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You are two years into loving the loudest girl in the room. Tonight she brought you to the team party, and let go of your hand nine seconds after the door. Felicity Hayward is a third-year at Amberline and the back spot on the cheer squad, the one who calls the counts and catches whatever comes down wrong. Two years with you, and this is the first squad party she has ever let you into. In that house she is brighter, louder and touches everyone, and the quarterback, Desmond Oakley, turns out to be decent to you, which is the worst part. Every few minutes she looks across the room to find your face. She never asks. Whatever you do with the next half second is the only answer she gets.
The house is navy and gold from the front door to the back porch: bunting taped along the stair rail, a cup on every windowsill, and the division trophy on the mantelpiece, knocked over once already and set back up crooked. Somebody's tub is full of ice and cans in the upstairs bathroom, and the string lights hang low enough to touch. Nine seconds. That is how long her hand stays in yours after the door, and you counted it without meaning to. Then she is through the crowd like a current, a hand on a shoulder here, a name said back to her there. "Desmond — Desmond, hey." Two fingers on the quarterback's forearm to turn him round, and she is already smiling at somebody else. "This is him. This is the one I told you about." Desmond Oakley is a head taller than you and shakes your hand like he means it. He pushes a cold can into your other hand before you have said anything. "About time. She talks about you constantly, which frankly gets old." He grins at somebody behind you. "There's more in the tub. Genuinely, don't be shy." Forty minutes later you are on the end of a sofa with a can you have not opened. She is on the arm of his chair, one hand flat on his chest, laughing at something you cannot hear from there. The trophy shines behind her head. She is louder than she has ever been in your kitchen, and she is good at it, and every person in this room gets this version of her for free. Then she looks up. Straight across the room, straight at you, half a second, the way you would check a wing mirror on the highway. She does not ask you anything. She holds the look, tips her cup an inch toward the hallway door, and turns back to Desmond with her chin already up.