Jonah was sitting on my bed, holding a bag of my favorite kettle corn. He smiled, but I didn’t return it. I just stood there, glaring at him, until he shrugged sheepishly.

“Well? What do you want?” I snapped, when it was clear he wasn’t going to talk first.

“I wanted to give you this,” he said, gesturing to the kettle corn, “and this.” Beside him was a small white bundle, and he picked it up and handed it to me.

It turned out to be my volleyball t-shirt, the one he’d soaked that morning. I’d forgotten I’d left it in his car.

Jonah cleared his throat. “And I wanted to apologize for not being more supportive of you. It’s just…” He shook his head. “You hear things about other guys sometimes, and some of what I’ve heard about Eric hasn’t been great. And you deserve great. You deserve the hottest, sweetest, smartest, sexiest straight there is out there. I just want the whole world for you, because I love you, Millie.” He tipped his head and smiled at me. “And I hate being in a fight with you.”

I didn’t answer.

His smile hitched up, and he held out the kettle corn like an offering. “Well? What do you say? Can you forgive me? Please?”

Jonah didn’t apologize a lot—he always joked that it wasn’t in his nature—but he always really meant it when it did, and as I looked at his face, I could feel some of my anger drain away. Because he did look sorry, and—more than that—he looked worried. I could see it in his eyes, and the sight of it made my heart soften.

“Yeah, okay,” I muttered.

He raised an eyebrow, which made me laugh, and I walked over to the bed, dropped down beside him, and threw my arms around him.

“Okay, I forgive you,” I said, half laughing.

“Thank goodness, because this was the last bag of kettle corn at Jones Farm, and I had to wrestle it away from an old lady to bring it to you. And let me tell you, she put up quite a fight.”

I laughed and pulled the popcorn from his hand.

“Okay, so now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” Jonah said, settling comfortably on my bed, “let’s get to the important stuff.”

“What important stuff?” I asked, opening the popcorn and shoving a handful into my mouth. I’d been so mad that I hadn’t been hungry at lunchtime and skipped it entirely. Now I was ravenous.

Jonah rolled his eyes. “What are you going to wear tomorrow?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I admitted.

He shook his head. “Thank goodness I came. We’ve got a real problem, girl.”

“What are you talking about? I know how to dress myself,” I said through a mouthful of sweet and salty popcorn.

Jonah gave me a long look, and—after a moment—I looked down at myself. Then I saw what he saw—cutoff denim shorts nearly invisible beneath his large white football shirt. Beat-up Keds on my feet, and my hair still twisted into its messy bun.

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “I guess it’s a good thing you’re here.”

He nodded. “Tell me something I don’t know. Let’s start going through your closet.”

I mostly watched and ate popcorn as Jonah scoured my closet and dresser, pulling out all the possibilities.

“The lucky thing is that you’d look amazing in a burlap sack,” Jonah muttered, sifting through the sundresses he’d dug out of my closet, “but we want to elevate that a little. So let’s start with these.”

He handed me a dress, and—as reluctant as I was to put down my kettle corn—I pulled off the football t-shirt and tried on the dresses.

Jonah frowned critically at each one.

“I like the blue one, but I want to see that yellow one again,” he said, pointing to the pile of dresses on the bed.

“I’m supposed to be studying calc,” I complained as I pulled on the yellow dress again.

“Are you?” he asked, surprised. “Why? I thought you already took the final.”

I explained to him about the test on Tuesday, and he nodded.

“Okay, let’s make this easy, then. The yellow dress with the white bikini,” he said, pointing to the skimpiest bikini I owned, which was strewn with the other ones on the bed. “So that’s done. Now, do you want me to help you with calculus?”

Jonah was excellent at math, so I nodded quickly. “Yes! That would be amazing.”

I changed out of the yellow sundress, and Jonah and I sat on the floor, leaning against my bed, and opened my math book. I showed him what was going to be on the final—which I knew, because I’d already taken it, though I was sure I’d be taking at least a slightly different version of the test—and he walked me slowly through each concept, reviewing with examples and memory aids to remember the formulas.

I was thinking hard, focusing so hard my brain was starting to hurt, when Jonah looked up at the clock on my bedside table.

“Shit, I should get going.”

When I checked the time, I was shocked to see that we’d been studying for three hours. “Thanks for this, Jonah. This was really helpful.”

He gave me a rueful smile as he got to his feet. “Maybe you should have, you know, asked me for help before the final.”

I laughed with a shrug. “Well, I feel really good about this. Like I might actually pass this test on Tuesday.”

He stopped at the door. “Okay, okay, enough about math. I gotta ask. What’s the plan?”

I looked up at him. “Plan for what?”

He rolled his eyes. “Are you gonna go all the way with Eric or what?”