You Wouldn't Dare by Samantha Markum

Author:Samantha Markum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

The day after the Fourth of July, we have rehearsal. Even though I only missed one practice after my injury, I’m woefully behind my castmates—even Will, which is really upsetting. I’ve had to reference my script three times already during a particularly difficult scene involving Benedick and Beatrice, the wedding band, and the melancholy Jaques, whom Benedick and Beatrice are attempting to set up as a date with other single wedding guests. There are a lot of moving bodies, and when I miss a line for the fourth time, Miss Liu calls for a break.

“Well, if it isn’t my disloyal best friend,” I say when I reach the cooler at the same time as Milo. He’s drenched in sweat from their work on the train, which is the most complicated piece in the set.

Milo glares at me. “Nice. Real nice.”

I flap my script at him. “Just telling it like it is.”

“It’s not like you gave me any warning,” he says, his eyebrows drawing down low. “When they asked me not to bring you, I thought it was that stupid thing with Zephyr and the beer. I figured if I went, I could talk them out of being so pissed off about it. I didn’t know what I was walking into. As soon as I brought it up, they shut me down. No one told me exactly what you said, but the words life-altering rumors were thrown around.”

I scoff, tossing my head. “Life-altering rumors. They’re so fucking dramatic.”

“Do we need to talk about stones and glass houses?”

“I’m not dramatic!”

“She says dramatically.”

I reach out with my good arm and shove him.

“Anyway,” he says, “you really can’t be that mad at me. I was there, like, an hour and a half, tops. And I told Cora I’m not planning on spending my summer separated from my friends just because you said some stuff to hers.”

“An hour and a half? What did you do all day, sit at home?”

“What are you talking about? I had to work. You were probably already home by the time I got off.”

I blink at him. “Wait, what?”

He gapes at me. “You thought I was there all day, at a party you weren’t invited to? Jeez, JN, I thought you knew me better than that.”

“But—but Lucy said—” I stop short and bite down on my lips.

Milo raises his eyebrows.

I frown. “She said you had other plans.”

“I did,” Milo says. “Working. And then McKayla’s party to see Cora.”

“Oh.”

Milo grins. “I bet you feel pretty dumb now, huh?”

I scowl at him. “Don’t look so happy about it.”

“So, wanna tell me what happened that’s got everyone so pissed off at you?” He perches on the arm of a pair of theater seats.

My cheeks burn. “Not particularly.”

“Hey, come on.” He puts a hand on his chest. “It’s me. I promise I won’t be too disappointed in you.”

I feel a rush of outrage. “Oh, that’s nice. You just assume I’m the one who did something wrong? Me, your best friend of seventeen years?”

He stares at me, unaffected.

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