Page 32 of Furious

I line up my next toss as Zaynah steps well out of range, but it flops down in the grass at the bottom of her board, far short of the hole. “Just getting the feel for it,” I assure her again.

“This is our second game.”

“Well, maybe I’m off today.”

“Maybe you’re distracted.” She raises her eyebrows and stares pointedly in Jo’s direction.

Currently playing croquet with CJ and a gaggle of elder hippies across the lawn, Jo has her head thrown back, laughing, the pink-tipped ends of her ponytail swinging. When she bends forward to angle her mallet at her ball, I cannot possibly stop myself from admiring her leanly muscled legs, her tanned shoulders, her ass—

Until I’m smacked in the chest with a beanbag.

“You’re leering!” Zaynah whisper-shrieks.

“I’m not, I’m … I’m admiring her croquet form.”

“Mmhmm.” Catching the projectile beanbag when I chuck it back, she immediately sinks it through the hole in my board to win her second game in a row. “You know, you could’ve told me you guys were dating.”

That stops me cold. “Huh?”

“Oh, come on. I saw how CJ looked at you when you met, like they already knew who you were. And you and Jo were practically sitting in each other’s laps at the picnic table. Obviously, I knew you liked each other, but you never told me you were official.” She says this lightly enough.

But the way she isn’t meeting my gaze sobers me up a little despite the punch singing through my blood. “I swear, there isn’t a lot to tell. And we’re not official, I don’t think. I mean, we went on one date. Well, two dates now, but I didn’t know the first was a date at the time. Or maybe I wanted it to be, but I wasn’t sure, and—”

“I’m not mad or anything,” Zaynah cuts off my babbling as she crosses the grass to gather her beanbags from the board in front of me.

“You’re not mad that I’m dating Jo?”

“I’m not mad that you didn’t tell me you two were dating, if you are in fact dating.” Now she looks up at me, and she doesn’t have the pursed lips of an angry Zaynah Syed trying to seem all right; I think she’s telling the truth.

I breathe out with relief. “So, um, what do you think of Jo, then?”

“You clearly have a lot in common. And I like anybody willing to muck out a horse stall. I want you to be happy. Just … you can always tell me stuff, okay? Like, I get the feeling that sometimes you don’t want to when you think I won’t approve, or whatever.”

I open my mouth to protest but wonder if that’s true.

As much as Zaynah and I have in common, we come from different families with different beliefs. Being Jewish and Muslim has never been a problem—why would it be? We’ve often been the only two kids in class who wouldn’t show up after summer vacation with dramatic Bible school stories to tell. I’d never pressure Zaynah to drink, or date, or do anything she doesn’t feel comfortable with. And I’ve never seen her judge me for any small trouble I’ve gotten up to over the years. But … maybe sometimes, I do hold back. I haven’t told her about Max’s jacket, or the stakeout, or that I first made out with Jo while we were conspiring to street race Skeezy Riley. Because I know Zaynah loves me, but I also know that she and the Syeds think of my sister the way a lot of folks in Dell’s Hollow do. The town might as well have installed a plaque when they fixed the Founder’s Fountain, engraved: It’s a real shame about that Maxine Blum.

Zaynah shakes me gently by the shoulder, tugging me out of that train of thought. “Hey, just so you know, I approve of Jo. Not that it matters.”

“Of course it matters,” I insist, throwing my arms around her in a swell of gratitude, guilt, and for sure some alcohol-induced emotions on top of it all. “You’re my best friend. That’s almost the only thing that matters.”

She drops her beanbags into the grass to squeeze me hard, nearly toppling us both onto the cornhole board. “So,” she says, and giggles mid-hug. “If you’re dating, then you’ve kissed, right? And if you’ve kept dating, that means it was a good kiss?”

“Z …” I extract myself to cover my face with my hands.

“Oh, so it was a really good kiss!”

“I need more punch for this conversation.”

“Then you need more food first.” She loops her arm through mine and steers me toward the long folding table by the back door, still set with potato salad and pineapple slaw and blackberry cobbler. Probably a good idea. On the way, I glance over (leer over?) at Jo once more, where she’s lining up to tap her ball through a wicket.

Catching my gaze, she pauses before she swings and beams at me, flushed with sun and punch and friends and just so fucking pretty.

It’s wild, I think, how one girl can turn your whole summer around.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JoJo