All The Wild Ones | Wildfire Series

Fumbled

NESSA

I've spent at least a quarter of my life daydreaming. And a whole quarter of my brain was used for storing those dreams.

Some of them were dreams of books I'd read, re-imaginings of characters, and what I'd wished they'd done. Or sometimes, the dream was what they had done, and I just wanted to relive it.

Some of the dreams were of me. I liked to imagine that I'd done something...cool.

Put like that, it sounded ironically dumb. But I didn't know how else to describe it. I wanted to accomplish something. And not just anything, but something that other people cared about. I'd dream about starring in a movie or writing my own bestseller. I'd dream about winning an Olympic gold medal or swimming the English Channel.

More irony for you.

Because I had no desire to act. I was a horrendous writer, too. A sixth grader could string together sentences more coherently than I could. And exercising—god, it was a form of pure evil.

I supposed I just liked imagining situations where I was better than I really was; it didn't really matter what that happened to be. Then maybe people would care. About me.

The other parts of my brain were occupied in ways that had been entirely unhelpful to me in college so far. Granted, I was only a few months into freshman year. But still, I doubted that would change.

My brain, the useless vessel, housed a smattering of lyrics I'd memorized. Mostly Bon Iver songs mixed in with jams I listened to on the bus in elementary school. And then there was the catalog of actors and actresses from all my favorite movies—badass action heroes (or heroines) and soft Nicholas Sparks romance leads alike.

The worst, though, was probably the list of hypothetical arguments that I'd never actually have. But I stored it all up there anyway. Just in case I ever met someone who wanted to debate whether the potato was the most versatile food that money could buy.

It was, by the way.

But in other words, my head was a mess.

The one thing that wasn't up in my noggin, though?

The name of the guy who currently stared at me—that football player who'd walked cockily up to Beau and me the other night after the game.

"Beau," I hissed, hitting his arm to get his attention. All of his concentration had been on his bubble tea as he swirled it around with his straw. He sucked the boba up slowly, trying to watch it while cross-eyed. Leave it to Beau to play with his food like a five-year-old.

"What?" He jerked upright, looking offended that I'd hit him that hard.

"He's staring at me."

Beau's eyebrows drew together. "Who's staring at you?"

"I don't know," I hissed again, wishing he'd keep his voice down.

"Nessie." The way he said that stupid little nickname made me feel chastised. I wrinkled my nose before Beau continued. "If you don't know, then how do you know he's staring at you."

I sighed heavily, exasperated. "What I mean is that I don't remember his name."

"Where is he?" Beau began whipping his head around dramatically, searching the student union cafeteria. The chatter of people around us should have masked Beau's eager voice, but it still seemed to carry across the recently renovated space. I cringed.

Without daring to look at football boy, I jerked my head in his direction. He'd been standing by the exit with a group of muscly bros in matching sweatsuits—his team, I was sure.