Is he hitting on her? Bea is utterly unpracticed at flirting. She’s been with Erik forever; everybody in Remington Hollow knows she’s with Erik. But Gabe seems sincere, not like he has an agenda. And he’s so chill. He emanates chill. Like he has this innate calm that is totally foreign to Bea. Does it come from living on the water? Is it something he was born with or something he cultivated? She squints at him. Does he meditate? Does he smoke a lot of weed?
She is curious. About the boat, and about the boy on it.
“Okay.” She gives him a smile that feels more genuine than anything she’s said in weeks. “Rain check.”
Chapter Seven
KAT
After they sign the cast list, Kat and Pen walk over to Gert’s for celebratory ice cream. Pen offers to drive Kat home afterward, but Kat decides to walk. It’s a gorgeous, sunny day, and Gert’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Shoppe is only a dozen blocks from home. If she’s going to have ice cream and Bea’s strawberry crumble, she wants to burn a few calories.
As Kat walks, she thinks about Adam, and her strides lengthen into a sort of angry march. How dare he accuse her of mean-girl shit—and in that frustrated, weary voice, like he’s so above it all. Like the age difference between them is five years instead of one. Okay, maybe she and Pen played a few pranks on Jillian: Pen stole her phone and changed all her contacts to Harry Potter characters; Kat hid her clothes after gym (but Jillian eventually found them, so it wasn’t that bad); and Pen made up a fake email to spam Jillian with poorly spelled messages for breast reductions. That last one was kind of childish. But they could have done way worse. They could have spray-painted slut on Jillian’s cute red Mini Cooper or spread a rumor that she was pregnant; that would have been real mean-girl shit. But that’s not how Kat rolls.
Still, maybe she’s going about this all wrong. Now Adam feels protective of Jillian, like she’s the victim, and he thinks Kat is even more of a drama queen than before. If she wants to flip the balance of power, she has to use his enormous ego against him. She has to convince him that she’s moved on.
As Kat marches past the Tabby Cat Café, she spots Mason Kim behind the register, messing around on his phone. She wonders if anyone’s texted him that he got the role of Laurie yet. Mase is well-liked, but he’s been kind of a loner since his boyfriend left for college last fall. Kat peeks in the front window, angling around the HELP WANTED sign. Mase is always on his phone. Brandon, his boyfriend, decided to work at the Kings Dominion amusement park this summer instead of coming home.
Kat opens the door tentatively. She had her eighth, ninth, and tenth birthday parties at the café, but she hasn’t been here for ages. Cat cafés might be all the rage in places like Los Angeles or Tokyo, but this one is geared toward little kids and old ladies and nobody in between. The furniture is mostly uncomfortable, flowered love seats and armchairs. Ugly cat figurines and decorative china plates clutter every table and shelf, half of them knocked askew by the cats. The litter boxes are upstairs, but the place reeks of potpourri in an overzealous attempt to cover the smell.
“Hey, Mase.” Kat closes the door as he grabs a curious black-and-white cat before it can escape. The name tag on its collar reads Suri.
“Hey, Kat. What’s up?” Mase says. They’ve been in a few shows together, but they aren’t really friends. He’s a year older, like Adam and Jillian.
“Did you hear? The cast list is up. I’m Jo.” She smiles proudly. “Congratulations. You’re my Laurie.”
Mase nods. “Cool.”
Cool? That’s all? He got the male lead—why isn’t he more excited? “Isn’t that the part you wanted?” Maybe Mase has a major scheduling conflict and needs to take a smaller role, and then Adam will get to be Laurie after all. “You’re not running off to Kings Dominion too, are you?”
“Nope.” Mase clears his throat. “There are no trips to Virginia in my future.”
“Are you sure?” Kat asks, petting Suri, who has escaped Mase’s grasp and wandered over to her.
Mase’s smile flattens. “Pretty sure, yeah. Brandon and I broke up.”
“Oh,” Kat says softly. “I’m sorry.” They’d been together for two years. That is practically forever in the world of Remington Hollow High showmances. “The long-distance thing must have been hard.”
“I didn’t think it was that difficult.” Mase’s jaw twitches. “Till he cheated on me.”
Kat purses her red lips sympathetically. “What an asshole.”
“Yeah.” But Mase looks brokenhearted, and his delivery lacks conviction.
“Adam cheated on me too,” she offers.
“I heard,” Mase says. Everybody heard. When she saw Adam and Jillian kissing backstage, she cussed them both out so thoroughly—and so loudly—that the vice principal gave her detention. “It’s not the same thing. Brandon and I… He was my first love. And he slept with somebody else.”
“That sucks,” Kat admits. Poor Mase. He must be going totally stir-crazy working here all day with nobody to talk to besides Miss Lydia. He clearly needs someone to confide in. Someone to help him out of his heartbreak.
“I still love him,” Mase confesses, his shoulders slumping.
“Yeah? What are you doing about it?” Kat props her elbows on the counter. Suri, annoyed at being neglected, tears off across the room.
“Doing about it?” Mase runs a hand through his spiky black fauxhawk. “I don’t know. Eating my feelings? Stalking him online? Texting that I miss him?”
Kat scrunches up her face. “What the hell? No. Mase, come on. That is a terrible strategy.”
Luna, Miss Lydia’s one-eyed gray cat, jumps onto the counter and butts her head against Mase’s arm. “It’s not really a strategy,” Mase says.
“No kidding. You can’t let him know you miss him! That gives him all the power.”
“He has all the power. He’s the one who broke up with me.”
“But he doesn’t have to know you’re pining.” Kat picks up a cat toy—a feather on a string—and twitches it back and forth. “Look. You have to make him miss you.”
“How? I’m spending my summer working here.” Mase gestures around the empty café. “I play with cats and dick around on my phone all day while I serve tea to little girls and old ladies.”
Kat looks at the front window, where Cinnamon, the original tabby, is taking a nap in the sun. Where the pink HELP WANTED sign is taped to the glass. “Miss Lydia’s hiring?”
Mase nods. “She wants someone to help her spruce up the place.”