Serendipity, p.23
Serendipity, page 23
“Hey!” the DJ calls over his music. He isn’t using a mic, so only I hear him. “What are you doing?”
“This’ll just be a minute.” From this vantage, I can see the entire room pretty clearly.
At first it really does seem like Easton and Ronan have left. My heart starts to sink … and then I see her. Ronan Chang. She’s breathtaking in a formfitting ice-blue dress with a lace back. And she’s standing with Graham, her old boyfriend, her arm around his waist.
Wait, what?
Frowning, I continue to scan the room.
“Listen, miss, you need to get off the stage.” The DJ sounds really annoyed now.
“Yeah, in just a minute. I promise.” I flash him a quick smile that doesn’t seem to assuage him at all because it’s probably not nearly as charming as I’m imagining in my head.
Where the hell is Easton? People are beginning to notice me on the stage, and a few are pointing and smiling unsurely, as if this is some kind of skit I’m putting on for their entertainment. I don’t have much time before one of the chaperones sees me and ushers (read: kicks) me out of here.
And then I finally see Easton. He’s dressed in the tux I helped him pick, surrounded by other guys in suits. Those are his friends from the basketball team, I realize. Did he … He came to prom with his buddies? But they’re all heading for the door. In fact, Easton’s hand is already on the door handle. There’s no way I can jump off the stage and race across the enormous hall in time to catch him. By the time I get outside, he’s probably going to be gone.
For just a second, my heart sinks. I don’t know what’s going on here—why Ronan’s got her arm around Graham or why Easton’s leaving without her—but I do see my only chance to tell Easton how I feel slipping away from me. I know me; if this doesn’t happen now, in an indisputable, can’t-take-it-back way, I’m not going to do it. I’m going to wimp out.
And that’s why I run across the stage and grab the mic, turning it on before I have a chance to think about what I’m doing.
“Can you pause the music?” I ask the DJ, my voice echoing into the room.
Everyone goes quiet and still. Easton’s group stops at the door and Easton turns around slowly, as if he can’t quite believe that he’s hearing my voice from the loudspeakers. He meets my eye and my heart jumps like a wild animal in my chest. I can’t read his expression; I have no idea what he’s thinking. Well, it’s too late to stop now.
My eyes dart to the adults in the room; the chaperones look a little dazed, and I wonder if they’ve imbibed a bit tonight as well. The DJ looks unsure, but after a moment, he nods and cuts the music like I’ve asked.
I turn to look at Easton again. “You tell me all the time that I’m the smartest girl in the world.”
Oh, shit. Everyone’s listening. A few people even have their cell phones out and are recording me. But I want to do this. I need to do this.
My throat clicks audibly when I swallow. “But I’m the stupidest. I’m an idiot because I didn’t see what was right in front of me all these years. Easton Cooper, I’ve fallen in love with you. This entire time I thought it was just friendship, and it is—it definitely is—but at some point friendship began to blur into like and like into love and now I’m all turned upside down and inside out.
“I don’t know if I’m ruining everything by telling you how I feel. God, I hope not. But I guess it doesn’t matter because I know if I held this in another day—another minute, even—I would probably die.” I pause. A few people are snickering. But Easton’s staring at me without blinking, without moving, and still without the tiniest flicker of expression on his handsome face. “Shit, that sounds dramatic AF. But okay. That’s what I wanted to say and I’ve said it.” The chaperones are beginning to make their way toward me, as if the cursing broke their paralysis. “Now there’s only one thing left to do.”
I clear my throat. And then I begin to sing.
“You’re just too good to be true
Can’t take my eyes off of you
You’d be like heaven to touch
I wanna hold you so much
At long last, love has arrived—”
“Off the stage!” one of the chaperones, a middle-aged lady who’s probably someone’s mom, shouts. She’s running at me now, surprisingly quick in her heels. “Right now!”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I don’t have time for the whole song, so I launch into the chorus. Easton’s mouth is twitching.
“I love you, baby, and if it’s quite all right, I need you baby—”
But now the chaperone has leaped onto the stage and she bum-rushes me. I hand over the mic without complaint. Then I take a bow as the entire hall bursts into applause, and hop off the stage, my heart pounding a thousand miles a minute.
“You need to leave,” the male chaperone, who has just reached the stage and is huffing and puffing with the effort of speed-walking, says. “I’m guessing you don’t have a ticket.”
“Nope. And don’t blame the kid at the desk. I kind of forced my way in here.”
The chaperone glowers at me. “You need to leave,” he says again.
“Hear you loud and clear.” I walk to the double doors. Easton’s group isn’t by them anymore, and I try to spot him, but now that I’m off the stage, he’s swallowed by the crowd and it’s impossible.
I walk out into the night and wrap my arms around myself as I stand alone in my sweats on the sidewalk of this glittery, gilded hotel. “Well,” I say to no one in particular. “That happened.”
Fuck. That happened. And Easton … he had absolutely no expression the entire time. I screw my eyes shut, telling myself that I will not cry until I get home. This might be the saddest, most pathetic thing I’ve ever done. And people have video evidence. Oh god. How am I going to go back to school on Monday?
I reach into my pocket to pull out my phone and text Charlotte to come get me ASAP, when I hear the sound of footsteps. And then a voice as familiar as the inside of my own eyelids.
“Rosie.”
My mouth is suddenly completely dry. I turn slowly, the cool night air enveloping me like a silky shawl. Easton is coming down the stairs of the hotel, looking like he belongs in a movie. One hand is in his pants pocket, the other in a fist by his side. His eyes are serious, probing, as he strides toward me.
“H-hey.” My own voice is high and thin, on the knife-edge of hysteria.
He comes to stand in front of me, closer and closer, no more than a foot away. We are breathing the same air. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Welcome to the club, I want to say, but instead I say this: “You didn’t bring Ronan. To the prom.”
He blinks. “No.”
“Why not?”
“She wasn’t right for me.”
“But I heard you did a promposal at an away game that she accepted on the spot.”
Easton shakes his head once, impatient. “That was Graham.”
Graham. Ronan had said yes to Graham. Charlotte was right; it was all just a rumor that Easton had been the one to prompose.
There’s a long pause as I process what he’s told me. We don’t look away; we’re barely breathing. We’re staring at each other so hard and so intensely I’m afraid we’ll light each other on fire. “Who did the program really match me with, Rosie?” Easton asks this last question in a voice so low, it shimmies slowly up my spine and whispers into my ear.
I have goosebumps when I answer, my voice dry and husky. “Me. It matched you with me.”
He smiles. Actually smiles. “I knew it,” he says, more like he’s talking to himself than me.
I stare at him. “You knew it? But you told me to run the program because you wanted to match to Ronan. I thought you were going to ask her to prom.”
He shakes his head. “I asked you to run the program because I was hoping it’d match me to you. And then maybe you’d start to see me as more than just your friend. The Ronan thing … I was about to slip up and say your name, and the only other ‘Ro’ name I could think of was hers.” He laughs softly. “Don’t you see, Rosie? I was never going to ask her. I was never into her. I’m into you.”
I have no words. They’ve all evaporated out of my mouth.
Easton continues, “But why didn’t you tell me the program had matched me to you?”
I step closer. “Because I was scared. I was stupid and scared. I didn’t want to lose you.”
He steps closer, too. His hands are on my face, smoothing a strand of hair away from my cheek. “You could never lose me.”
“Never?” My face is tipped up to his, a flower seeking sunlight.
“Never, never.”
And then he kisses me.
It’s like the launching of a thousand fireworks, like a million string lights coming on in my brain. It’s like the first morning there ever was, or a sunset you can taste. I wrap my arms around his waist and press myself into him, closer, feeling his warmth, the hard length of his torso. His hands slip from my face to my shoulders and then my waist and he cinches me in, as if he can’t get close enough, either.
We kiss until my mouth is raw, until my cheeks sting from the rub of his stubble. And then I pull away and grin up at him.
“That smile,” he says softly, rubbing a thumb across my lower lip. “It always gets me.”
“I love you, Easton.”
He gazes into my eyes. “I love you, too, Rosie. By the way, killer rendition of ‘Can’t Take My Eyes Off You.’ I knew it was your song.”
I snort. “And the best part is, I have a name for my matchmaking program now. I’m calling it VALLI after Frankie Valli, who first sang that song. It stands for Very Accurate Love Link Interface.”
We laugh together for a minute and then Easton gets serious again. “I have a very important question to ask you, Rosie Gupta.”
My heart thumps. “Yes?”
“Will you go play Tekken Seven with me at Game and Fortune?”
“Easton Cooper, I would be honored.”
Matching grins on our shining faces, we walk hand in hand down the street, the moon shining down on us like a lucky penny.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ELISE BRYANT is the author of Happily Ever Afters. For many years, she had the joy of working as a special education teacher in South Los Angeles. Elise now lives with her husband and two daughters in Long Beach, where she spends her days reading, writing, and eating dessert. elisebryant.com.
ELIZABETH EULBERG is the international bestselling author of more than a dozen novels for young readers, including The Lonely Hearts Club, Better Off Friends, and her latest, The Best Worst Summer. Her acclaimed middle-grade detective series, The Great Shelby Holmes, has been on dozens of state reading lists across the country, including the prestigious Texas Bluebonnet list. Elizabeth currently lives in London, where she gets constant inspiration walking around (and eating scones) and is looking forward to her own meet-cute with a British bloke.
LEAH JOHNSON is an editor, educator, and author of books for young adults. Her bestselling debut YA novel, You Should See Me in a Crown, was a Stonewall Honor Book, the inaugural Reese’s Book Club YA pick, and named a best book of the year by Cosmopolitan, Kirkus, Marie Claire, Publishers Weekly, and New York Public Library among others. Her sophomore novel, Rise to the Sun, is now available from Scholastic.
ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE (they/them) grew up hearing la llorona in the Santa Ana winds, and now writes books as queer, Latine, and nonbinary as they are. They are the author of The Weight of Feathers, a Morris Debut Award finalist; Stonewall Honor Book When the Moon Was Ours, which was longlisted for the National Book Award in Young People’s Literature; Wild Beauty, a Kirkus, School Library Journal, and Booklist Best Book of 2017; Blanca & Roja, one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time; Dark and Deepest Red, a Winter 2020 Indie Next List title; The Mirror Season, a Junior Library Guild Selection; and the forthcoming Lakelore and Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix. annamariemclemore.com.
SANDHYA MENON is the New York Times–bestselling author of When Dimple Met Rishi, Of Curses and Kisses, and many other novels that also feature lots of kissing, girl power, and swoony boys. Her books have been showcased in several cool places, including the Today show, Teen Vogue, NPR, BuzzFeed, and Seventeen. A full-time dog servant and part-time writer, she makes her home in the foggy mountains of Colorado. sandhyamenon.com.
MARISSA MEYER is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Lunar Chronicles series, the New York Times–bestselling Renegades trilogy, as well as the graphic novel Wires and Nerve: Vols. 1 and 2, and The Lunar Chronicles Coloring Book. Her first standalone novel, Heartless, was also a #1 New York Times bestseller; her most recent standalone novel is the bestselling rom-com Instant Karma. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and their two daughters. marissameyer.com.
JULIE MURPHY lives in North Texas with her husband who loves her, her dog who adores her, and her cats who tolerate her. After several wonderful years in the library world, Julie now writes full-time. When she’s not writing or reliving her reference-desk glory days, she can be found watching made-for-TV movies, hunting for the perfect slice of cheese pizza, and planning her next great travel adventure. She is also the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the novels Dumplin’ (now a film on Netflix), Puddin’, Ramona Blue, Side Effects May Vary, Faith Taking Flight, Dear Sweet Pea, and If the Shoe Fits.
CALEB ROEHRIG is a writer and television producer originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Having also lived in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Helsinki, Finland, he has a chronic case of wanderlust, and has visited over thirty countries. A former actor, Roehrig has experience on both sides of the camera, with a résumé that includes appearances on film and TV—as well as seven years in the stranger-than-fiction salt mines of reality television. His young adult novels include Last Seen Leaving, White Rabbit, Death Prefers Blondes (a Popsugar Best Novel of 2019), and The Fell of Dark (a 2021 American Library Association Rainbow Book List Selection).
Cartoonist SARAH WINIFRED SEARLE originally hails from spooky New England but currently lives in sunny Perth, Australia. Her graphic novels include Sincerely, Harriet, a quiet middle-grade tale (Graphic Universe, May 2019), and a fictionalized YA memoir from First Second coming in 2022. Find her around the web: @swinsea/swinsea.com.
ABIGAIL HING WEN is the New York Times–bestselling author of Loveboat, Taipei, a romantic comedy following the journey of Ever Wong in her summer in Taipei, and continuing in the companion novel, Loveboat Reunion. Loveboat, Taipei and Loveboat Reunion have been optioned for film by ACE Entertainment. Abigail holds a BA from Harvard, a JD from Columbia Law School, and an MFA from the Vermont School of Fine Arts. When she’s not writing stories or listening to her favorite scores, she is busy working in artificial intelligence in Silicon Valley, where she lives with her husband and two sons. @abigailhingwen/abigail hingwen.com.
Thank you for reading this Feiwel & Friends book. The friends who made Serendipity possible are:
Jean Feiwel, Publisher
Liz Szabla, Associate Publisher
Rich Deas, Senior Creative Director
Holly West, Senior Editor
Anna Roberto, Senior Editor
Kat Brzozowski, Senior Editor
Dawn Ryan, Executive Managing Editor
Kim Waymer, Senior Production Manager
Emily Settle, Associate Editor
Erin Siu, Associate Editor
Foyinsi Adegbonmire, Associate Editor
Rachel Diebel, Assistant Editor
Michelle Gengaro, Designer
Helen Seachrist, Senior Production Editor
Follow us on Facebook or visit us online at fiercereads.com. Our books are friends for life.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Marissa Meyer is the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Lunar Chronicles series, the New York Times–bestselling rom-com Instant Karma; the Renegades trilogy, as well as the graphic novels Wires and Nerve: Vol. 1 and 2, and The Lunar Chronicles Coloring Book. Her first standalone novel, Heartless, was also a #1 New York Times bestseller. She lives in Tacoma, Washington, with her husband and their two daughters. Visit her online at marissameyer.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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THE STORIES
(and the Tropes)
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
BYE BYE, PIPER BERRY
(The Fake Relationship)
Julie Murphy
ANYONE ELSE BUT YOU
(Stranded Together)
Leah Johnson
THE IDIOM ALGORITHM
(Class Warfare)
Abigail Hing Wen
AULD ACQUAINTANCE
(The Best Friend Love Epiphany)
Caleb Roehrig
SHOOTING STARS
(One Bed)
Marissa Meyer
KEAGAN’S HEAVEN ON EARTH
(The Secret Admirer)
Sarah Winifred Searle
ZORA IN THE SPOTLIGHT
(The Grand Romantic Gesture)
Elise Bryant
IN A BLINK OF THE EYE
(Trapped in a Confined Space)
Elizabeth Eulberg
LIBERTY
(The Makeover)
Anna-Marie McLemore
THE SURPRISE MATCH
(The Matchmaker)
Sandhya Menon
About the Authors
About the Editor
Copyright
“Zora in the Spotlight” copyright © 2022 by Elise Bryant. “In a Blink of the Eye” copyright © 2022 by Elizabeth Eulberg. “Anyone Else but You” copyright © 2022 by Leah
