The Rival

Chapter Ten

I’ve spent so many years dreaming about getting a byline in Newsbag that I practically astral-projected myself into the fantasy of it. In said fantasy, I’d be walking on campus on a bright sunny day in one of those swishy “cast in a Netflix rom-com getting released on Valentine’s Day” types of dresses with a copy of the zine tucked under my arm, calling my family to laugh about the best jokes I managed to land, checking my Instagram to see how many people liked my post about it.

What happens instead is that I get profusely rained on while clad in one of Joey’s baseball jerseys, a pair of Christina’s running shorts, my Maple Ride baseball hat, and a fanny pack full of Colby’s old tennis balls, and the current state of my human body could be roughly described as “someone tried to drown Frankenstein’s jock.”

Thankfully, that does nothing to lessen the emotional impact of seeing my name in print. Sadie Brighton, hot off the press.

“Are you going to cry? Because the shorts you’re wearing are actually super absorbent,” says Christina.

I carefully set the soggy copy of the zine down on my desk. Christina was up for an early morning practice and when she saw copies being delivered on the back of some kid’s bike, she used her powerful legs to somehow outpace him and demand a copy to bring back to me. Which is how I woke up to a zine actively dripping rainwater two inches from my face, and am now partially soaked because I hugged a waterlogged Christina hard enough to wring her out like a sponge.

“It’s just—look at that fancy blue ink. That custom Newsbag font,” I nearly blubber.

Christina pats me on the back. “Times New Roman could never. So how are we celebrating?”

“By becoming a public nuisance,” I say, gesturing to my outfit. “Jock for a Day commences in one hour.”

“Ugh. Of course it’s the day I have two tests stacked one after the other. But we should do something this weekend.” Christina gazes longingly at her bursting closet. “I lugged five different hot girl outfits here and they’re collecting dust.”

I reach up and lightly knock on her forehead with my knuckles. “We’re already going out this weekend. The Alphabet Party?”

“That’s this weekend?” Christina exclaims. “Oh, dear god, I have completely lost the plot on my entire life. Okay. Friday. Alphabet Party. I’m going to Sharpie that to my forehead and everything should be fine.”

I squint at her face. “A better friend would stop you, but I feel like you could pull it off.”

Christina’s already halfway out the door, but she quickly leans in and hugs me hard. “I’ll clear out so you can FaceTime the fam. I love them, but it’s too early in the morning for me to handle those decibels.”

She’s out the door before the words register, first with an uneasy lurch and then a thunk. I never told them about the quiz; I still haven’t even told them about Newsbag. In my defense it’s always hard to get a word in edgewise when I’m getting passed around my family members like a hot potato, but it’s not like my parents haven’t asked what I’m getting up to here. It’s just—it feels like there are more reasons not to tell them than to tell them.

It’s not just the complication of explaining myself anymore. It’s that I’ve had a taste of what it might be like, close enough to this dream to rub up on the edges of the reality of it, that I don’t want it with the ache I used to have—I want it so badly that it feels like it’s leaking into my bones. Like my structural integrity will be compromised without it, and I’ll fold like a cheap Halloween skeleton.

Which is to say, if I lose, it will be the biggest disappointment of my life. I don’t want to have to deal with their feelings about it, too, especially when they’re always so much louder than mine.

And if that’s not enough to stop me, then Seb’s parents are. Telling them about Newsbag only complicated his life. I never would have predicted his dad would be so adamant about engineering, about Seb keeping Blue Ridge open as an option, with it all hinging on Newsbag . If there’s a plot twist like that on the horizon for me, well—better not to find out.

So I don’t call home. I leave the zine safely on my desk beside my laptop and ignore the new ache that’s blooming in me—the one that wants to call my parents, that wants to know they’re proud. Not just for something I did to impress them, but something I finally did just for myself.

Thankfully, there isn’t much time to wallow in this particular brand of self-inflicted misery. Within the hour we’re all assembled in the same lecture hall where we held the Dorm Food-Off, only this time it’s twice as packed and 1000 percent more athletically inclined. The place is a sea of field hockey sticks settled across desks and basketballs rolling on the floor and at least four members of the crew team in an earnest knockdown argument about which flavor of Gatorade reigns supreme.

I’m not worried about finding the members of Newsbag in the crowd because my Seb sonar is as spot-on as ever. Once I decide to scan the crowd for him, it takes approximately point two seconds for me to find a familiar head of just the right amount of messy brown hair with—you guessed it—the same baseball cap I have on my head, also slung backward. He looks up and spots me at the precise moment, his eyes bright, shifting so I can see he’s wearing his roommate’s soccer uniform.

A uniform so tight on Seb that it does not leave much to the imagination. I blink to look away—to look away, I remind my brain firmly, when my eyes completely fail at the task—but the damage is done. I’ve seen the way the lanky muscles of his arm flex against the sleeve, the way his shoulders shift under the back of the shirt.

I brace myself for my brain to cut to commercial. It does not. Instead it just—short-circuits.

Perfect. Great. It’s not like I was using it to help commandeer an entire campus-wide stunt with implications that will affect the zine I’ve pinned all my hopes and dreams on, and subsequently my entire professional future, or anything.

I’ve collected myself by the time I cross the maelstrom of student orgs and jocks and “hybrids,” as Amara dubs them. Seb’s grin is back in full force, to my relief. I caught some shades of it when we accidentally on purpose met each other to eat peanut butter banana pancakes at Pancake It or Leave It on Sunday, but even that was short-lived. Somehow the prep for Jock for a Day got us on the topic of a field day competition from middle school, where we derailed an entire relay race by trying to steal each other’s batons and chuck them over the fence on the last leg. We spent so much time smack-talking each other about it that Betty told us to “take our repressed hormones somewhere else” because she “didn’t have enough insurance on this place to handle the fallout.”

Despite the grin, I don’t miss Seb’s eyes flickering to the back of my jersey, emblazoned with FORREST , Joey’s last name. His face doesn’t shift at all when he looks back at me.

“Sadie, we have to talk. It’s embarrassing how badly you want to be me. Everyone here can see you’re trying to cop my style.”

I reach up and knock the brim of his hat so it ends up sideways on his head. It’s unfortunately even more endearing than before.

“What’s embarrassing is how much better I pull it off than you,” I counter.

Seb’s eyes look me up and down, so fast I nearly miss it. I certainly don’t miss the part where he doesn’t disagree.

“Well, live it up while you can. You’re going to have to start wearing clothes more befitting of a published Newsbag writer now. Or at least for the next two weeks.”

He nudges me lightly with his elbow, which feels strangely like higher praise than if he’d congratulated me again.

“You’re that confident your piece is going to beat mine out?” I ask.

Because, yes, Seb may be tackling a nuanced, deeply personal topic, the kind that few writers at his age would have the sensitivity and experience to do justice. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still coming at this competition with everything I’ve got. I put a callout in our dorm to see if anyone wanted to talk about their relationships with their families both before and after coming to Maple Ride. I don’t necessarily have a concise peg I’m going to center the story on yet, but I’ve talked to enough people to understand that when it comes to the heart of it, we’re all in the same strange tug-of-war with ourselves: the relief of being away from home, and the guilt of the relief; the ache of missing people, and the shame of feeling needy about it. We’re all swerving on one end of that rope or the other, and judging from the conversations I’ve had, it changes by the hour for everyone else, too.

“What can I say?” says Seb. “I’m moving the goalpost. Out of your league. Really on the ball. Settling the score—”

“One more sports pun and I’m calling the whole thing off,” I threaten.

Seb grins. “I suppose I should save some. We do have a long day of jock shenanigans ahead of us.”

I turn to look at the sea of humans in mismatched athletic gear and various degrees of awake just as someone in the crowd holds up a phone blasting “Eye of the Tiger.”

“Hell, right,” I say. “Let’s go out there and make Ted Lasso proud.”

It’s been a week since I first pitched the idea, but since then all the student clubs and participating athletes brainstormed and agreed on a collective plan—one that involves converting each student-run org into a “sport” for the day. Within a half hour, we’re assembled. Newsbag is now a Hacky-Sack team; the Rainbow Maple Ride Alliance is now a badminton team; the Foodie Club is something called a “Cheese Tossing Team,” which seems to involve several wrapped mozzarella balls and perhaps more eating than tossing, power to them. Then to give a united front between the student orgs and the jocks, each of our teams has one or two “jock representatives,” most often members of their own clubs, to act as captain of their sport.

After that, we commence Phase One: causing light pandemonium during the rush between classes on campus by staging impromptu games on the edges of sidewalks, close to the main doors, near the statues where people eat lunch. Essentially taking a page from the Random Acts of Chaos Club by causing a distraction but not actually getting in anyone’s way.

Then later in the afternoon, Phase Two: we escalate things a bit by doing the noisier, more attention grabbing “sports” closer to Main Street, giving the entire neighborhood a view of the Knitting Club’s low-key bloodthirsty game of capture the flag and the Jelly Bean Appreciation Society’s admittedly impressive flash mob dance to “I Want Candy.”

Throughout both these phases, anyone not participating in the sports bits (read: the entire Bird Watching Society, bless their terrified hearts) follow close behind handing out flyers to curious passersby explaining the bit. That we’re all in “practice” right now to form our own sports teams, so we can reregister our clubs as athletic organizations and get the money we need to maintain our official statuses on campus.

Then, of course, the grand finale of Phase Three: a giant game of dodgeball. Not just any game, but a massive one on the quad outside the school’s main office, which happens to be scheduled to start precisely five minutes before the biannual meeting with their most important donors lets out.

By the time we’re all lined up for Phase Three with our various items to dodge—badminton birds, dance sweatbands, flags, and literal cheese balls included—everyone is in a happy, delirious, post-jock high. In the little Newsbag huddle we’re readying our hacky sacks and swapping stories, everyone’s eyes bright, half on the crowd and half on the office where the meeting is underway.

“I think the badminton bit awakened something in half the members of the Rainbow Maple Ride Alliance,” says Seb. I glance a few feet away to see Rowan and Angie with two other members, holding up their rackets and posing like Charlie’s Angels for the camera. “We may have lost them to the jocks for good.”

“The whole damn town is jocks now, by that definition,” says Colby. “Johnny whipped out the playlist after the flash mob. I haven’t seen that many people attempt the Macarena since my great-uncle’s second wedding.”

Off the confused looks of the freshmen, Amara explains, “Johnny owns the bar-diner downtown. The playlist is like—legendary. Elder millennial meets TikTok generation meets karaoke hits. Very potent. Must be used sparingly.”

Joey slides in, unapologetically sweaty and grinning, and throws a casual arm around me and Seb both. “You didn’t hear it from me. But Betty didn’t not help the Knitting Club cheat at capture the flag with a mere flick of her eyes.”

“We’ll keep your secret only because I fear your life might depend on it,” I say solemnly.

Seb looks out at the quad. “Question is, will the rest of this crowd? Sadie’s got half the school roped into this now.”

Sure enough, the crowd of students is at least twice as large as it was this morning. It’s loud. It’s raucous. And suddenly, when I notice Amara, Rowan, and a few of the senior athletes head to the top of the steps on the quad to get our attention, I feel a familiar dread pool in my stomach.

It’s pronounced and sudden enough that I have to take a step back from the cluster of the Newsbag team. It doesn’t make the noise or the commotion any less wild. I glance around, my head reeling through a familiar loop— distract them; compromise with them; find the magic words to put a stop to it, fast—

“You good?”

Joey is in front of me, Seb a step behind. The mood is still light, their faces still lit with laughter. The only one panicking here is me.

“Yeah,” I manage. “I was just—”

Trying to figure out how to tell a group of people I actively riled up to shut themselves down.

“Just what?” Joey asks.

I flounder. I should brush it off, but the feeling in my gut demands that I don’t.

“Worried about things getting out of hand,” I say, trying to keep my voice even.

“Nah,” says Joey easily, looking back out at the crowd. “People are just having a good time, is all.”

“Right. Of course. But…”

My cheeks flood with embarrassment. But it’s my job to stop the noise.

Hasn’t it always been? I’ve spent so much of my life trying to smooth the loud edges of my family, trying to make us stick out less. Making little negotiations with my sisters to stop them from bickering with our parents. Constantly taking the temperature of the room and everyone in it so I’m never surprised by an outburst. Making excuses for them whenever we were in public and they were over the top.

That meant being a certain kind of Sadie, one I haven’t really been since I got here. But now that Sadie is trying to claw her way out of me because she knows, she knows that all this clamor is my fault. Seb said so himself. For once, I’m not on the outside of chaos looking in; I’m the one who instigated it.

I’m not sure why it’s hitting me sideways now when it hasn’t all day. Maybe it’s just that we’ve reached a fever pitch. Or that I know there’s a potential for us to get in real trouble, depending on how this goes, and with that comes the guilt of knowing it won’t be only my future on the line.

“Hey.”

Seb’s voice is close, and somehow the others are farther away. That magnetism of his is impossible to ignore even mid–nonsense spiral.

He waits until I meet his eye, then crouches down a few inches, making a show of examining my face.

“What?” I demand.

“Nothing. Trick of the light, I think.” He steps back, his expression wry and challenging. “It’s just for a second there you looked like a person who might be having doubts about this.”

I dig the heels of my sneakers into the grass. “I’m not.”

“Good.” He reaches up then to adjust my baseball cap, planting it more firmly on the top of my head. “Because I think ‘new Sadie’ is ready to embrace the chaos.”

Jesus. I must really look some type of way if my mortal enemy feels the need to pull me aside for an emergency pep talk. I try to use that damning realization to snap out of it, but if anything it only makes it worse. Seb doesn’t just see me. He sees me. Even if I try to play this off, we’ve got to see the rest of this stunt through. There’s nowhere to hide.

“I’m not new Sadie,” I say “I’m just—old Sadie.”

Seb shakes his head. “This has got all versions of Sadie written all over it.”

I duck my head but keep my eyes on the crowd just beyond us. “What, forming a small army of loud, sweaty coeds who keep using ‘cheese ball’ as a verb?”

Seb says the words so plainly and deliberately that it’s clear he doesn’t want me to miss a single one. “Making people laugh,” he says. As if on cue, a small cluster of students erupts in laughter at “You turned this into something fun. Now people want to be a part of it. It’s good chaos.”

Good chaos. I feel some reluctant part of my heart squeeze around those words. I’ve been avoiding any kind of chaos for so long that leaning into this feels like it’s rattling every instinct I have.

Seb’s voice is low but firm. “Amara and Rowan wouldn’t have roped everyone into this if it weren’t a good idea.” He doesn’t give me a beat to respond. Just tilts his head toward the crowd like there’s no room for argument. “Now, come on. I have a hacky sack to accidentally on purpose throw at your head.”

“We’re on the same dodgeball team!” I remind him.

“Ah, sorry. Couldn’t hear you over the sound of all these new jocks you created,” says Seb, making a show of rubbing an ear.

I hold up my own hacky sack. “Better hope you’ve still got those improv reflexes ready, theater kid.”

“Do your worst, book club.”

It does take a minute or so to calm everyone down enough for Rowan to talk out the rules to the crowd, which are essentially 1. Make as much noise as possible, and 2. Don’t make anyone cry, but otherwise goes without a hitch. Seb takes my side when we line up with our half of the two randomly divided dodgeball teams, and Joey takes the other, only just noticing that the Knitting Club is on the other side.

“Tell my roommate I tolerated him,” says Joey grimly.

Rowan cups their hands over their mouth, then, and yells out to the crowd, “On your marks… get set… DODGE!”

If I thought the race for ingredients at 7-Eleven the other week was a scene, this is a full-on production. The two sides come at each other not unlike we’re re-creating a dweeby collegiate version of the Peloponnesian War, which is all well and good except that nobody thought to find a way to differentiate between the two sides. Within a minute we’re all just hollering and lawlessly chucking various lightweight items and cheese at each other while the Bird Watching Society adds to the noise with literal birdcall whistles and the Random Acts of Chaos Club, for reasons beyond us all, starts blasting a playlist of random themes from John Williams scores.

It doesn’t take long for the meeting to let out, or at the very least for the dean to let himself out of it. He’s wearing a suit and looking like a deeply irritated version of the Monopoly man, and only looks less pleased when Rowan, Amara, and the two senior athletes cheerfully come up the steps to meet him. I pause mid–mozzarella throw to try and catch what they’re saying.

“… permission for this?”

“Oh, we did,” says Rowan. “Since student-run organizations aren’t able to reserve campus space without filling out all that paperwork you keep losing, we got the track team here to do it for us.”

“Well, consider it unsanctioned by the school,” says the dean, his voice clipped and threatening. “Break this up.”

“What’s all this about?” asks a well-dressed woman emerging from the building, tilting her head at the quad in confusion and mild amusement.

A few others are close on her heels—a group so similarly well-dressed and confident in their “I definitely have a second property on a beach somewhere” postures that they can only be the rest of the donors.

“Hi,” says Amara with a winning grin. “What you see here is sports ! We were just student organizations this morning, but since the dean said the funding is all tied up in the athletic department, we thought we would make it easier on him. We’re all athletes now!”

“We’re actually on our way inside to register all our teams,” says Rowan, gesturing at the sign for the student-activities office.

One of the athletes, a member of the crew team, chimes in, “A bunch of student athletes even came out to help them, since it’s their first time being sports teams and all. And while we were inside we were hoping to see where all the funding for the athletes goes. Since you let the student orgs see where their pennies are going.”

It’s well rehearsed, biting, and absolutely perfect. They don’t have just the donors’ attention but their indignation.

And a whole lot else from the dean, who looks sweatier than most of the students still running amok on the quad. “This is not the appropriate place or time to have this discussion,” he says through his teeth.

Amara’s voice is sweet as honey. “And where would be the appropriate place? Seems like you’re out of the office whenever we try to lock down a time to speak.”

He opens his mouth to protest, but one of the donors interrupts. “No, I want to hear them out. Let’s go inside.”

The dean turns to the group with a tight smile. “I’m sure we don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time today,” he says. “And besides, they need to break up this little stunt of theirs before I’m forced to figure out who’s responsible for it and decide the appropriate consequence.”

My blood almost freezes then, but Amara and Rowan don’t even flinch.

“I don’t see a stunt. I see kids who want their voices heard,” says the first donor who walked out, her jaw set. She tilts her head at Amara. “Let’s see if we can’t get your ‘sports teams’ registered, hmm?”

“Sounds marvelous,” says Amara.

She lets the donors lead the students inside, turning at the last second to shoot me a wink. I feel the impact of it like someone just shot glitter into my veins.

“Holy shit,” says Seb from next to me. “Holy shit. ”

I turn to him in similar shock, a grin cracking across my face. “Tell me we didn’t just hallucinate that.”

“Nah. Watching your little plan work is probably the least surprising thing that’s happened today,” says Seb.

I shake my head. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Sure,” says Seb. “But to be clear, I’m only letting you criminally undersell yourself because it’ll help my odds at winning this.”

I nudge his shoulder with mine. “Nobody’s winning anything if we’re all in detention for the rest of our lives.”

“Ah, yes. Detention. That punishment they famously dole out in college institutions to legal adults,” Seb teases. Then he rocks back on his heels slightly, shaking his head as he looks up at the front steps to the office. “Man, I can’t wait to hear you tell this story at Marley’s party. Nobody’s ever gonna believe you’re a little rabble-rouser now.”

The words knock me off-kilter. “Marley’s party,” I repeat, because it sounds odd coming out of Seb’s mouth when I’ve barely heard anything about it from Marley herself.

“Assuming nobody blows the roof off your house before then,” Seb acknowledges. “Hadley told me about the vacuum-robot uprising.”

I blink. I thought the latest debacle of Doomba (which did, in fact, attempt to escape through the patio door one night last week to inflict god only knows what kind of punishment on its creators) was privileged Brighton-family information.

“She did?”

“We’ve texted,” says Seb, tilting his head at me like he’s surprised I don’t already know that. “Mostly theater stuff, since she’s thinking of trying out.”

I blink again. “She is?”

My question gets swallowed up by the sudden surge of the Jelly Bean Appreciation Society lining up for an encore of their flash mob, which they’re now attempting to do in slow motion to the theme from Jurassic Park.

I sidestep both them and Seb, trying to process. Of course I was planning to go back for Marley’s twenty-second birthday, but I didn’t realize he was, too. That judging from the genuine excitement in his eyes, he wants to. And yes, I knew Hadley was planning on joining some new clubs, but I’ve been so busy examining family relationships for this piece the past few days that, ironically, I haven’t had much time for my own. Yet here’s Seb, picking up where I left off, filling in the gaps.

But none of that is half as surprising as another revelation. The thing is, I’ve spent my whole life alternately embarrassed about my family, or embarrassed to be embarrassed about them. Trying to reconcile the way I love them just the way they are with the way I’m scared that the rest of the world won’t. How people might misunderstand them—Hadley’s sensitivity, Marley’s impulsiveness, my parents’ passion—and how they might treat them for it.

But then there’s Seb, who has always loved them just as they are. Seb, who is quietly taking care of them, too.

And even though I’d sooner launch myself into the sun than admit it, that matters more than anything that’s ever come between us. The competitions and the sabotages, the pranks and the fights. Like the gratitude I have for Seb in this moment is enough to push all the hurt of that away, to make room for something else.

Something that’s been trying to make room for a long time. Something I can feel in that quiet crackle between us when our eyes meet just before a challenge, or when he nudges my foot under the table at Betty’s, or when we somehow spot each other in a crowd of hundreds at the same precise moment.

Something I think I know the name of, but wish I didn’t. Because even if there could be room for it in me, there’s no room for it anywhere else—certainly not here, where Seb was never meant to follow. Where he is the one thing standing between me and the dream that has defined me for so long, I don’t know who I am without it. Old Sadie, new Sadie, or some lost version stuck in between.

I turn to look over at Seb, half-afraid he’ll see it in an instant and half hoping he will. But he’s been Seb-napped by the Rainbow Maple Ride Alliance to pose for more badminton pictures. He’s still clear on the other side of the quad when Amara and Rowan break the news to the leaders of the other clubs: the administration isn’t going to do anything overnight, but they’re open to talking more, and the donors seem committed to helping facilitate it.

We’re still feeling triumphant as we disperse the quad, picking up our various sport props as we go. Joey passes, holding his hand up for another jock handshake. We bump chests and make the kind of guffawing, grunting noises that seem to alarm the Bird Watching Society enough that I’m starting to wonder if they are all, in fact, a bunch of pigeons stacked on top of each other under those leggings and Maple Ride tees.

“So how are you going to celebrate?” Joey asks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, turning to scan the quad one last time before we head out. “Work on my next piece, probably.”

Speaking of—I need to find Seb. The solution to this weird feeling is very clear. I will find him, and we will ruthlessly make fun of each other, and I will quickly, efficiently pop the bubble on this whole “feelings about Seb” thing before it blows up in my face instead. Being cordial with our banter was fun and all, but it’s gone too far now. Better to shut it down and hurt each other now than possibly hurt each other a whole lot worse later.

Responsible Sadie may not have come in handy for this stunt we just pulled, but I need her now. She knows how to make a loud feeling as quiet as possible. She knows there isn’t a choice, with Newsbag on the line.

“So… what do you think?”

I shake my head and turn to look at Joey. “Think about what?”

Joey’s brow furrows. “I just asked if you wanted to get some celebration pie this weekend. Maybe hit up the farmers market again?”

Suddenly, responsible Sadie has exited the building. Because the logical good thing to do here would be to say yes. To go out with this earnest, kind, floppy-haired boy who has a smile for everyone he meets.

But even if I could unfeel the way I do about Seb, I can’t make myself feel something I don’t in its place. And whatever it is I was hoping to feel about Joey, I simply don’t.

“I’d love to,” I tell him. “But would it be okay if we went as friends?”

Joey’s lip twists to the side for a moment, not quite disappointed, but definitely unsurprised. “Yeah. Of course.”

“It’s okay if you don’t want to anymore,” I add quickly.

He rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, his expression lightening up. “No, I figured. That’s fine. We were always gonna have to be friends either way, what with you joining Newsbag and all.”

“I don’t want you to think it’s anything to do with you. You’re great.”

Oh, dear god, I might as well have eaten breakup-trope cereal for breakfast this morning. Thankfully, Joey cuts me off by pulling a face.

“Oh, we don’t have to do that whole thing, it’s fine.” He laughs self-consciously, pulling his hand off his neck. “I mean, I did think I had a shot for a minute there. But then Colby started that betting pool about when you and Seb were going to ‘just kiss already’ and I figured it was time to throw in the towel.”

The only reason I don’t blurt out What the fuck with god and half the crew team as my witness is that I’m too stunned to remember how.

Joey leans in and adds, “That’s jock for ‘give up,’ to be clear.”

Somehow, against all odds, I manage to suck in oxygen. Unfortunately my brain doesn’t know what to do with it except stammer, “I—Seb and I aren’t—we would never—”

But we could, says some tiny unhelpful voice in my head. But we might.

I shake my head hard enough to nearly dislodge my baseball hat. “Betting what ?” I finally manage.

“Don’t worry about it,” says Joey. His eyes crinkle with his smile again, so I know he means it. “I’m pretty sure you win either way.”