Lucky Girl Read online

  Dedication

  For my mom and my sister: I’m so lucky to have you.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ads

  About the Author

  Books by Amanda Maciel

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  “YOU BROUGHT BALLOONS.” Ryan’s face doesn’t move as he stares at the mess of color floating over my head. “To the airport.”

  “Is that not a thing?” I ask. My arm hurts a little as a gust of late-summer wind yanks on the bouquet.

  “No, they’re . . .” He laughs. “They’re great. And she’ll be able to see us from a mile away! It’s perfect.”

  I stick out my tongue at him. Maddie won’t have a problem finding us in the Omaha airport, which is basically just one big room. But I thought the balloons would be nice. And it’s the kind of thing my best friend would do for me, if I was the one who’d spent half the summer at a cool science/soccer program in Spain.

  Plus, I think Maddie could use some cheering up. Early in the summer she was telling me all about this guy she’d met, asking for flirting advice like she always does. Maddie’s the sporty, STEM-y one and I’m the one who knows about boys, so I think my tips were pretty solid. But then she stopped talking about him and I never saw any pictures, so . . . I guess we’re back to square one.

  Ryan strides toward the airport doors. “I know she was a walking disaster before she left, but you didn’t have to get her a hospital present.”

  I pull the balloons down fast, so that some of the low ones bonk Ryan in the head. He yelps and we both laugh, and the automatic doors swoosh us into the freezing baggage area. “Hospital present isn’t a thing,” I tell him. “But if it was, it’d be flowers.”

  Okay, maybe I feel like I owe her a present because of last year. Like how her date, Ben Perez, left in the middle of Spring Formal without telling her or even sending a text until two days later. And how I wasn’t even there, because I was busy driving to the lake with my boyfriend at the time, Paul.

  And then the week before she left for Europe, Maddie’s parents announced they were getting a divorce. She came to see me at my job, crying, and all I could do was take a fifteen-minute break and hug her while she cried. I really wanted to say the right thing, but I don’t know—Maddie’s parents are weird. At least with the Ben Perez thing I knew what to do—unfollow him on all the socials and cough “loser” when I saw him at school. What do you say about someone’s parents?

  Luckily my job at Dairy Queen has left me a lot of time to think this summer, particularly about being a better friend. Or at least getting back to being the fun friend with good advice about guys. Even if the jerk in Spain didn’t work out, we’ll find Maddie someone awesome this year. She deserves that.

  “Seven o’clock,” Ryan mutters, turning toward me and jerking his head a little, back and to the left. “You’ve got another admirer.”

  I look past his shoulder and see a boy about our age, sixteen or seventeen, not much taller than either of us. But solid. Not cute, exactly—sort of rust-colored hair and dark eyes and almost a mean look on his face. Or not mean, maybe. Intense. As soon as the guy sees me looking back, his glance flits away. He’s waiting at the same baggage carousel Maddie should be headed for, from her connecting flight from Chicago. An older guy, probably his dad, stands next to him. They don’t talk.

  “Oh, and him, too. He’s hot.” Now Ryan’s looking past my shoulders at someone else.

  “You don’t think they’re just checking out the balloons?”

  He snorts. “Get it? The balloons?”

  “Oh my God, you’re ridiculous.” I shake my head, but actually I’m going to miss this, having Ryan to myself. The way guys stare at me sort of makes Maddie crazy, even more than it bothers my mom. Sometimes she seems jealous, sometimes worried—it’s always something. Another reason that life would be better this year if Maddie had a good boyfriend. Win-win-win, or however the saying goes.

  “Where is that girl?” Ryan asks, and then he jumps. “Madelyn Costello, report to carousel three!”

  I hear Maddie’s squeal before I see her, and her arms are around me before I can even get a breath. She smells like flowers, and she hugs me tight, like always. We hop around, holding each other, and then she’s hugging Ryan. We’re all laughing and it’s old times again—until she steps back and I get a good look.

  And gasp.

  “I know!” she cries, smiling so big it looks like it must be hurting her face. “My hair got super blond!”

  It’s true, but also—Maddie is gorgeous. She’s always been pretty, but now she looks like a girl from TV. She looks like she should be trying out for a modeling reality show.

  “Good on you, girl,” Ryan says, reaching out and touching Maddie’s long hair. Very long hair. Long and beachy and definitely super blond. “Love.”

  Her face is bright and freckled and she really can’t stop grinning. “We were outside all the time, you know. With the soccer and everything. Seriously, you guys wouldn’t believe how into it they are. It’s not even a sport, it’s a religion.”

  I nod vaguely. How did I not know she’d changed so much? We talked all the time. But her Instagram was all blue skies and old cathedrals and stuff. Maddie’s not a selfie girl, at least not without me around. My brain struggles to put together the Maddie who left two months ago—the sweet and pretty but very sporty, kind of plain girl—with the girl here. This girl has amazing hair and beautifully tanned skin and legs that are totally longer than they used to be and clothes . . . I mean, even her clothes look exotic. . . . Foreign.

  “You could be a model,” I finally manage to say. She laughs like I’m joking, and I’m glad because that means she can’t hear how jealous I sound. Am I jealous? God.

  “You’ve got competition,” Ryan says, elbowing me.

  “Now you’re just being ridiculous.” Maddie rolls her eyes.

  “Okay, now let’s talk about how pretty I am,” Ryan says.

  Maddie laughs and turns to grab her suitcase. I’m still smiling but it’s starting to pinch a little.

  It’s not that she’s so pretty. Or not just that. She’s different. I watch as she strolls alongside the conveyor belt, casually tossing her hair over one shoulder. Last spring Maddie was still wearing Keds and shorts that came down to her knees. Now she has on a skirt and chic, strappy sandals and she’s laughing with some random airport guy who’s helping her with her bags.

  Without meaning to, I glance over to where Intense Boy was standing earlier. But he’s gone.

  I’ve never been jealous of Maddie. She’s good at sports and her parents can afford stuff like summer programs in Spain, but I have my own things. And unlike most girls at our school, Maddie never turned our friendship into a big competition over guys or prettiness or whatever.

  I blink, trying to shake off the weird feeling. She looks happy. That’s what’s important. And if she also seems a million times more confident than
when she left, then . . . great. That’s great.

  Ryan picks up Maddie’s carry-on as she wheels two big duffels back toward us and the doors.

  “You guys are so nice to pick me up! I missed my R ’n’ R!” Maddie grins at us over her shoulder, and then finally she seems to notice that I’m basically that old man from Up. “And you brought balloons! Oh, Rosie, you remembered!”

  I feel a sudden rush of warm reassurance, because of course Maddie remembers that one time in eighth grade when she brought me a balloon. I’d gone to Arizona with my mom for her dad’s funeral, and when we got back from the airport Maddie was sitting on our porch with a big balloon shaped like Elmo. For some reason it just made us both laugh really hard, how silly it was. That was when I decided that even though Maddie didn’t care about makeup or stalking boys online or hanging out at the right mall on Saturdays, she was going to be my best friend.

  Ryan and Maddie drop the duffels near the back of my mom’s old SUV. I click it open and let them put the luggage in before I stuff the balloons in the way-back space.

  “Okay, what happens if you have to see out the back window?” Ryan asks me.

  Maddie hugs him again. “Don’t pick on her—she brought them for me.” And then she hugs me again, too, and this time I have both hands free to hug her back.

  “Okay, okay.” Ryan rolls his eyes at us, but in a nice way. “I told Father Matt I’d come help with the relief boxes we’re sending the church in Beatrice, so I gotta run.”

  Maddie makes a pouting face. “You’re not coming with us? But Village Inn! Pie! A million photos of Spain on my phone!”

  He just kisses her forehead in response. Maddie’s almost as tall as Ryan now. And they’re about the same level of tan—that golden shade that I’d kill for but just cannot achieve. My mom tells me to be thankful for my pale complexion, and I do get a lot of Angelina Jolie comparisons, but still. Sometimes I wish I could just be cute. And wear an SPF below 2 million.

  “Tell David I said hello,” I say to Ryan as I walk toward the driver’s side.

  “Who?” he replies, but his cheeks are red. Neither of us knows for sure if David, who goes to St. John’s and volunteers almost as much as Ryan, is actually gay. But he’s got this dimple that we’ve spent half the summer admiring.

  “Oh, man, I want to hear about David,” Maddie says.

  “Next time. Maybe.” Ryan waves and hurries across the parking lot.

  I climb behind the wheel, start the car, and roll down the windows. As soon as hers is lowered all the way, Maddie sticks her head out and yells, “Hello, Nebraska! I’m home!”

  I steer us toward the exit and laugh again. Maybe she hasn’t changed so much, after all.

  After I pay the short-term parking fee, Maddie turns sideways in her seat and says, “Tell me everything. Everything. What’s going on with—um. Are you still hanging out with Cory Callahan?”

  I shrug. “Sort of. But who cares, you’re supposed to have the stories! You’ve been hooking up with Spaniards.”

  “Well, I told you about Miguel, and how he was all tongue.” She shudders, and so do I. “But there was actually an American guy who was really nice. And smart. We were study partners for a while.”

  I feel a little jolt. She didn’t tell me about an American guy. Why not? “Oooh, study partners,” I say, ignoring my stupid worries.

  “No, not like you’re thinking. I mean, I took your advice, I ‘got out there.’” She makes air quotes and shrugs. “But this guy was just really fun to hang out with. Great footballer, too. Not as hot as Cory Callahan, though. God, remember when I was in love with him for all of freshman year?”

  I turn onto the freeway, enjoying the little surge of adrenaline as I press down on the gas pedal. Above us, the sunny sky is starting to turn gray, as flat and dull as the road. It must look so boring after Europe.

  “Oh—yeah,” I say. I’d actually forgotten about her Cory crush. She didn’t talk about it that much; had she really been in love with him for an entire year?

  “Anyway, I met Aaron at the pickup games we used to play at night, you know, when all the dorm kids would hang out.”

  I nod. I’m not jealous, definitely not. I don’t even like soccer.

  “But he lives in North Carolina, so I guess I’ll just have to move on with my life.” Maddie laughs, sounding genuinely chill about it. Which is also weird, because Maddie is fun but she’s rarely chill.

  “Well, if you want to start moving on tonight, there’s a thing out in that new neighborhood where Gabe Richmond lives,” I tell her. “A bunch of the houses are, like, half finished, so we’ve been taking beer and picnic blankets and stuff. Gabe has all that weird hunting gear. Did you see his awful dead-deer photos on Instagram?”

  “Ew, yes,” she says. “Wait, are there dead animals at these parties?”

  “No! It’s just, that’s why Gabe has, like, the entire Cabela’s fall collection. Lanterns and shit. It’s actually kind of cozy.”

  Maddie takes a lip gloss out of her bag, checking her face in a pocket mirror I’ve never seen before. I ease the car onto the exit ramp, angling the steering wheel with one hand onto the side road that leads to Village Inn. I don’t remember Maddie ever touching up her makeup in the car. Or anywhere else, really.

  “Isn’t that illegal, though?” she asks.

  “Probably. But it’s fun, and it’s not like we graffiti the place or anything.”

  “Ha, okay. Let me just see how the parents are.”

  We’re in the parking lot now, so I get my own lip gloss and take a second to smooth my hair in the rearview mirror, waiting for her to text her mom and then her dad. I think about asking what’s going on with them, but the words feel awkward in my throat. We haven’t talked about them all summer, and I figure Maddie will tell me what she wants to whenever she’s ready.

  But probably a better friend would ask. Would know how to ask.

  Maddie turns and looks toward the back of the car. “Will those be okay while we’re in there? We could give them to the hostess or some kids or something.”

  “No, you have to take those home! And treasure them always!”

  “Okay, for always,” Maddie says as she climbs out of the car. “Hey, does that waiter still work here? The one who loves you so much and gives us free stuff?”

  I stick out my lower lip and shake my head. “He hath forsaken me. But there’s a waitress who maybe digs me a little bit . . .”

  “Dishy!” she cries. “See, this is the tell me everything I was talking about! Are you joining Ryan over the rainbow, or what?”

  “Not unless they have football players there.”

  “They do, but probably not lesbian ones,” she says. “At least, not at our school.”

  “Yeah, no. You’ll have to go away for a lot longer than one summer if you want things to change that much around here.”

  Maddie throws her arm around my shoulder and walks me to the restaurant door. “Tell you what, if Rosie Fuller is my best friend and still snagging free food because she’s crazy gorgeous, then I’m happy to be home.”

  “Me too, lady,” I say. “Me too.”

  Turns out our waitress is older, maybe forties, and doesn’t care about flirting with anyone, especially not us. So Maddie tells me more about Spain, shows me pictures of the North Carolina study partner, laughs at my stories about DQ.

  I watch her tucking her hair behind her ears, eating her slice of chocolate cream pie. Try to convince myself she hasn’t changed that much.

  When Maddie told me about her parents getting divorced, I genuinely didn’t know how to feel upset. My mom was never actually married to my dad, and I only half remember her getting together with my stepdad. And Maddie’s parents have never liked me very much; it’s always been pretty clear they think I’m not smart enough for her.

  But she needs me. I make sure she has fun, I force her to wear cuter outfits than she’d dare to otherwise, I have no problems talking to boys and she freaks out wh
en anyone sends the most harmless of texts.

  This weird feeling will go away. So what if she didn’t tell me everything about Spain? She’s back now.

  Plus, now I know I haven’t been a good enough friend. Maybe I don’t know how to change, exactly, but I’m going to at least try. I can be happy for her that she had such a good trip. I can be happy that she’s so blond and gorgeous. I really can.

  “You sure you don’t want a bite?” she asks, pointing her fork at her plate.

  I make a face and she laughs.

  “See, this is why we work, Rosie. If you liked chocolate cream pie, I’d actually have to share with you.”

  “But I actually think it’s disgusting.”

  “Exactly. So more for me.”

  I put a protective arm around my cherry pie and she laughs again. “Forever. All that gross chocolate cream pie for you forever, Maddie.”

  2

  “THERE’S A ROOM upstairs,” Cory says, his long quarterback fingers digging into my hip and pulling me closer.

  “But it doesn’t have walls,” I say, giggling. “You are such a perv. And we have to wait for Maddie, remember? I thought she’d be here by now. . . .”

  Cory just makes an mmm sound and buries his nose in my hair, tickling my neck.

  “Oh, there’s Ryan,” I say, waving. Before I can catch his eye across the crowd, Cory’s grabbed my other hip and started grinding with me. In addition to Gabe’s Coleman lanterns lighting up the half-constructed house, someone brought iPod speakers that are filling the place with pounding hip-hop.

  I laugh again, letting Cory dance with me. Adorable freckles scatter across his cheeks and late-night stubble defines the shadows on his strong jaw. He looks like someone’s Hollywood version of a corn-fed Midwestern boy. Last year I dated a couple of basketball players and even made out with a random college guy at a party. Now I guess I’m into big, blond football clichés. Or for a couple of weeks I have been, anyway.

  Someone bumps into us and Cory jerks around, hands up, like he’s going to throw a punch. “Hey!” he yells, but it’s so crowded I can’t even tell who he’s trying to start with. I reflexively grab one of his elbows, pulling him over to the keg. It’s late, I’ve lost sight of Ryan, I still want to find Maddie, and as much as I like having my whole body pressed into Cory’s, I’m starting to feel sweaty and thirsty.