TWENTY.

The school-sanctioned after-party wasn't well attended, so there was plenty of food-appetizers, pizza, and every variety of cupcake known to man. I ate five.

Which is why I turned down the beer Brodie offered me when Mason, Bahti, and I walked into his kitchen. Beer and cupcakes somehow didn't go together. Or maybe it was the image of the rainbow sprinkles making a reappearance in that did me in. "You got soda or something?" I ask.

"Sure, man," Brodie says, and hands the Solo cup to Mason instead. He opens a cooler.

I choose a can. "Thanks."

"So, you driving people home?" Brodie asks me.

"Yeah, I guess."

Brodie holds out a fist for a bump then gives me one of those half-handshake-half-hug deals. "You're the best, Jamie."

I raise the soda can in a mock toast-because I know he's thinking what I'm thinking. No more Jordan Polmanskis.

Mason taps his cup to my can. "Yeah," he says. "Jamie's awesome."

"And dateless?" Brodie asks, looking around. His gaze stops on Bahti.

"She turned into a pumpkin," Mason explains for me.

"Too bad." Brodie says this with half a grin and a little sarcasm. He's looking at Bahti like guys look at girls-adding up her pieces and parts as if to determine her score.

She notices and blushes.

"Can I get you something?" he asks her, ignoring us completely.

"Sure, a beer would be great, la."

I glance at Mason, see if he's noticed the obvious flirting that was going on between his date and Lincoln High's star quarterback. No, Mason's attention is on the deck-turned-dance-floor just past a set of French doors where some couples are still in formalwear and others are in street clothes, and all are dancing like they've been drinking.

Once Bahti has her drink, she follows Mason outside. Since I no longer have a dance partner, I stay inside and mingle. I get called in to ref a drinking game and then pulled away to argue the band geek vs. dorkestra hierarchy at Lincoln with three orchestra girls and DeMarco.

"Band geeks are the original," I explain. "Orchestra dorks are simply copying our amazingly uncool status."

"See!" Holland, a violinist, says to the others. "That makes the dorkestras dorkier."

"Dorkier," DeMarco, our first chair trombone, says. "Not geekier."

"Yeah, something like that," I agree, not pointing out that none of them actually register on either scale, seeing that they are at Brodie Hamilton's post-prom party.

"But what about marching band?" someone asks.

"Geekier," I say, because I've been a card-carrying member for the past three years.

"Totally, the uniforms are so-"

I don't hear the rest of Holland's sentence. Not with Kellen making an, um, appearance. He's shirtless but wearing a bowtie.

"What happened to you?" Holland asks.

"Spilled my beer," Kellen says, holding up an empty plastic cup as proof.

"Bummer," DeMarco says.

"And the girls are watching Magic Mike. So I did my best Chippendales impersonation."

"How'd I miss that?" Holland asks what I'm thinking.

"They're still watching. Downstairs," Kellen answers, referring to the big screen setup in Brodie's basement. Then he ambles toward the kitchen, bare broad shoulders and all.

"Channing Tatum!" Holland says, jumping up. "Let's go!"

The girls stand up, but neither DeMarco nor I move a muscle.

"You go," DeMarco says to her.

Holland catches my eye and jerks her chin toward the cellar door as if to say, Come on.

I shake my head.

Holland and her friends disappear.

"As much as I'd like to be in a dark room with a dozen horny, drunk girls," DeMarco whispers, "I don't wanna know how badly I don't measure up."

"I hear you," I say.

Instead DeMarco and I head to the kitchen in search of more drinks. We both get fresh sodas and munch on pretzels with Brodie and Kellen, while complaining about the upcoming exams.

When I go to find Mason and Bahti, it's after three. I'm getting tired and don't want to fall asleep at the wheel-that'd pretty much cancel out my designated-driver status. The music on the back deck had been turned down due to the hour, and the dance floor had dwindled from mosh pit to country club. The remaining couples slow dance under the strings of white Christmas lights, some of them locked at the lips. I didn't see Mason and Bahti, so I pan the fenced-in yard from the apple trees to the fire pit. No luck.

Until I see them.

Kissing.

My body runs cold as my heart stops pushing warm blood to my extremities.

His wide, tan hands are cradling her face-his thumbs on her delicate cheekbones, fingers in her hair.

Oh God.

Their lips move over each other's.

I shouldn't be watching this.

There's tongue involved.

I can't look away.

She presses closer, wrinkling his tuxedo jacket-that she's wearing.

His thumbs slide toward her ears, deepening the kiss.

All of a sudden I want to look away.

Want to run, hide.

Cry.

I study the laces on my Converse, how they've gone gray near the eyelets. I wonder how much string I'll need to tie up the hole in my heart. Because, even though I know Mason doesn't like me like I like him, I haven't had proof before tonight. And, if I am honest with myself, I don't just like him. Or have a Darren-Criss-look-alike crush on him. No. This is more than a bruise. There's some major breakage. I love him.

When I look up, Bahti notices me standing there.

Mason turns, sees me.

"Hey," I manage. "I was thinking of, um, uh, leaving."

Bahti runs the back of her hand over her moist lips. "So soon?"

"It's three in the morning!" I snap, my voice cracking on "three."

"Past someone's bedtime?" she asks, equally bitchy.

"Easy," Mason says slowly. "We can go."

Bahti shoots him a look.

"Or we can walk," he replies with a shrug.

"Okay, okay," Bahti says. "Let me find my shoes."

And when she's busy, Mason mouths the word sorry, nodding his head in Bahti's direction.

Is he apologizing for Bahti's attitude? Or for making out with her?

TWENTY-ONE.

It's Monday, and the Gumshoe proofs are here: a color print of the cover, and a stapled dummy of the inside-that's black-and-white. Deaf to the bustle in the hall around me, I thumb through it, turn to the subject of my moment of insanity. It's there. Complete with the new title page we designed at the last minute.

"Everything okay?" the printers' rep asks me. We are standing outside the main office and the second bell just rang. The noise fades as if someone turned down the volume.

"Yeah," I assure her. It's not her fault I sent her these files and not, well, the ones I was supposed to send.

"Okay, so look everything over and have your adviser sign here." She points to a sheet of paper labeled PROOF APPROVAL.

My stomach spins as if I just stepped off a Tilt-A-Whirl. "Does Dr. Taylor have to sign this?"

"It gives us the go-ahead to print the magazine. It's a contract."

"I'm eighteen," I tell her. "So I can sign it, right?"

She isn't expecting this question. "I think Dr. Taylor signed off on it last year, but maybe just because it was new. So whatever your editor says, okay?"

Crap. I'm not the editor, either. Damn it. Why didn't I think of this?

"I've got the cover on press Thursday. Last job of the day-I wanted you to come press check. So four thirtyish?"

"Yeah!" I say, psyched about seeing my work on an honest-to-goodness-sheet-fed-offset printing press.

"Call me if you have any changes-or if we're ready to print-and I'll come get the proofs." She smiles at me.

I pull my lips into a smile and nod. The gesture brings back the tilt-o-swirl feeling-or maybe it's because I am holding in my hand proof that I am an idiot.

I duck into the bathroom, find a stall, and lock myself in. I set the rolled-up color proof on end and open the dummy. I sit on the toilet and spread the pages on my lap. With a car key, I pry open the staples and then ease out the offending pages.

They're only coming out now so that they can be in there later-without Michel and Lia censoring them. I can't let them do it. Gumshoe isn't theirs and only theirs. It belongs to all of us, the football players and the marching band, the chess club and the cheerleading squad, the brainiacs and the dorkestra. Even the art-geek girls, and maybe especially the art-geek girls because they each submitted something.

I page through the proof and feel a little distant. Maybe because I haven't see it in a few days, or maybe because it seems to have a life all its own, as if the artwork grew roots and the poems grew branches with little e and o leaves. And, even as the designer, I can't smother it. Can't stop it from growing. Can't force it to be something it isn't. Gumshoe just has to be. Even if it drags me kicking and screaming from the safety of my closet.

My eyes catch on a poem that Kellen submitted months ago-before Hailey Beth Johnson became his other half. Holland insisted we put it in. And Lia had whispered, "Proof he's single." It was about breaking up with his previous girlfriend after she had made out with some other guy. I read it and wonder how he could walk away when he still loved her. Wonder if I'd ever get over Mason and Bahti and that kiss.

Evidence removed, I press the staples closed again with the flat edge of my key. I slide the pages between the screen and keyboard of my computer and head back to the office for a late pass to my last morning class before lunch.

A Million Things by Kellen Zabala It was a bonfire summer night.

It was a million stars in her eyes.

It was her skin warm on mine, the taste of lemonade on her lips.

Then it wasn't a text on my phone.

It wasn't sweet nothings in my ear.

It wasn't her hand warm in mine, but the taste of his beer on her lips.