Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

LAKE

364 bobas left until we both die …

Maria cracks the door to my room, chewing on a piece of celery with peanut butter. She has her own apartment, but our house is like Central Station for the Frost family.

“Don’t you have a test today or something?” she asks, wandering into my room and immediately attempting to put the unfurled string of lights back into the rafters.

I realize belatedly that my neck hurts, that my head is slumped over onto my desk, and that I’m drooling on a flashcard that says Favorite Food on one side and Sushi on the other. I shove up to a sitting position, sea green hair wild around my face as I snatch up my phone.

“Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!” I scramble to my feet, nearly slipping and dying on my desk cushion as I ninja my sneakers in two fingers and take off for my bedroom door. I don’t have time to brush my teeth let alone my hair. No time to change. If I’m not out this door in about … ten freaking seconds, it’s all over.

Third week of the fall session, and I’m blowing it.

I stumble down the stairs to find my mother waiting for me, concern creasing her pretty face.

“Honey, do you—” she begins gently, and I forget for a second there that I’m doomed to die.

“Test. Gotta go.” I kiss her cheek as I dart past and out the front door, still holding my shoes in one hand. I drop them to the ground and shove my feet into them, crushing the backs of the sneakers under my heels.

I don’t worry if my car will be waiting for me. Of course it will be. Joules got it back last night, didn’t he?

I see my little white LeSabre sitting behind my dad’s truck and head in that direction. With a grunt, I end up getting caught on my hoodie as it pulls against my neck. I glare at Joules over my shoulder. He’s holding onto my hood with one hand and presenting my keys in the palm of the other.

“Are you sure you care about school today?” he asks me, but I snatch the keys without responding and take off down the front steps.

“Thank you for getting my car back!” I yell over my shoulder. “And I love you!”

I yank my door open and pause to see my dad standing beside the bed of his truck, frowning at the … is that a cow patty stuck to my hood? Hah. Joules isn’t going to wash my car for me until I commit to chasing Tam. I am committed, but I should reassure him of that.

“What happened here?” Dad asks, but I just grin.

“Love you!” I hop into the driver’s seat and carefully reverse out of the driveway.

I don’t start to speed until I’m out of sight of the house.

“I hate you, Tam,” I whisper as I slump down on the cement steps outside of the university’s business campus. I’ve been studying for this test for weeks. Weeks wasted, apparently, since I sat there zoned out with exhaustion, my brain crammed full of Tam-related facts.

His favorite movie? Why, it’s Barbie, of course!

His favorite song (other than his own, teehee)? Jung Kook’s “Seven” featuring Latto. My, my, how racy.

Oh, oh, oh! His favorite fruit is lychee, his blood type is O-negative (yeah, right), he’s an ESFP on the MBTI test, and his zodiac sign is Leo.

With a groan, I lean forward and plant my face on the denim of my thighs. I don’t care what I look like to people walking by. I forgot every second of those late-night study sessions and instead, I poisoned my brain with facts about a man that cannot possibly be my soulmate.

We are nothing alike.

Everything he enjoys, I hate, and vice versa. His answers to interview questions are insufferable to listen to, and he thinks the best Sarah J. Maas book is A Court of Thorns and Roses. Nobody thinks that! How is that even possible? It’s obviously A Court of Mist and Fury.

Boba will solve this, I tell myself, and then I drag my tired body down the stairs.

Joules is waiting, a clowder of girls fanned around him.

He ignores them all, waiting for me to tromp up beside him.

“You graduated two years ago. Why are you here?” I grouch, and he grins, throwing an arm around my shoulders as the other girls groan in disappointment and wander off.

“We’re going to boba, aren’t we?” he asks, but it’s a dumb question because he knows we are. “I was worried about you.”

“I’m going to have to drop out of school,” I tell him. When he doesn’t respond right away, I can tell that he already knew that. There’s no way for me to pursue a man who’s about to go on tour if I’m stuck here. If I want to live, I’m going to have to dedicate every waking second of my life to Tam the superstar.

“School will be waiting when the year is up.” His voice is contemplative, distant. Joe.

I huff and push Joules’ arm off my shoulders, walking ahead of him past tupelo trees with bright red leaves, the first ambassadors of autumn. They litter the sidewalk in a colorful carpet, fluttering around my feet as I walk. Joules is content to trail behind me, walking the three blocks to the boba tea shop in silence.

This one is called Razorbacks Boba for a reason; it’s basically on campus.

We head up the front steps and inside to an all-white interior with one wall dedicated to the team’s mascot: an angry red warthog with massive tusks. The replay of last night’s game is finishing up on one of the TVs scattered about the room.

Joules and I get in line.

“What does I’m into cute girls who know how to stay true to themselves mean?” I ask my brother, ever the consummate expert on dating. He looks up at the ceiling for a minute, moving his mouth around in thought. Those sharp blue eyes slash back to mine.

“It’s a bullshit non-answer, something that sounds nice but means nothing at all. Why? Is that what Tam said?” I nod, and Joules scoffs a laugh, tucking his hands into his pockets. A girl trips over her own shoes as she passes him by. “I told you”—he reaches out to grab me by the ears, and I swat at his hands—“do not go online and look at that shit. And what did you do? Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

“I listen,” I challenge him, aware that our behavior is juvenile at best, an eyesore at worst. Nobody’s looking at us though. There are girls outside by the fountain doing a coordinated dance for TikTok. That’s what everybody is staring at. “You can’t seriously expect me not to look? How are we going to find him if we don’t?”

I try not to let the most desperate of my thoughts from last night resurface, but it’s too late. As soon as I peek in that box, they’re all there staring me right in the face.

I am not the first person in the world to decide that I’m going to make Tam fall in love with me. I’m probably the millionth person to decide that. Other people—smarter, richer, prettier people—have probably tried. Whatever schemes I can come up with to get close to him, they’ve been done. Over and over and over again.

The only difference between me and those people is that I have Joules Frost on my side.

Oh, and also curse-induced meet-cutes. That’s one of the rules of the curse: frequent but spontaneous meet-cutes.

“Did you break up with Lucy?” I ask absently, and my brother nods, studying the board on the wall so that he can decide on his drink of choice.

“Get me a strawberry milkshake with cheese br?lée and strawberry popping boba,” he commands, purposely avoiding the story of his breakup. I want to know what happened. There’s a pink stain in the center of his crisp white T-shirt that looks suspiciously like somebody might’ve shoved a bubblegum ice cream cone into it.

“Order your own—” I start, and then stop. The game has ended, and the girl behind the counter has switched the TV screen to Tam’s YouTube channel. No, please! I think, but it’s too late.

There he is, smiling like an All-American toothpaste commercial with just a sprinkle of sex. His strawberry hair is tufted around another beanie, a red one this time.

“Kaycee and I are going to take you on our version of a perfect date,” Tam says, his talking voice low and sexy. It’s annoying. How can he hit all those high notes when he talks like that? He holds his phone up in one hand, wrapping his arm around the narrow waist of a dark-haired girl with eyes like chocolate bonbons and a mouth dressed in nude lip stain. “Spend the evening with us as we—”

I purposely tune the TV out, practically stumbling to the counter and putting my palms down flat on the shiny white surface.

“Can we please get a strawberry milkshake with cheese br?lée and strawberry popping boba, and a soybean milk tea with oatmeal boba, tofu pudding, and tofu crema?”

Joules reaches around me and taps his card to pay.

Five minutes later, we’re sitting outside by the fountain in the last of summer’s warmth, sipping our drinks. Mine has soybean powder on the top and is almost too pretty to drink. The cup has the Razorbacks logo on the side of it, and the straws are striped with the team’s colors: red, black, white.

“Ticket sales open in November,” Joules begins, and I sigh, reaching down to trail my fingers through the water. I suck on my straw, cheeks flushing when a bit of pudding comes up with my sip. Ah. Sunshine in a cup. “Whether that works or not, doesn’t matter. We’re going to drive to every city that fucker is in, and we’re going to find a way to get close to him.” Joules taps something out on his phone, and mine buzzes in response. “Dad suggested we try to get jobs at all the stadiums he’s playing at. Or in the best hotels nearby, just in case. It’s not a bad idea. Might even give you more opportunities to run into him.” Joules stares me down. “Apply to them all—tonight.”

I snort, but he isn’t wrong.

Gotta have some way to snag those magical meet-cutes.

Besides Joules, that’s my only other trump card. If I can get close-ish to Tam, then maybe the curse will throw me a bone and we’ll run into each other? No guarantee that he’ll give me the time of day though. Or that after a few of these fated run-ins, he won’t press charges and get a restraining order.

That’s happened to people in my family, too. More than once. Actually … eleven specific times that I can think of.

“I’m looking into fan calls, meet-and-greets, that sort of shit.” I look up to find Joules watching me, his pretty pink drink clutched in his hand. “Same thing with Kaycee Quinn. I might not be able to help you woo Tam Eyre, but I can certainly get that girl out of your way.”

“You think you’ll have any better luck getting close to her?” I shake my head. “You are way too confident for your own good.” Likely, that’s a repercussion from a life of being fawned over. All the girls love Joules. Some of the boys, too. I honestly can’t say why: he’s a total dick.

“When we roll into each city, I’ll start digging and figure out where all the who’s-who hang out. Maybe we can find Tam plastered in a club or something?”

I try not to think about how much of the Frost family emergency fund is going to go into this. Everyone in the family contributes to it. We all work hard—even me—and put as much as we can into the pot. Without it, we’d never have been able to stay in New York to help my second cousin Margaret. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to quit our jobs and focus on our Matches. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to buy a single one of Tam’s overpriced concert tickets.

But it isn’t a big pot of money. It isn’t limitless. And if I use too much, what happens if Joules gets matched? Maria? Lynn?

I take another drink, crushing oatmeal boba between my teeth.

“I’m hanging out with my friends tonight,” I tell Joules, but he doesn’t reply. “I want to spend as much time with them as I can before we go.” I turn back to look at him. “What’s the first city we’re visiting, and when do we leave?”

“Let’s see how the ticket sales go first, okay?” he tells me, but I just nod. Joules stands up and takes his drink with him. “Tam is touring in Asia until then, so there’s no point in stressing over it. Have fun with the girls tonight.”

He takes off, leaving me alone in the middle of the crowded courtyard.

I don’t leave until I’ve finished off my drink.

My friends and I are meeting up at our favorite bar on Dickson Street, the heartbeat of the college scene in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It’s packed in here tonight, but luckily I came early and found us a table against the far wall, a booth with just enough space for six.

Maria and Lynn arrive first, faces grave as they slide into place across from me. I’ve already polished off an order of sliders and a Coke by myself.

“Lake,” Maria begins, reaching out across the table to put her hand on mine. I just stare at her. “Are you sure you want to tell them?” Her eyes dart to the entrance of the restaurant, as if my friends are an unstoppable plague and not the girls we’ve been close to since elementary school. They all know about the curse. They even entertain us when we talk about the curse. But do they believe in the curse?

I have no idea.

I think, at the very least, that they believe that we believe in the curse, and isn’t that enough?

“I want to tell them,” I declare, withdrawing my hand from Maria’s. She and Lynn exchange a look that I pretend not to notice. “They deserve to know that I don’t have much time left.”

Maria sighs, but it’s too late. The girls arrive in a cluster, pushing through the crowd and swallowing the extra space of the booth with effortless ease. There’s a cloud of floral body spray, and the sweet scent of that expensive shampoo that Luna likes, and then we’re all rushing to talk over one another.

I let them go first, spilling breaking news about the game, about grades, about boys.

Boys.

“I hear Joules is single again,” Luna breathes, bumping me with her shoulder, and I give her a look. I have never once set my brother up with anyone, and I never will—especially not one of my closest friends. I hate to tell Luna this, but Joules only sees them as extensions of his little sister. As in, undateable.

“Guys, listen.” I turn away from Maria and Lynn who’ve been silent this entire time, and push up the sleeve of my red hoodie to reveal my wrist. Chloe, who’s always been the drama queen of the group, gasps so sharply that people turn to stare. She snatches my wrist with her fingers and pulls it close.

“When did you get a tattoo?” she demands, and then she smacks me, and I cringe. “You promised that we’d get our first one together!”

“It’s not a tattoo,” I protest, looking past her at Ella, sitting silently and staring at me in disbelief. Whether she believes in the curse or not, she knows the story, and she knows what this is supposed to mean. If she thinks, after all these years, that I’m truly delusional enough to get a tattoo on top of my birthmark—the very same birthmark that all of my non-matched family members have—then she doesn’t react that way. She looks … terrified?

Luna, Chloe, and Ella, they all knew my cousin, Joe. They all heard about his Match. They all know he died exactly one year to the second after meeting her, and that his Match dropped dead that very same day. So maybe I’m not giving them enough credit here?

“Who?” Ella demands from across the table, sitting up straighter in her seat and flagging down the waitress to order another round of drinks. It’s some local craft beer, and it’s delicious. I’m not driving today—Lynn is going to take me home—so I’ll have six more, thank you very much. “Who is your Match?”

“Before we get into that—” I begin, but Lynn slams her palms down on the table’s surface and blurts it out.

“It’s Tam,” she declares, pointing at her own arm, at the lyrics inked into her skin. “Tam Eyre.”

“Tam … Eyre?” Chloe asks, still clutching onto my wrist. And then she laughs. “He has the same name as the singer?”

See? That’s how unbelievable this all is. So unbelievable that my most gullible friend thinks that I’ve been matched with a guy who has the same name as the pop star, not that I’m matched with the pop star himself.

“Hells bells,” Ella breathes, adjusting her glasses. That’s her favorite saying in the whole world. She uses it even when it makes zero sense. Sometimes, she’ll call out to me from across the courtyard outside of the library with it. Hells bells, Lake! I’m over here! I shift uncomfortably in my seat and try to tug my wrist out of Chloe’s impenetrable grip. “Tam? Tam? Tam?”

What does everyone repeat his name like that when they find out? The more times I hear it, the more freaked out I become.

Chloe forces a laugh, tossing her ashy blond braid over one shoulder.

“Could be worse. He’s hot as hell. Have you seen his new music video?” She does her best to smile at me, but there’s a crack at the edges that makes me feel sad. Damn it. I have underestimated my friends, haven’t I? They’re concerned, not patronizing. “Tam is gorgeous and talented and so, so, so, so nice.”

“He’s fake, and he’s full of shit,” Ella declares from across the table, pausing her rant to smile and thank the waitress. Fresh beer all around. I tug my mug closer and wrap my hands around the frosty glass. We have potato skins coming. And buffalo wings. And mozzarella sticks.

I’m not holding back here: I will have the worst diet in the world this year. A steady stream of fried food punctuated with boba.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Lynn hedges, unable to resist defending her idol. “I’ve never heard a cruel word about him, and don’t you think it’d go mega viral if someone had something truly horrendous to say? Not all that gossipy crap, but something real?”

“It could be worse,” Luna offers cheerfully from the end of the booth, leaning around Chloe and peering at me from dark brown eyes. “You could’ve been matched with the president.” I just stare at her. “What? He’s old and has the secret service. This is definitely better.”

“The secret service is nothing compared to Tam’s security team,” Ella blurts without meaning to. She cringes but I’m not upset. She’s right. The president of the United States probably would be an easier Match to handle. “Ever heard of Daniel Kang, Tam’s personal bodyguard? He’s famous for kicking ass.”

“Could totally be worse,” Luna continues, unable to read the dire sense of dread hanging above our table. There’s a metaphorical rain cloud floating above us, drenching us all with a downpour of melancholy and despair. “What if … you’d been matched with Kim Jong Un or something? You know, the North Korean dictator guy.”

“Luna, can you stop?” Ella snaps from across the table. Maria toys with a salt and pepper shaker while both Lynn and I clink our beer mugs and drink deeply. Cool liquid rushes down my throat, and I close my eyes, trying to fight back the panic. It’s been there since the moment I first found out, but it hasn’t felt as real as it does right now.

“Tam Eyre? Who wouldn’t want to be matched with him?” Chloe offers, and I think she’s trying to be helpful here. “Remember when your third cousin, Isla, got matched with some old, bald dude? I would’ve rather died,” she giggles with a hiccup, and then her face falls. She releases my wrist and then peers apologetically up at me from beneath her long lashes.

“He was nice,” I retort defensively, sipping my drink. “He was nice, single, and a virgin. He was thrilled that Isla even talked to him.” I lean my back against the wall, sitting crookedly with one leg tucked up on the bench in front of me. “They were married in less than two weeks.” They broke the curse in less than ten days. “And they’re happy! He’s great. They’re great together. She loves him.”

“Maybe you’ll be happy with Tam?” Ella suggests gently. “Maybe you’ll be great together?”

“Just think how cool it would be if you could pull this off,” Luna offers, struggling to peer around Chloe’s constantly shifting body to look at me. Maria sniffles sadly into her water glass, wiping a tear from the edge of her eye with a napkin. She’s usually caught up in a book, but not on a day like this.

The table goes quiet, a spot of silence in an otherwise rowdy room. The game is playing on repeat on the far wall, the volume muted. On the small stage, a man strums a guitar and gets ready to start some live music. It’s vibrant and fun and wild in here, and I can’t even enjoy it because all I can think about is how little time I have left.

And I won’t get to spend any of it here because I’ll be chasing Tam cross-country.

I finish my beer and steal Maria’s. She hasn’t even touched hers. Our food arrives, red plastic baskets with checkered parchment paper and heaps of fried bar food to share.

“Just think how cool it would be if you could pull this off.”

But nobody talks for a while because they’re all thinking the same thing: there is no way that Lake is going to pull this off.

Lakelynn Frost is going to die.