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“You making out with Cassie's ex was never part of my plan,” Stella said like she was continuing an argument I hadn't been aware we were having. “You improvised that bit on your own.” She picked herself up off the floor and hopped around the room, a fountain of manic energy.

“Your plan sucked balls.” I stood at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. There was too much light to see the stars, but they were out there and I wished on them that I'd never met Stella Nash, that I'd stayed out by the beach and drowned myself in the ocean. At least I wouldn't have been hiding out in Mr. Castillo's office, wearing Mrs. Castillo's clothes, trying to wipe the salty taste of Eli Horowitz off my tongue. I leaned against the wall and slid to the floor, not caring if the whole world saw my Superman underwear.

“This wasn't a joke to me, Stella. It was important.” Even
though I knew that none of this was Stella's fault, I was still annoyed. What we did to Eli wasn't cool. Stella didn't know these people, though. To her, it was all fun and games. But I should have known better, and that's what annoyed me the most.

Stella sat down across from me. She pulled a bottle of water from her seemingly bottomless purse and took a swig before handing it to me. I accepted. Grudgingly.

“What's so special about Cassie anyway?” she asked. “She's a good kisser, but so are lots of girls, probably. What makes her worth all this trouble?”

“You wouldn't understand,” I said.

“I am pretty dense. Try me anyway.”

Stella stared at me with eyes so big they could eat my soul. In another world, one where I'd never known Cassandra Castillo, I could imagine liking Stella Nash. Except I didn't live in that world. So when I looked into Stella's ingenuous eyes, I saw only my own painted, pathetic face staring back at me.

“I have to get out of these clothes,” I said. “I have to find Cassie before Eli Houdinis himself out of those cuffs.”

Right. I didn't have any clothes to change into. There was no way that I was going to run through the house in a skirt and risk being sexually assaulted by Blaise again.

“Ben's bringing your clothes,” Stella said as she sent a message from her phone. When she was done, she folded her hands in her lap. With nothing to do but wait, I found myself needing Stella to understand why Cassie was so important, why all this—even the skirt—was worth it.

“Cassie isn't the prettiest girl at Rendview High, but when she smiles at you, it's like the big bang. An entire universe explodes from her lips and forms around you.” The memories of Cassie were like bullets whizzing by my head. Any one of them could have taken me out, but once I began telling Stella about her, I couldn't stop.

“We were lab partners freshman year. I don't know what made me think I could ask her out. For guys like me, it's not like in the movies. In real life, geeks never get the girls. They get friend-zoned into oblivion. They get cock blocked by better men. Footballers with muscle and money and shots at living extraordinary lives. But I was ignorant of the rules that were designed to keep me in my place. No one had ever shown me the way the world really worked. Back then, we were all so perfect, filled with limitless potential. Know what I mean?”

Stella didn't answer, but of course she knew what I meant. Even though she went to an all-girls school and had never kissed a guy, her informal education couldn't have been so different from my own.

“Anyway, I asked Cassie out and she said yes. It's stupid, I know, but I agonized about where to take her. A movie seemed like too much pressure—holding hands and making out and all that—but hanging out at the mall didn't feel like a proper date. It was Coop's suggestion to take her to Pirate Chang's Booty and Mini-Golf.”

“They have tasty nachos,” Stella said. Pirate Chang's is
famous for a lot of things, but the nachos aren't one of them. Stella had to possess an iron stomach if she actually ate and liked them.

“I'd never been more nervous in my life than in the days leading up to that night. Cassie and I didn't speak about it again except to confirm that I'd pick her up at seven, but every minute of every day, I obsessed over what I'd wear and what we'd talk about. I played every possible scenario out in my head. I even had contingency plans for rain and hurricanes and alien invasions.

“Everyone kept giving me advice. Ben told me to tell her dirty jokes, Coop told me to read all of Cassie's favorite books. But it was my mom who gave me the best advice. She told me to be myself. That was it. When she said it, I thought she was just being my stupid old mom, but as Cassie and I played through eighteen holes, I sort of understood what she meant. Once I'd told a couple of Ben's jokes and discussed who my favorite little woman was—Jo, by the way—all that was left was me. Simon Cross. I couldn't be Coop and I didn't want to be Ben. I had to work with what I had.”

The door opened inward to admit Ben. Coop stayed in the hallway and he wouldn't meet my eyes. Ben held a bundle of clothes in his arms, which he tossed at my feet. “What happened?” Ben asked.

“He made out with Eli,” Stella said. “There was tongue.”

“Lucky bastard,” Ben said, but his heart wasn't in it. I hadn't even thought that if I lost Coop's friendship, I'd lose
Ben's, too. In fact, the only reason Ben was probably here at all was to collect his prize for getting Eli up to Cassie's bedroom as promised. “There's some makeup remover in there too.”

“Thanks,” I said, knowing full well it was Coop who'd thought of it.

Stella dug around in her purse and tossed Ben the condom. He caught it and grinned. “I'll let you kids get back to doing whatever it is you're doing.”

“Good luck,” I said, trying to catch Coop's eyes. I wanted to go shake some sense into my best friend, but clearly that would have to wait.

“Uh, yeah,” Ben said. “You too.” He put the condom between his teeth and skipped out of the room, closing the doors behind him.

“Finish the story,” Stella said.

I gathered my clothes and stood up. “I should change.”

“So change.”

“Do you mind?”

It took Stella a second to realize that I was asking her to turn around, and she made an O with her lips when she got the hint.

I continued talking while I peeled off my skirt and blouse and bra. “As far as dates go, it wasn't the worst. We played and talked and I thought it was going pretty well. All the way up to the eighteenth hole. You've been, so you know how difficult it is—”

Stella shook her head. “I only go for the nachos.”

I laughed and told Stella she could turn back around. It felt good to be in my own clothes again—clothes with a crotch. I sat back down and held the makeup remover and cotton balls in my hands, unsure what to do. “How do you girls wear this shit all the time?”

“Let me.” Stella took the bottle and scrubbed my face. She had a steady hand and I relaxed while she worked, wondering if she'd been serious about her job putting makeup on dead people.

“It's hard to describe the eighteenth hole if you've never played it. Pirate Chang built this crazy realistic fiberglass pirate ship. The hole is at the end of the walking plank in the center. To make that shot, you have to aim it between the crates holding the wenches, bounce it off the captain's peg leg, and get it to roll down the plank and into the hole. You get only one shot because under the plank is a watery vortex that's gobbled more balls than—” I coughed, embarrassed.

“Your mom?” Stella suggested, which made me laugh.

“Let's never put my mom and balls together in the same sentence again. 'Kay? Thanks.” Stella winked at me and brushed my eyes closed so she could remove the caked-on mascara.

“Cassie and I were standing at the hole and I was feeling pretty okay with how our date had gone. It wasn't going to go down as the greatest date in the history of dates, but I'd done my best. Then, out of nowhere, Cassie told me that if I sank the shot, she'd let me kiss her.”

I opened my eyes to see Stella's expression, but she wasn't wearing one. She was either really into removing my makeup or was deliberately hiding what she thought. I wasn't sure what I wanted her to feel. I knew that when we were done, she was going to go downstairs and make out with Ewan, but a tiny, dumb part of me wished she looked a little jealous. Since she didn't, though, I kept telling my tale.

“Obviously, I couldn't say no. If I made the shot, I'd go to school on Monday and everyone I passed in the hall would high-five me because they'd know that I was the guy who'd kissed Cassandra Castillo. We'd break out into a spontaneous song and dance number, like some kind of crazy flash mob.”

Stella chuckled. “I thought that happened at only my school.”

I smiled. “Making that shot was the scariest thing I'd ever faced. I put my blue ball on the mat and took aim. I didn't know whether Cassie actually wanted to kiss me or if she was bored and wanted to torment me. I hoped that she'd made the bet because she wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss her, but if I sank the ball, it wouldn't matter. She'd have to kiss me either way.”

“Romantic,” Stella said with a tiny hint of sarcasm that I ignored.

“I could do no wrong. Fate was guiding my hand. It felt like the whole universe was bending its will toward making sure I made the shot. Like I probably could have sunk it with
my eyes closed. So I took aim, pulled back my club, said a prayer, and swung.”

Stella let out a little
meep
sound and said, “And?”

The part of me that was still angry at Stella for tricking me into dressing up like a woman so that she could get a video game wanted to leave her hanging. But I couldn't do that to her. I couldn't stay mad.

“And Cassie grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the ship. Pirate Chang yelled at us from his little booth. He has a strict policy about boarding the ship and deals harshly with mutineers. But Cassie and I were impervious to his threats. We ran down the deck, following my ball as it bumped off the corner of the wench cage and banked off the captain's peg leg at the perfect angle. I thought I was going to puke as my ball rolled onto the plank, heading for the hole. It circled once, twice, three times, and then fell in. I let out a holler so loud that people on the other side of the golf course stopped what they were doing to stare at us.

“Hell, I nearly forgot Cassie was even there until she hooked her finger through my belt loop and pulled me up against her. I hadn't hit my growth spurt yet, so Cassie and I were at the same eye level. God, I'd never been so terrified. All my preparation for this date and I had absolutely no fucking idea how to kiss a girl. Was I supposed to open my mouth? Did I use my tongue? How was I going to breathe? But it didn't matter, because I was going to kiss Cassie. She actually wanted me to kiss her.”

Stella held the dirty cotton balls in her tiny, tight fists. “So you kissed her?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

I let out a sigh. “That's the question, isn't it?” The way Cassie looked, the way she smelled, the sound of her breath in my ear. Those things were as vivid as the night they happened. “I told Ben and Coop that Pirate Chang pulled me off of her before I had a chance, but that was a lie.”

Stella put down the cotton balls and pushed Mrs. Castillo's castoff clothes to the side. There was nothing between us now but the air we breathed. “What's the truth?”

“I was afraid,” I said. “Not of kissing Cassie, but of what would come after that.”

“What's changed?”

I hadn't thought about that. In so many ways, I was still that stupid kid at Pirate Chang's, too scared to kiss the girl of his dreams. I still wasn't sure what would happen if I went for it.

“The future,” I said. “It's going to happen whether I'm ready for it or not. And Cassie may shoot me down and I might barely escape this party with a shred of my pride intact, but if I don't face the future now, I'll spend the rest of my life living in the past.”

Stella and I sat quietly for a few moments. My face felt dried and puckery. There were no mirrors in the room, so I had to trust that Stella had done her job well.

“Thanks,” I said. Stella probably thought I meant for the
makeup, but she'd helped me realize that it didn't matter what would happen when I told Cassie everything tonight; it only mattered that I do it. “I should get on with this.”

“Yeah. It's probably only a matter of time before Eli figures out that those are trick cuffs.”

“What?” I scrambled to my feet, gawking at Stella. “Why didn't you tell me earlier?”

She began collecting her things, moving like she had all the time in the world. “The catch is difficult to find and Eli doesn't look all that bright.”

I took a deep breath to quiet the voices that were screaming in my head, the ones that wanted me to murder Stella. When I'd calmed down I said, “Wish me luck.”

“Me too,” she said. “Ewan's waiting downstairs.”

I stopped at the doors and looked back. Stella stuffed Mrs. Castillo's clothes into her purse along with her other things. “How do you fit all that crap in there?”

“It's bigger on the inside,” she said with a halfhearted grin.

I itched to find Cassie before Eli escaped, but there was something about the way Stella looked that made me feel guilty for leaving her. I mean, she was the reason I was getting my shot with Cassie at all. “Maybe we can hang out sometime,” I said.

“Sure.” Stella crossed the room and kissed me on the cheek. It came out of nowhere and I barely had time to react. Then she said, “You're still perfect, you know. You always were.” And she was gone.

Coop's was the first face I saw when I opened my eyes. He was talking, but I couldn't hear the words. Someone had muted the world, drained all the color from it. Everything was gray. I sat up, which was a mistake. The earth tilted and spun, and I puked until I was certain that I was going to turn inside out, forced to wear my guts like a macabre tuxedo.