Page 69 of Heartthrobs Don't Date Wallflowers
Grace came tearing out of the back door a second later, with Neil just behind her with a guitar in his hand.
“Found the chips,” she announced, holding up bags full of them. She dumped them by our feet and sat down beside her sister, yanking some of the blanket off her. Sloane glared at her but let her take it anyway. Guess that’s what big sisters did. I could relate.
“Will you guys hurry up?” Sloane said. “I’m freezing here.”
“This is harder than it looks!”
She glared at him. “Luca Jude, you do this every single week. Don’t you think you should know how to do it by now?”
They continued to bicker back and forth, but I was more focused on the first thing she said. Luca Jude. Sohewas Luca. The Luca that Zach would talk about all the time. The Luca in the groupchat. The one who always made Zach coffee, who stole Hudson’s shirt, and who seemed to be possibly the most chaotic person ever. Of course. I should have realized it before.
I looked at Megan. Somehow, in all the craziness since Zach and I started dating, I’d forgotten to tell her about the mix-up with the group chat.
“Hey,” I said. She turned her curious gaze on me, her light blonde hair blowing around in the breeze. “I’ve been meaning to tell you—do you remember that first day of school when you added me to the science group chat?”
Megan nodded, looking a little confused.
“Well, see, the thing is, you didn’t actually add me to the science group chat.” She opened her mouth, probably to ask what exactly I meant. So I just barreled on and said, “You actually added me to the band group chat. At least, I think it’s the band group chat. I mean, Zach and Jude are definitely in it, and obviously, you are, and I’m guessing the rest of you are.”
Megan’s eyes widened and for a split second, I thought she was going to be angry. But then she burst out laughing. She elbowed Sloane hard in the side, breaking her out of the bickering match she was having with Jude, and said through a fit of laughter, “Ivy’s been in the group chat this whole time.”
It took Sloane a second to understand what Megan was talking about but then she started laughing too. If I’d realized they were going to find it this funny, I would have told them sooner. But thenagain, maybe it was better that I was telling them now that I was actually dating Zach. It might have been a different story back in those early days when I was just the new girl in town.
“I’m so sorry,” Megan said through fits of laughter. “I really—I really thought I added you to the science one. I—oh gosh.” She suddenly flushed bright red and let her head fall into her hands. “Oh, the things we talk about in there. You probably think we’re all freaks. It’s a wonder you’re even willing to be here tonight.”
“Megan was added to the group chat by mistake, too,” Sloane told me. “She was the first one of us ever added to it, because they added her instead of Zach by accident.”
“What?” I asked. “How—how does that?—”
“Wrong number,” Megan mumbled, still laughing into her hands. “They typed it in wrong, and here we are.”
If somebody had told me two weeks ago that they’d done that, I probably would have thought it was ridiculous that she stayed in the group chat, the fact that she ended up dating one of the boys in it. But who was I to judge? When I accidentally texted the wrong boy instead of my ex, I’d done the exact same thing. What was it about Zach’s number that was so hard to get right?
“So, who is everyone in the group chat?” I asked. “I’ve been trying to figure it out but it seems like they’re all inside jokes.”
Megan sighed. “Oh, trust me. Ittook me a while to figure it out, too. So, the boys first, uh… Hudson is Bay—you know, like Hudson Bay. And then there’s Ni-Ni, who’s Neil.”
“Right, I figured that one,” I said.
“Finn is Sharky.”
“Finn?” I asked, then it clicked. “Oh, like a shark fin?”
“I have to assume that’s why,” she said. “I’m not the one who named him, but that does seem like the kind of thing Luca would do, and I am certain that he is the one who named everyone.”
“Luca,” I said. I glanced at the boys by the fire pit. “Jude.”
“Yes.” She snapped her fingers like she was remembering something. “Sorry, I forgot to tell you. He only goes by Jude in the band, but his real name is Luca.”
“Luca Jude,” Sloane added. “It’s his middle name. That’s why he picked it.”
I nodded. “Okay, right. Makes sense.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Megan said pleasantly. Then she just continued on as if she hadn’t said that at all. “Not Zesty is Zach, but I’m sure you knew that already.”
“Yes”, I said. “Actually, it’s the name he used when we first started talking over text and we didn’t know each other. It was the name he gave me. That’s how I figured out he was in the chat.”
Megan’s eyes widened. “Okay, I need the full story of this sometime because I am so lost.”
