the Centennial Fighting Wombat grinning from where it was stitched on her chest. Also, he hoped it would prove to be a distraction so she wouldn’t see the Seth-kissed-my-face expression he most likely wore.
“Thank you. Animal shelter?”
“Flooding, apparently.”
“Flooding,” Gibby repeated slowly. “Um, excuse me for a moment.”
She stood and walked away quickly, pulling her phone from her back pocket.
Nick stared after her. “What is with everyone leaving in a dramatic fashion today?”
Jazz took the seat her girlfriend had vacated. “We’re friends with a bunch of drama queens. What’s that?” She pointed at his laptop.
“Generic blueprints for a nuclear power plant where I was supposed to get hit with radiation to give me superpowers.”
Jazz sighed. “Drama queens. All of you.”
“Hey!”
“Probably not safe.”
“Now you sound like Seth.”
“That’s a nice thing to say. He’s pretty smart.”
“Yeah, except for when he ditches me. Again.”
Jazz frowned. “I’m sure he didn’t want to. You know there’s nowhere he’d rather be than with you.”
“Then why isn’t he here?”
She kicked his shin underneath the table. “Because the world doesn’t revolve around you, idiot. Other things happen, even if we don’t want them to.”
Nick groaned as he reached down to rub his leg. “I deserved that.”
“Probably.”
“It’s just … he’s been weird lately.”
“Weird how?”
Nick shook his head as closed his laptop. There was nothing else he could do with it now. “He’s always busy. He’s distracted. I barely saw him over the summer, and even when I did, it was like he wasn’t there. I don’t know. I’m probably making it a bigger deal than it is. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I tend to do that sometimes.”
“No. Really?” She smiled at him, but it faded before too long. “Okay, maybe this summer was a little weird. It seemed to be you and me more than anyone else after Gibby left with her parents on their trip.”
“Right? Not that I didn’t want you to be there, or anything. You’re perfect.”
She laughed. “Thanks, Nicky. I know I’m not Seth or Gibby, but I like to think we got to be pretty good friends on our own, right?”
“Right,” Nick said promptly, because it was true. Jazz wasn’t just Gibby’s girlfriend. Maybe that was how it’d started, but this past summer changed that for him. Jazz was funny and kind, and sometimes when she laughed, Nick thought it was one of the nicest sounds in the world. He was happy to have her, even if right now he was feeling sorry for himself.
Then she said, “Maybe he’s scared.” Nick didn’t like the sound of that.
“Of what?” he asked, perplexed. Seth wasn’t afraid of anything, not really. He was brave and awesome, and Nick couldn’t think of a single thing that frightened him aside from snakes, but that was okay because snakes were terrible creatures that served no purpose.
“Things changing,” Jazz said, picking up Nick’s pencil from the table and twirling it deftly between her fingers. “It’s going to be different soon. Everything will be.”
“What will?”
“This.” She shrugged. “Us. Gibby’s going to graduate, and go to college, and then it’s just going to be the three of us. Then we’re going to graduate, and who knows what will happen then?”
“We’re still going to be friends,” Nick said with a frown. “Even if we end up going to different places, that’s not going to change.”
“It might,” Jazz said, and that didn’t sit well with Nick. “We could become different people. People don’t always stay friends with the people they grow up with. In fact, most don’t.”
He took the pencil from her since she was starting to twirl it with anger. “Gibby loves you. You know that, right?”
Her smile was tight. “I know.”
“Then you should trust her to know what’s right. And on the off chance that your paths split, well. Maybe it doesn’t have to be forever. Or if it does, it doesn’t mean what you had mattered any less.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think people give you enough credit. You’re smarter than you look.”
“Thanks. I think. You too.”
“Seth loves you.”
Nick blushed. He couldn’t help it. He could still feel the way Seth’s nose had pressed near his ear. “Um,” he managed to say. “I … know? He’s my best friend. Of course he does.”
“And you love him.”
Nick nodded dumbly.
“You’re aware of that at least.”
Nick’s face felt like it was on fire. “Am I missing something here?”
She opened her mouth—to say what, Nick had no idea—but she was interrupted when Gibby came back to the table. “What are you guys talking about?”