? Or OJ—I think Maddie said her sister’s bringing some more.” He pours some rum into a red plastic cup, and then empties the end of a Coke bottle on top. He takes a sip then gasps. “You know what we should do? Right now?”

Leave. We should leave. We should go drink herbal tea with my dad and watch eighties movies on Netflix.

“We should sing!” Noah claps my shoulder emphatically. “Not me. Just you. Like at set design.”

I stare straight in his face.