gaze, then looked back at her. “Is there a terrible customer up there or something?” he asked. “Does someone smell?”
“No, just . . . you know, some people from school.”
“Ah,” he said. “You spend five days in a row with them, and now it’s the weekend and you still can’t get rid of them.”
“Something like that,” Grace said, but he smiled at her in a way that made Grace wonder if he knew the real reason she didn’t want to go up there.
“I’m glad to see you again,” he said as he led her toward the back register. “Only, you know, without the formaldehyde smell this time.”
“I tried to warn you about that,” she told him. “You wouldn’t listen.”
“Yeah, that was just an interesting experience all around.” He took the package from Grace without looking up at her. “What are these?”
“Salt and pepper shakers,” she said. “I told you, insomnia. She makes some weird choices around three a.m.”
“I can’t tell if these are terrible or amazing.”
“That’s what I said!” Grace cried. “My dad voted for terrible, though, so . . .”
Her phone buzzed in her back pocket, but she ignored it.
“Soooo,” Rafe said as he started to do the return. “Who else have you been punching? You gotta stay sharp, you know. A ninja never rests.”
“I’m not an actual ninja.”
Rafe pushed a bunch of buttons on the keyboard in front of him. “How do you know you’re not?”
“Don’t you need some kind of . . . certification? Like a badge or a diploma?”
“Dunno. They never stick around long enough for me to ask.”
Grace smiled despite herself. “Haven’t punched anyone since,” she admitted. “That was just a one-off.”
“Did your parents ground you for the rest of your life?”
“No.” She watched as he rang up the return, expertly flipping the tiny egg in the frying pan like he was actually cooking it. “My parents are sort of tiptoeing around me right now.”
“Oh yeah?” He glanced up at her from the register. “Why? Afraid you’ll punch them, too?”
“Has no one told you?” Grace finally asked. “Seriously?” Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it again.
“Told me what?” Rafe handed her the receipt. “I just credited your mom’s account.”
“So wait, you seriously don’t know why I punched that guy and . . . ?”
“See, that’s one of the things that sucks about being a new kid at school. You don’t have any friends to fill you in on all the dirt.”
Grace felt her heart sink. No wonder he was being so nice to her. He had no idea. “Consider yourself lucky.”
“I’ll do one better. I’m supposed to go on my break right now. You want to get frozen yogurt or something? You can catch me up on everything I should know. Be my very own TMZ.”
Grace hadn’t had frozen yogurt since before Peach. Just the thought of that tart berry taste had made her stomach ache with nausea, but now it didn’t sound so terrible.
Getting frozen yogurt with someone else, on the other hand, was a different story. A bad story. A story that sounded very terrible.
“Look, I need to tell you something,” Grace told Rafe, facing him head-on. She had a really hard time looking people in the eye lately. It was almost like it made her head feel heavy, like she had to look down or away in order to keep her equilibrium.
“Well, that sentence never leads into anything good.”
“I just . . . I’m not really looking to hook up with or date anyone right now, okay? I don’t want to.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Rafe held up his hands and looked around like Grace had just threatened him with a gun and told him to empty the register. “Who said anything about hooking up or dating? I said yogurt. They don’t even rhyme!”
He was making Grace smile despite herself. Max had done the same thing, too, once upon a time.
“I just like eating frozen yogurt and I thought that you might like eating frozen yogurt, too,” he continued. “And my break’s only fifteen minutes, anyway, so that would be a really cheap date. You shouldn’t date me—I’m obviously terrible at it.”
“You’re very odd,” Grace said after a minute.
He shrugged. “My siblings are way older than me. I’m basically an only child. I spend a lot of time talking to myself.”
“Me, too,” Grace said, before suddenly realizing that she kind of wasn’t an only child—not anymore. “Well, sort of. Long story.”
Rafe raised an eyebrow at her but didn’t push. “Frozen yogurt?”