Page 31 of Her Game Plan

I shake my head. “Nope. Prove it. Right now. Show me your feet.”

“Callan!” she shrieks as I reach over the center console and grab her leg. “Let go of me!” She’s laughing now as I attempt to pull her foot up. “Stop it!”

“Show me,” I demand again, doing my best to keep the smile from my face.

She rolls her eyes, but lifts her right foot, sliding off her tennis shoe and sock. Wiggling her toes, she asks, “See? No juices.”

Definitely no juices. Just cute toes, painted a bright rainbow of colors. I wrinkle my nose. “Kinda stinky though. Yeah, no, definitely don’t put those on my dashboard.”

“I wasn’t going to!” She drops her arms in exasperation.

As she puts everything back on, I pull up my music app on my center console, selecting my “Music” playlist.

“You only have three playlists?”

I glance at her befuddled face. “Yes. That’s all I need. Games. Parties. Or Music. How many do you have?”

“I’ve never counted them!” she gasps, holding a hand over her heart. “But I make a new one every month or two. Maybe three, if the one before was a real banger.”

Holy crap. How can she possibly decide what to listen to? “That is too fucking many. Do you only listen to them for that month? Do you go back to the old ones after you make the next one?”

“I go back to them all the time. It depends on what I’m looking for.”

I merge into traffic as we exit the quiet streets of my neighborhood. “Explain it to me like I’m five,” I parrot her words from earlier.

She purses her lips, a wholly unimpressed expression on her face. “It depends on the vibes I’m looking for. Like, for instance”—she scrolls through her phone—“when I was working toward my last promotion, I created one that’s all badass female artists performing songs that are empowering in some way. Or when I was at grad school, I was missing Colorado, so I have one that’s a bunch of songs that either talk about the state or remind me of it.”

I pull my gaze away from her face, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel. “That feels chaotic. How can you choose?”

“Having so many options means I never have to choose. I don’t know how you stick to three playlists. How do you decide what should be on them? What if you decide you don’t like a song?”

I pull into a parking spot at the convenience store. “They’re part of my routine. The point is that they don’t change. And there is a song I don’t like on one of them.”

She stares at me, her hand still tangled with the seat belt she’s in the process of unbuckling. “And you leave it on there?”

“Yup.” I climb out of the car and meet Charlotte in front of the store’s doors. After pulling one open, I hold it while she enters.

“I can’t believe you don’t take it off the playlist. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.” She follows me down the aisle, past the rows of chocolate bars, to the place where the brightly colored bags of candy hang.

I grab the red one we need. “Got it.” When she doesn’t come right away, I grab her hand, tugging her with me, warmth seeping into my palm from her touch.

“What if I want something else?” she demands.

“You won’t.” I drop her hand so I can tap my card to the reader, thanking the man behind the checkout counter before we head back to the car.

Once we’re both seated inside, I tear open the top of the bag. “Are you so excited?” I’m practically bouncing in my seat.

“So excited,” she deadpans.

I pull back the handful I was going to offer her. “I’m not going to share them with you if you’re going to have that attitude about it.” Closing my fist when she tries to make a grab for them, I tsk. “My reflexes are far too good for that.”

“Let me try them,” she demands, crossing her arms. It’s cute. Not that I will be telling her that.

I shake my head. “Tell me you’re excited to, and then I will.”

“I’m excited to try the Nerds Clusters,” she replies, monotone. Then she sticks out her palm like she thinks that will work.

“Not good enough.” I put two in my mouth, chewing slowly as I let out a dramatic moan. “So good.”