a textbook on my lap, and Emma is at her desk with headphones on, her head bobbing silently to whatever music she’s playing. We’re not being social, exactly, but everything feels less tense than it has for a while.
A knock sounds on our door, and Owen pokes his head in. “Hey,” I say, sitting up. “Congratulations again, brainiac.”
“Thanks,” Owen says modestly as Emma pulls her headphones off. “It wasn’t really a contest, though. Nobody else at that school can spell.”
“Alex Chen made a solid showing,” Emma points out.
Owen looks unconvinced. “You’d think an eighth-grader would know how to spell parallel, though.” He perches on the edge of my bed and angles toward me. “Phoebe, I forgot to tell you.” His glasses are a mess of smudges, so I pull them off and wipe the lenses with the hem of my T-shirt. His eyes look unfinished without them. “You have to invite your friend over. Knox something?”
“I have to—what?” I blink in surprise as I hand his glasses back. He settles them unevenly on his nose. “How do you know Knox?”
“I met him at Café Contigo. He plays Bounty Wars,” Owen says, like that’s all the explanation I should require.
Emma wrinkles her brow at me. “You and Knox Myers are friends?”
“We’re friend-adjacent,” I say.
She nods approvingly. “He seems like a good guy.”
“He is,” I say, and turn back to Owen. “Why do you want me to invite Knox over?”
“So we can play Bounty Wars. We talked about it at Café Contigo,” Owen explains, and now all of this is starting to make sense. My brother misreads social cues a lot. Knox was probably being nice, asking about Owen’s favorite game while he waited for our food to be ready. I don’t know Knox well, but he seems that type: the sort of boy parents love because he’s friendly to kids and old people. Polite, clean-cut, and completely nonthreatening.
It confused me when I realized he and Maeve were going out a while back, because they made such an odd couple. She’s the subtle kind of pretty that slides under the radar, but once you start noticing her you wonder how you missed it. Maybe it’s the eyes; I’ve never seen that dark-honey color on anyone else. Or the way she sort of glides around Bayview High like she’s just passing through and doesn’t worry about the same kind of stuff the rest of us do. No wonder Luis Santos can’t take his eyes off her. Them I can see together. They match.
It’s a shallow way to look at things, but that doesn’t make it less true.
Knox has potential, though. Add a few pounds, get a better haircut, amp up the confidence, and—wham. Knox Myers could be a heartbreaker, someday. Just not yet.
Owen is still looking at me expectantly. “Knox and I aren’t really the kind of friends who go to each other’s houses,” I tell him.
His lower lip juts out in a pout. “Why not? You let Brandon come over.”
My chest constricts at the memory of Brandon’s slimy tongue trying to invade my mouth. “That’s not—”
“Brandon Weber?” Owen and I both jump as Emma’s voice spikes an octave. “That creep was in our apartment? Why?” I don’t answer, and her expression gradually morphs from horrified to thunderous. “Oh my God. Is that who you’ve been hooking up with lately?”
“Can we not do this right now?” I say, with a pointed glance toward Owen.
But Emma’s face has gone red and splotchy, which is always a bad sign. She yanks her headphones from around her neck and stands up, stalking toward me like she’s about to shove me across my bed and into the wall. I almost flinch before she stops a foot away, hands on her hips. “Jesus Christ, Phoebe. You are such an idiot. Brandon Weber is a piece of shit who doesn’t care about anyone except himself. You know that, right?”
I gape at her, hurt and confused. I thought we were finally getting past the Derek situation, and now she’s mad at me about Brandon? Did she…Oh God. Oh please no. “Were you involved with Brandon too?” I burst out.
Emma’s mouth drops open. “Are you for real? I would never. Can you honestly think—no, of course you can’t. That’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t think. You just do. Whatever you want.” She goes back to her desk, piling her notebook on top of our laptop and hugging them both to her chest. “I’m going to the library. I