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I think about that for approximately four seconds.

If I walk into Margaret’s Books and ask my grandmother for Sloane Beckett’s number, I will not survive it. Not because she’d say no — she’d say yes so fast it’d leave a mark, and then she’d never, ever let it go. She’d bring it up at Christmas. She’d bring it up at my wedding, to someone, someday, theoretically. Remember when he came in and asked me for her number, Erik, do you remember? No. Absolutely not. I’d rather lose a tooth.

Which leaves the other way.

I scroll to Margo.

We’re not friends. We’re not not-friends either — Margo Ashby runs in the cheer-and-athletics ecosystem that I’m theoretically the king of and have never once enjoyed being the king of, and our paths cross at parties and team things often enough that we’ve got each other’s numbers from some logistics thing sophomore year. I’ve maybe spoken forty words to her in two years. But she’s Sloane’s roommate, and she’s the kind of connected that means she’ll have the number, and she’s not my grandmother.

I type it out slow, deleting twice, getting the words to sit still:

Hey Margo, it’s Beau. Random ask — could I get Sloane’s number? Need to reach her about something.

I hit send and put the phone in my pocket and keep walking and figure I’ll hear back in an hour, maybe, if at all.

The phone rings in my pocket forty seconds later.

It’s her. Margo calling. I stop on the path and look at it for a second, and then I answer, because not answering would be worse.

“Hello?”

“Beau Sorensen.” There’s gym noise behind her — the clank of plates, somebody’s music, the mechanical rhythm of a treadmill. She’s clearly mid-workout and clearly not the kind of person who lets a workout stop her from conducting an interrogation. “I’m going to need you to explain to me, in detail, why the captain of the hockey team is texting me at four in the afternoon asking for my best friend’s phone number.”

“I need to reach her about something.”

“Yeah, you said that. ‘Something.’ Love that. Very specific.” A grunt, the clank of a weight going down. “Try again. What’s the something?”

“It’s between Sloane and me.”

“Nothing involving Sloane is between you and Sloane until I’ve cleared it. That’s how this works. I’m the gate.” Another clank. “You don’t get to the princess without going through the dragon, and I am a very small, very angry dragon, and I have a lot of free time and an excellent memory.”

I find, standing on the path, that I’m smiling, which I did not expect to be doing. “You’re at the gym.”

“I’m always at the gym. Don’t change the subject. What are your intentions with my best friend?”

“My intentions?”

“You heard me.”

“Margo, you’re — what, five-five?”

“Five-five and a half, and I will end you, height is not a personality, Sorensen. I’ve made men twice my size cry. Answer the question.”

I lean against a lamppost. The afternoon’s gone cold and I should be walking but I’m not, because this is, against all odds, the most entertaining conversation I’ve had all day. “Okay. My intentions. I intend to —” I think about how much to say. I land on the truth, mostly, which is the version you don’t trip on. “I intend to spend some time with her. Be around. Take her to some things.”

“’Take her to some things.’” Margo repeats it with deep suspicion. “You realize she hates athletes.”

“I’ve gathered.”

“Like, specifically. On principle. She has a whole framework.”

“I’ve experienced the framework.”

“And you, an athlete — the head athlete, the alpha athlete, the one all the other athletes report to —”

“That’s not how a team works⁠—”

“—want to ‘spend time’ with the one girl on this campus who has correctly identified athletes as a problem.” The treadmill noise stops. She’s giving this her full attention now, which is somehow more alarming. “See, that’s interesting. That’s a real interesting choice. Because the Sloane I know would sooner date a refrigerator.”