Love You More(4)

“Hi, it’s Mick.” His voice, on speaker, fills the room. Low. Serious. Surreal. “I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this. But could you give me a ring back as soon as you can? Thanks, Billie.”

I swipe back to my home screen and return my phone to the nightstand. Dean arches one brow.

“You’re not going to call him back?”

“I will a bit later.”

“It sounds urgent.”

“It can’t be that urgent,” I say, thinking that’s what 911 calls are for.

He studies my face another few seconds. A tiny muscle jumps in his cheek. “Here. I’ll give you privacy,” he says, swinging his legs off the bed onto the floor. He stands and walks toward the bathroom.

I stare at my phone, my heart pounding.





Chapter 3


Mick and I grew up just a few cornfields apart, but we didn’t cross paths until our first day of high school, when seven different middle schools converged into one massive freshman class at Arrowhead.

Most of the day unspooled exactly as I’d pictured. Many of the faces were unfamiliar, but the dynamic felt the same. The hallways still smelled like floor wax and pencil shavings, and kids clustered in tight groups that looked the same as middle school, just shuffled into new combinations.

Then Mick O’Leary walked into advanced algebra.

I was sitting in the front row, surrounded by the usual overachievers, when I looked up and froze. With his wavy blond hair, bright blue eyes, and chiseled jaw, he looked like he belonged on the cover of a teen romance novel, not in the top math track. He wore broken-in Levi’s, a white henley, and Timberland boots with the laces casually loose. Pure popular kid central casting.

He scanned the room. I waited for him to stroll to the back of the class, where his type always sat. Instead, he dropped his backpack on the floor and slid into the desk next to me.

“Welp. Here goes nothing,” he said, staring right at me.

“Excuse me?” I said.

“This class,” he said. “I hear Ms. Sprinkman’s a hard-ass.”

“Yeah, but she’s a really good teacher,” I blurted out.

I felt my face warm; it sounded more earnest than I meant it to.

He gave me a smile that lit up his whole face. “I’m Mick, by the way.”

“I’m Billie,” I said, my heart fluttering.

He leaned in slightly, squinting. “Ellie?”

“No. Billie. With a B. Like the boy’s name.”

“Ah. Billie,” he said, smiling. “I like that.”

I smiled back at him, feeling heat in my cheeks, then changed the subject before he could ask what it was short for. “Where’d you go to middle school?”

“Swallow,” he said. “You?”

“Richmond,” I said, though technically it ran K–8.

“So you know Will Rader?”

“Yes,” I said, thinking that I knew everyone from Richmond. “How do you know Will?”

“We’re both on the football team.”

I nodded. That tracked.

He started to say something else, but the bell rang, and Ms. Sprinkman breezed in, launching straight into roll call. When she got to Mick, I learned that his full name was Michael O’Leary.

Toward the end of the alphabet, I braced myself.

Sure enough, Ms. Sprinkman paused, then slowly enunciated every syllable: Wilhelmina Wright.

A few predictable snickers echoed behind me.

“Here,” I mumbled. “But I go by Billie.”

As Ms. Sprinkman made the notation, I could feel Mick’s eyes on me. When I glanced over, he grinned, one brow lifting.

“Wilhelmina?” he whispered.

I shrugged, both mortified and thrilled, then looked down at my notebook.

It was time to get serious. At fourteen, I had already mapped out my path to med school and trained myself to treat boys like background noise. But all through class, I was hyperaware of Mick beside me—his restless energy, the way he scribbled notes, the tap of his pencil.

When the bell rang, I calmly gathered my things. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Mick slinging his backpack over one shoulder.

“See you tomorrow, Wilhelmina!” he said.

I met his gaze.

He winked.

I melted.



* * *



— A few minutes later, I boarded the school bus, looking for Erin.

Erin Callahan lived down the street from me and had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. She was more than a friend—she and I were the sister neither of us had. When my family went on vacation, Erin came, too, and Erin’s mother, Joan, was like my second mother—only more fun. When Erin was three, her father had taken off, never to be heard from again. So it was just Erin and Joan, living together in a messy, joyful, girly household. I loved sleeping over at Erin’s house, where there were fewer rules, better snacks, and no boys.

I loved everything about Erin. She had the kind of laugh that warmed you from within and a way of walking into a room like it already belonged to her. She made me feel stronger just by being her friend. Some called her bossy; I saw an efficient leader. She took charge among our neighborhood friends—twins Sam and Eliot, along with another best friend duo, Anna and Lucy. The six of us had grown up together, and Erin was our glue, the one who organized kickball games and staged elaborate plays on her glassed-in sunporch, assigning us roles with the authority of a director and making each of us feel that our part mattered.