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“And for two, I need more than a personal podcast. I need better equipment and more training. And at the school I’m planning to go to, there is one path into their podcast program and it will be taken by Jensen and Ava.” And I couldn’t move away. Not anytime soon. Not only could I not afford it right now, but I wanted as much time as possible with my grandma.

“The internship?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Maybe you need to make another path. Submit your personal podcast to them. Show them there shouldn’t only be one path.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“You’re scared to do that?”

“It’s more that I don’t think it will work. So yeah, I guess I’m scared. These past few weeks have shown me I’m more of a coward than I ever realized.”

“You’re not a coward.” He spun the football on his palm. “What you’re doing right now, with this, is beyond brave.”

I laughed. “Revenge?”

A half smile crept onto his face. “Well, that too.”

I snatched the ball from him. “I appreciate the pep talk, Coach, but we have to turn me into the best kicker in the land.”

“In the land?” he asked.

“Fine, I’ll settle for top ten.”

He smiled. “Stop grading yourself. All you need to be is better than one particular kicker.”

I gave a single nod. “I can do that.”

“Yes, you can.”

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I pulled it out. It was a Facebook notification. When I opened it, I found a message from Alice waiting.

“What?” Theo asked. I must’ve gone still.

I turned the phone toward him, and we read it together.

There’s a shed in the back of my mom’s house if you want to come look through it for the surfboard this weekend. You’re welcome to.

“Tell her yes!” he said in excitement. “Let’s do it.”

Chapter

twenty-four

“SO YOU DIDN’T KISS THEboy on the first date or the second. What about the third, Grandma?” I asked her the next night at our setup in my bedroom.

The comment section on the Instagram posts I was linking the podcast to were blowing up just as much as the podcast itself. People I didn’t know from all over were leaving comments asking for the next episode or talking about how cute my grandma was. They were also giving me suggestions on where to search for the surfboard. I’d followed a few promising leads but had found nothing yet. I was excited for the following day, when Theo and I would search Cheryl’s shed. That felt like the most solid lead yet.

“Our third date was in Paso Robles,” Grandma said. “The summer had just ended, and the county fair was in town. We went on a few rides, and then he tried to win me a stuffed animal at the balloon dart game. He had many theories on why he was unsuccessful.”

“Oh yeah? What were his theories?”

“The darts weren’t sharp enough, the balloons were underinflated. You know, typical excuses.”

“Tell me that you took over and popped a couple balloons.”

“Of course I didn’t. The darts weren’t sharp enough and the balloons were underinflated,” she said with a wink.