Also, Emily had stolen her boyfriend.
Meg blew a breath out, making a face at herself even though there was no one to see it. God, she wasn’t Taylor Swift circa 2009. She knew that nobody could steal a boyfriend who didn’t want to be stolen, not to mention the fact that she was literally crossing state lines at this very moment to go see some other guy entirely. Still, the idea of Mason and Emily lying to her—the idea of them strategizing over the best way to let her down easy, like she couldn’t be trusted not to fall apart or make some big public scene—made her want to throw up all over the inside of the Prius. She was an adult. She could handle herself. She was fine.
Colby lived in a small town called Alma an hour or so outside Columbus. Meg pulled off the highway and followed the GPS with her bottom lip clamped between her teeth, passing a post office and a Dollar General and a strip mall with a CVS and a hair salon, her nerves getting thicker and more viscous as the landscape outside the window began to thin. Finally, she turned onto a quiet street in a residential neighborhood full of modest houses that looked like they’d all been built around the same time, pulling to a stop in front of a neat brick split-level with a wrought-iron screen over the front door. “You have arrived at your destination,” chirped the GPS.
Meg turned off the engine and sat in the driveway for a long moment, hands still curled around the wheel. For all the times she’d imagined meeting Colby in real life—and she had imagined it, daydreaming in the middle of calc class and lying alone in her bed late at night—for some reason the idea of marching up the front walk and ringing the bell felt impossible. It occurred to her all at once that there was still enough time to drive away.
Instead, she fished her phone from the cupholder before she could talk herself out of it, scrolling through her recents and pressing her thumb to Colby’s name. “Um,” she said when he answered, swallowing her heart back down into her chest where it belonged, “I think I’m here?”
“Oh!” Colby said. He sounded surprised, as if he hadn’t actually believed she was going to show up. “Okay. Um, hang on.”
The screen door screeched open a moment later, and a brown-and-black pit bull darted out, her stocky body trundling down the steps and across the lawn to where Meg was standing by the open driver’s-side door. “She’s friendly,” a deep voice called, even as the dog skidded to a stop in front of her, howling enthusiastically as it jumped.
Meg looked up and there was Colby: broader in the chest and shoulders than she’d been expecting, with shaggy brown hair and a vaguely suspicious expression. She’d spent the better part of last night trying on basically everything she owned before finally deciding on dark jeans and her very favorite T-shirt—another present from her mom’s cousin Jodie, a V-neck with a picture of a bespectacled fox and the slogan I don’t care for your misogyny—but Colby was barefoot in a pair of knee-length basketball shorts, like possibly she’d woken him up from a nap.
“Tris,” he said, grabbing the dog by the collar and setting her gently back down on all four paws. “Easy.”
“Tris?” Meg repeated, reaching down to scratch behind her velvety ears. “Like the girl from Divergent?”
“Who?” Colby looked at her strangely. “No, um, Tris Speaker. All-time greatest hitter on the Cleveland Indians.” He shrugged, something about the gesture weirdly defensive. “My dad named her.”
“Oh.” Meg nodded, straightening up again. “Right.”
Colby nodded back. His face was more delicate than Meg had expected, a jaw as sharp as sandstone and a scattering of tawny freckles across his nose and cheeks. His eyelashes were as long as a girl’s.
They stood there for a moment, looking at each other as Meg realized all at once that she had no idea how she was supposed to greet him. Did they hug? Shake hands? She couldn’t imagine how she’d somehow failed to think about this. “Hi,” she said finally, spreading her fingers in an awkward wave.
“Hi.” Colby shoved his own hands in his pockets. So, okay. No touching at all, then. That was fine. There was no reason to feel disappointed about that. “Um. Come on in.”
He led her up the front walk, Tris ambling along behind them. The house was small and super neat inside, so different from the expansive, vaguely artsy squalor of her own: Lacy curtains were tied back with gingham bows at the windows. A framed, embroidered Bible verse hung on one wood-paneled wall. A fleece blanket stitched with the logo of the Cleveland Indians was folded tidily over the back of one of those reclining sofas with built-in cup holders in the armrests, the kind her mom always called couch potato skins. Come to think of it, Meg could just imagine her mom’s reaction to this whole room, this whole neighborhood: a full-body shudder and a generous slug of wine.
“So,” Colby said, setting her backpack down on the seat of a brown corduroy armchair. “How was your drive?”
“Good,” she said immediately, her voice coming out loud and a little bit squeaky. Right away, Meg felt herself blush. God, this was Colby, who she’d been talking to constantly for nearly a month now. Everything was fine.
Everything . . . did not feel fine.
“Um,” she said, trying to think of something to ask him in return and drawing the kind of massive blank Mason always called a brain fart. Oh God, had she just driven eight hours to find they had nothing to say to each other? She looked around, suddenly desperate for someone else to draw into the conversation, someone she might possibly be able to charm. “Is your mom here?” she begged.
Colby shook his head. “She’s working a double this weekend,” he said, shifting his weight on the carpet. “She won’t be back until tomorrow after church.”
Meg tugged on her lip, a little bit weirded out. She had figured there would be a female adult in his house, honestly—on top of which something about the way he’d said it had her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “But she’s cool with me staying here, yeah?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Colby said immediately. Then his face dropped a little bit. “I mean, I didn’t mention it to her, exactly. But she wouldn’t care.”
Meg frowned. “Colby—”
“I’m serious!” he promised. “My friends stay over when she’s at work all the time.”
“Yeah, but—” She broke off.
“I know,” Colby said, sounding for the first time since she’d arrived like the person she was used to talking to on the phone. “I just didn’t know how to explain it to her, I guess. I wasn’t doing it to be sketchy.”
“It feels a little sketchy,” Meg said.
“I’m sorry.” Colby scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Do you want me to call her now?”
She considered that, watching as he bent down to rub the dog along her backbone. Something about the way he was with Tris made her trust him more, even though she knew that was literally how serial killers lured people into vans. “It’s fine,” she said eventually, perching on the edge of the sofa. After all, she didn’t exactly have a leg to stand on when it came to telling the truth about this particular situation. “If you’re sure she’s not going to be upset.”