Tell Me It’s Right (Sweetspire #1)

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

GRACIE

“Can you guys see me?”

“No. You’re literally the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met, Trish. You have to turn your camera on. Seriously, how can you work in tech and not know how to work a video chat?” Alison flops onto her stomach on her bed, the camera shaking as she repositions her laptop in front of her.

“And you’re the most impatient person I’ve ever met,” says Trish. “I work for a tech company . That doesn’t mean I do the tech part. Wait, those glasses are cute.”

Alison beams and twists her face this way and that to give a better look. They’re bigger than her old ones, the square lenses now twice the size of her eyes. “You like them? They’re new.”

“That hotel looks nice too,” says Trish. “Where are you tonight?”

“Seattle.”

“What!” shrieks Trish.

“I know, I know. If my flight time wasn’t so early tomorrow, I would’ve popped down to visit you.”

“One of these days I’m going to get on one of your flights and just spam that call button all. Night. Long.”

My laptop blinks red at me, threatening to hibernate if I don’t plug it in, and I urgently search the floor for my charger.

“Ugh, now where’d Gracie go?” whines Alison. “I’m all aloneeeee. ”

“I’m coming! I’m coming!” I call, throwing aside dirty clothes and searching beneath the bed. I still haven’t fully unpacked, and the room seems to get messier and messier with every moment I don’t.

“And Martina is late, as per usual,” Alison continues.

“You have a lot of complaints tonight,” I call, crawling around to the other side of the bed.

“I haven’t seen you guys in weeks. Even longer since I’ve seen you in person. Excuse me for missing you.”

“Found it!” I call.

“Found what?” asks Trish.

“Trish, your camera is still off,” says Alison.

I quickly plug the laptop in and jump onto my bed as Trish’s camera flickers on, glitching a few times and making the twinkle lights along her wall smear across the screen. Alison slow claps for her, and Trish reappears with the middle finger.

“Should someone text Marti?” I suggest.

“Fuck her,” says Alison. “If she can’t be bothered to make time for us —oh hi, Marti!”

Marti’s video appears on screen below mine, a green skincare mask covering her face. She narrows her eyes. “Qué gracioso, el burro hablando de orejas.”

Alison looks to me for a translation.

I shrug. “She called you a donkey.”

“ A donkey? ”

Marti smiles innocently. “Only literally.”

A loud yell sounds in the background of someone’s video, drowning out whatever Marti was poised to say next. Trish’s expression falls into a scowl, and she freezes in the middle of French braiding one half of her hair, which she has apparently dyed back to neon pink since we’ve been gone. The black stint didn’t really suit her. It’s a miracle she has any hair left with how often she changes her mind. “That’s my lovely new roommate. Be right back.” Her video cuts off again.

“Gracie, where are you?” Marti leans closer to the screen, squinting. “It looks…dark?”

“Oh.” I laugh and rustle around in my blankets until I find my headphones, shooting a glance at the stairs. Leo and Keava are watching a movie in the living room, so they shouldn’t be able to hear me down here, but just in case, I shove them in my ears. “Still settling in. The…uh…old light fixtures here broke, like, right after I moved in, and I haven’t installed anything new yet.”

“That blows,” says Alison, whose face slowly shifts into a mischievous grin. “Why not have that new boyfriend come over and help you?”

“Boyfriend?” Marti demands. “Why have I not heard about this?”

I glare at Alison. “I never said boyfriend .”

“You said you were seeing someone—same difference!”

I shoot a look at the stairs again.

“Did you meet him at work?” Marti asks. “How’s that going anyway? What’s the magazine you’re working for called?”

“Okay, okay, I’m back.” Trish’s video reappears, saving me. She huffs as she falls into her bed, now holding a gigantic orange cat. “The new roommate and Gregory aren’t exactly…well acquainted yet.”

I swallow hard, hoping Marti will drop it. It’s my own fault. I don’t know why I’m bothering to keep up with the charade anymore. At first it started off with a few white lies over text. Oh yeah, I’m dating. The job hunt is going well. Oh, you’re apartment hunting? Me too! With all of them landing jobs in their fields within days of graduating—not to mention their ever-exciting love lives that involve a new prospect every other week and new apartments in new cities—I just couldn’t tell them the truth.

That not a single company has been interested in me. I’ve barely talked to a boy since college. And if it weren’t for Leo, I’d be living with my parents right now.

And, I guess, if it weren’t for Liam, I’d still be unemployed.

They’re out doing everything you’re supposed to do when you graduate college, and I’m here sitting alone in a basement.

I never intended to keep up the lies for long. Just keep them vague enough until I did find something, and then they wouldn’t be lies anymore.

That was weeks ago.

Every day that I don’t come clean, I feel like I’m digging myself farther and farther into this damn hole, and I’m starting to think they’ll never not be lies. I’m going to be single and pity-employed by my brother’s best friend for the rest of my life, and maybe if Leo is feeling generous, he’ll let me turn his basement into an oasis for shelter cats so I can fulfill my destiny as a lonely, crazy cat lady where I’ll pick up knitting and watching game shows in the afternoon?—

“Helloooo. Earth to Gracie.”

I blink back to the laptop to find all three of my friends staring at me.

“Did you hear me?” asks Marti, sans face mask. She must have gone to wash it off while I wasn’t paying attention.

“She was contemplating the end of the world,” says Trish.

“I said , I have news!” says Marti. “And speaking of the end of the world, Gracie, You, Me, and the End of the World is getting a movie.”

“ What? ” I all but shriek.

“I don’t know what that is,” singsongs Alison.

“I think it’s a book,” offers Trish.

“Not just any book!” I scramble off the bed to dig through the box of books I haven’t unpacked yet. When I find the right one, I proudly thrust it in the air.

It’s one of the most beat-up books I own from how many times I’ve read it. The pages are full of tabs and highlights and notes in the margins, the pages yellowed from reading it on the beach over and over.

“That’s not even the best part!” squeals Marti. “I don’t think they’ve made the news public yet. I heard about it from my agent. She sent over the sides for the audition, and I recognized it immediately.”

“Wait, audition ?” I throw myself onto the bed. “You mean…you might…”

“I’m auditioning for Teagan!”

“Oh my God. Oh my God .”

“Will someone please explain to me what’s going on,” whines Alison.

“This is our favorite book, like, ever,” gushes Marti. “We both read it when we were in middle school. It’s one of the first things we bonded over freshman year. The author is actually from Gracie’s hometown.”

I hold up the book for them to see.

Trish leans forward, squinting. “Is that a zombie ?”

Marti nods vigorously. “It’s a romcom. Set in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.”

“It’s about this small town on the coast that everyone thinks is crazy because everyone there has been preparing for the end of the world and has, like, fallout bunkers and everything.”

“And the main character has been training for this all her life with her dad, so she’s this crazy badass?—”

“And her love interest is her high school rival?—”

“And they end up needing each other’s help to survive?—”

“Okay, okay, we get it,” says Alison.

“You’re never going to read it, are you?” I say.

Alison smiles innocently and shrugs. “I’ll watch the movie! Especially if Marti’s in it!”

“When’s your audition?” asks Trish.

Marti waves a hand. “Oh, I’m just sending in a self-tape. I’ll probably never hear anything back.”

“No, no, I can see it!” I insist. “You would be so good. You have to keep us updated!”

She does an excited little shimmy. “Keep your fingers crossed for me.”

“I think we should plan a girls’ trip,” Alison jumps in. “Like a reunion.”

“Where to?” I ask.

“I vote a beach,” Trish says immediately. “Portland will be in full swing with the rain before I know it, so I’ll be craving some sun soon.”

“I vote Vegas,” says Marti. “You guys could come to LA for a bit first if you want, then we would road trip it.”

“What about a boat? Like a cruise?” offers Alison.

“Okay, is it lame to suggest we bring the boys too?” says Trish. “This is the first time we’re all dating at the same time, so it could be kind of fun, right?”

I stop breathing.

“Oh my God, yeah, you’re right!” says Marti. “That could be fun.”

“I kind of desperately want to get the fuck away from my family around the holidays, so what if we spent Christmas together instead?” suggests Alison. “Then we’d have like, what? How many months away is that?”

“Six months,” I say, my shoulders relaxing. That’s a perfectly reasonable amount of time to find a boy to bring…or fake a breakup, if need be. The rest of it, well, hopefully I can figure that out in six months too.

The alternative—being in this exact situation half a year from now—kind of makes me want to swan dive off the edge of my bed.

“Right!” says Alison. “So that gives us plenty of time to come up with a game plan.”

Martina shrugs. “Works for me.”

Trish cracks open a beer and raises it to her camera. “I’m in!”

“Gracie?” says Alison. “We’re not doing it unless everyone agrees.”

The chat falls silent, everyone looking at their screens.

Everyone looking at me .

I force a smile. “Of course I’m in.”