Macey rolled her eyes. "Not that kind of problem. Preston."
"Oh," Liz said, sounding way too matchmakery, if you want to know the truth. "He is kind of cute. And really socially aware. You know, I read this article in—"
"He's a dork," Macey said, cutting her off.
"But you have so much in common," Liz protested. Macey glared. "I mean, besides the dork thing."
"'Common' is overrated," Macey said with another sigh.
"Well then," Liz said, "what's the problem?"
"The problem is that we were attacked by three highly trained operatives and lived to tell the tale," I said without even realizing that I'd known the answer all along.
"Bingo," Macey said. "And Preston was impressed. Very impressed."
"So boys really do make passes at girls who kick—"
"Bex!" I cut my best friend off.
Can I just say that it's really pretty hard to deal with boys who may want to…
A. Date you, or
B. Kill you, or
C. Learn the origins of your freaklike self-defense capabilities!
And that day it was highly possible that we might have been dealing with ALL THREE!
Will the boy drama in my life ever go away?! Seriously. I'm asking.
"Even after you left, he wouldn't shut up about it," Macey told me.
"You could have shut him up," Bex suggested.
"Don't think I wasn't tempted."
A group of eighth graders passed by, singing at the top of their lungs, but the four of us stayed quiet and still inside the dark alcove.
"You're smiling," Macey blurted, no doubt accusing Bex of doing something Bexish. "Why are you smiling?"
"Nothing," Bex said with a shake of her head. "I just keep thinking…"
Bex isn't one for trailing off. She always knows what comes next and never starts what she can't finish. So maybe it was that fact, or the way the smile faded from her face, but something made me hold my breath as she found the words to say, "I just keep thinking how shocked they must have been. You know…them. They thought they were coming after a girl. But instead they got…"
"Gallagher Girls," Liz finished for her.
The two of them smiled at each other. But Macey and I—we just stared through the shadows, a new realization dawning on both of us as I said, "But they weren't surprised."
Chapter Fifteen
I've told the story here; I don't want to tell it again. This is my official record—hopefully the last time I'll have to answer the question, "So what happened last summer in Boston?"
I've told it now so many times that it comes out automatically, like a textbook I've memorized, like a song stuck in my head.
But after that…
After that the story changed.