Chapter 7: Homecoming

I sat on my bed with the door open and read every word until Ainslee went to sleep.

They never said Linc knew.

They said Marshall had told her.

They said his father was "handling Linc."

They said the roommate would be "gone by Thanksgiving, obviously."

They were right about what Ainslee knew.

They'd been wrong about the basil, and about me saying yes to ninety thousand dollars.

I wrote it in my notebook under WHEN.

Ainslee thinks it's decided. Linc doesn't know.

Then I wrote one more line and underlined it.

Don't let her write your ending.

Homecoming was eleven days later, and it was cold enough to see your breath at noon.

The whole college packed the bleachers.

Alumni in vintage scarves. Little kids with painted faces. The band in their wool coats.

The lacrosse team sat together in the student section in their game jerseys, loud and already drunk.

Linc sat with me two rows behind them, under a plaid blanket Jess had stolen from her truck.

Rule six.

He did it all through the first half.

He looked at me like the game wasn't happening.

At one point the whole stadium stood up for a touchdown, and he was still looking at me.

"You missed it," I said.

"Did I?"

Ainslee sat in the alumni box above us with her father and a man I didn't know.

The words kept slipping down out of the box.

[he's so good at the fake girlfriend thing]

[four more chapters to founders' day]

[the bet ends TONIGHT, does he close?? lol]

At halftime, Jess came up the steps with a sheet of white poster board under her arm.

She'd painted it like a check.

PAY TO THE ORDER OF: THE FOUNDERS' GARDEN. TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS AND NO CENTS.

"You can't be serious," Linc said.

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