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sure that no one got a free round unless they scored a hole in one on the eighteenth hole.
    “Hey, it’s Big Red!” shouted Connell, Andy’s closest friend. They played baseball together—Andy was the pitcher and Connell was the catcher. They had a secret language of signs and signals that they employed on the field, and I was pretty sure that they used it off the field too.
    I hated that nickname—Big Red. Because my name was Scarlett, Connell seemed to think that any moniker referring to things red was appropriate. Big Red wasn’t as bad as some of the names he’d called me over the years; freshman year I’d made the mistake one day of wearing red tights, and he’d called me Fire Crotch for most of the first semester, until I dumped a tray of pasta in his lap one lunch andthreatened to smash his face with the tray if he ever called me that again.
    The crowd of kids watched me with the full spectrum of expressions on their easily readable faces—surprise, pleasure, concern, pity … and, from Kaitlyn Meyers, a mix of resentment and distaste.
    I registered their expressions without feeling much about them either way. Kaitlyn and I had been pretty close until Andy and I started dating last year. It was clear from the way she stared at our interlaced fingers, as if she’d like to turn my hand to dust, how she felt about me being here, and with Andy.
    Kaitlyn looked great as she always did; her pretty strawberry hair was twisted away from her face into some kind of messy bun at the nape of her neck, and her lip gloss shimmered alluringly on her lips, always slightly parted. She was technically overdressed for the activity, but she pulled it off, anyway; she was wearing kitten-heeled shoes and a fluffy pink ballet-neck sweater with professionally distressed skinny jeans. I got the impression from the way she looked at Andy that she had dressed with him in mind.
    Even apart from her shoes, there was something distinctly kittenish about Kaitlyn. The way she smoothed the errant hairs about her temple, the way she tilted her head to an appealingly lilting angle … Yes, if Kaitlyn were a pet, she would be a perfect, eternal kitten, playful and soft, full of delightful purrs … and unexpectedly sharp claws.
    Connell came over to ruffle my hair, and I cringed away from his hand. Andy had me covered, though. He knocked Connell’s hand away and said, “Take it easy, man, okay?”
    They stared at each other for a beat, and I could practically smell the testosterone boiling. Then Connell’s face stretched into a grin and he held his hands palms up, as if surrendering.
    “Sure, buddy, sure thing,” he said, and ambled over toward the vending machines. There was something about the slope of his shoulders that made me wonder if maybe Connell was getting a little tired of catching for Andy.
    He sure had grown over the last few months. He was now taller than Andy, and his face had lost all the soft edges it had had the spring before. His face had kind of a Neanderthal slope to it, though it looked good on him, the wide brow, the shaded eyes, the square jaw. Connell, I mused, was a guy you’d want on your side in a fight.
    “I’ll get our tickets,” Andy said, and he dropped a kiss on my temple before releasing my hand and jogging over to the ticket booth. When I looked up, I counted six pairs of eyes on me, though they all looked away quickly … all except Kaitlyn’s.
    Inwardly, I sighed. It all seemed so silly now, this jockeying for position, these petty jealousies. But I felt angry, too, that familiar burning sensation I’d come to rely on over the last few months.… There was no way I would be intimidated by Kaitlyn, not today, not anymore.
    I held her gaze and walked toward her. Her eyebrows shot up, revealing her surprise.
    “Hey, Kaitlyn,” I said smoothly. “What’s your problem?”
    Her eyes widened, her innocence on display for all the onlookers. “Problem?” she asked. “I don’t have a