"Direct, uncomplicated. I can dig it. Start from the beginning."
"Well, nothing's really happened yet."
"He thinks you're gorgeous, blah blah blah. I told you the cropped cut made you look like Audrey. Get to the good stuff."
"Well - " Luce broke off. The sound of footsteps in the lobby silenced her. She leaned out the side of the cubby and craned her neck to see who was interrupting the best fifteen minutes she'd had in three whole days.
Cam was walking toward her.
Speak of the devil. She swallowed the horrifically lame words on the tip of her tongue: He gave me his guitar pick. She still had it tucked in her pocket.
Cam's demeanor was casual, as if by some stroke of luck he hadn't heard what she'd been saying. He seemed to be the only kid at Sword & Cross who didn't change out of his school uniform the minute classes were over. But the black-on-black look worked for him, just as much as it worked to make Luce look like a grocery store checkout girl.
Cam was twirling a golden pocket watch that swung from a long chain looped around his index finger.
Luce followed its bright arc for a moment, almost mesmerized, until Cam clapped the face of the watch to a stop in his fist. He looked down at it, then up at her.
"Sorry." His lips pursed in confusion. "I thought I signed up for the seven o'clock phone call." He shrugged. "But I must have written it down wrong."
Luce's heart sank when she glanced at her own watch. She and Callie had barely said fifteen words to each other - how could her fifteen minutes already be up?
"Luce? Hello?" Callie sounded impatient on the other end of the phone. "You're being weird. Is there something you're not telling me? Have you replaced me already with some reform school cutter? What about the boy?"
"Shhh," Luce hissed into the phone. "Cam, wait," she called, holding the phone away from her mouth. He was already halfway out the door. "Just a second, I was" - she swallowed - "I was just getting off."
Cam slipped the pocket watch into the front of his black blazer and doubled back toward Luce. He raised his eyebrows and laughed when he heard Callie's voice growing louder from the earpiece. "Don't you dare hang up on me," Callie protested. "You've told me nothing. Nothing!"
"I don't want to piss anyone off," Cam joked, gesturing at the barking telephone. "Take my slot, you can get me back another time."
"No," Luce said quickly. As badly as she wanted to keep talking to Callie, she imagined Cam probably felt the same way about whomever he'd come here to call. And unlike a lot of the people at this school, Cam had been nothing but nice to her. She didn't want to make him give up his turn at the telephone, especially now, when she'd be way too nervous to gossip with Callie about him.
"Callie," she said, sighing into the phone. "I gotta go. I'll call again as soon as - " But by then there was just the vague buzz of a dial tone in her ear. The phone itself had been rigged to cap each call at fifteen minutes. Now she saw the tiny timer blinking 0:00 on its base. They hadn't even gotten to say goodbye and now she'd have to wait another whole week to call. Time stretched out in Luce's mind like an endless gulf.
"BFF?" Cam asked, leaning up against the cubby next to Luce. His dark eyebrows were still arched. "I've got three younger sisters, I can practically smell the best-friend vibe through the phone." He bent forward as if he was going to sniff Luce, which made her chuckle ... and then freeze. His unexpected closeness had made her heart pick up.
"Let me guess." Cam straightened back up and lifted his chin. "She wanted to know all about the reform school bad boys?"
"No!" Luce shook her head to deny vehemently that guys were on her mind at all ... until she realized Cam was only kidding. She blushed and took a stab at joking back. "I mean, I told her there's not a single good one here."
Cam blinked. "Precisely what makes it so exciting. Don't you think?" He had a way of standing very still, which made Luce stand very still, which made the ticking sound of the pocket watch inside his blazer seem louder than it possibly could have been.