Page 33 of Septembers

Dae said something, but it was too quiet to hear under the music and general chatter.

“What was that?”

His cheeks bloomed inexplicably pink, and not for the first time, Theo wished he had a window into his brain, so he could figure out what thoughts his skin was betraying.

“You should do it,” he said, audible this time.

“You’ve heard me sing, Dae. I could injure people.”

“That didn’t matter in Peter Pan.”

“Peter—” He dropped his sandwich onto the paper, not entirely by accident, and it made a satisfying thump for effect. “How do you remember that? We didn’t even speak until the speech competition.”

“The whole school saw it.” The words were a vocal shrug, like it should’ve been obvious. Theo had done a few musicals as a kid but quit when auditions became more about singing ability and less about unearned confidence.

“Wait.” Jacinda leaned forward. “Speech competition?”

Theo nodded to Dae. “He can convince you to give up social media.”

She gripped her phone, horrorstruck. “Never.”

“He got second, shocked everyone.” He tried not to sound like a proud parent, but his words came out awed anyway. “Caused a whole tizzy.”

“A whole tizzy.” She beamed at him, and he squirmed under the praise, his ears glowing. “What’d you get, Theo?”

“Fifth.” He almost pulled a muscle showing how much he simply did not care about that competition. “I tried to talk to Dae backstage, and he almost glared me right out of the room.”

Dae threw a sugar packet at him. “No, I didn’t.”

“It’s fine.” Theo’s hand-wave was so dramatic it attracted the attention of the same guy across the café. “It inspired my mean nickname, and now I get to hold something over you.”

Jacinda gasped dramatically. “Mean nickname?”

Dae expelled his Theo-sigh and shook his head at the ceiling.

“We all have one,” Theo said, leaning in and dropping his voice to a stage-whisper. “It’s so he can talk about us in Korean.”

She turned on Dae. “What’s mine?”

He hesitated, then gave her a shy smile. “Girlfriend.”

Her body melted, spreading over him, then she landed a kiss directly on his dimple.

Theo looked away. To give them privacy. Obviously.

“Theo, you played Peter?”

“Captain Hook.” He turned his hand into a hook in case she happened to be the only person on the planet unfamiliar with the story.

“He was amazing.” Dae’s voice was more animated than Theo had ever heard it. “It didn’t matter that he couldn’t sing; he owned it. Like the play was written for him.”

Theo groaned. “This is so embarrassing.”

Jacinda snorted, picking up her phone to scroll. “No, it’s not. You love that he remembers.”

Correct. But he had to fake some embarrassment. It was the social contract.

“I think you should do it,” she said. “It would give you something to do.” The music switched from basic soft-pop to some kind of electric rock, making the table beside them groan, which in turn, made the barista turn it up even louder. “Oh yay.” Jacinda typed furiously on her phone, seemingly unaware of the musical battle happening around her. “Hailey’s on campus and wants to meet up. Wanna come?”