School Spirits - By Rachel Hawkins Page 0,63

his shoulder instead. “I think it was the arguing rather than the kissing.”

“Heh,” he breathed. “Maybe.” Both eyes opened. “I’m sorry, by the way. I shouldn’t have gotten so pissed, but—”

“Forget about it,” I said. “And…maybe it wasn’t just the magic that made me kiss you. But, Dex. I can’t…we can’t…”

I didn’t know what else to say. That seemed to sum it all up. I couldn’t. We couldn’t. My life was full of ridiculously dangerous stuff. And Dex, in his own way, was ridiculously brave. I thought about the clothes he wore, the unabashed affection he showed toward me, Romy, even his Nana. Every day of his life, Dex was uniquely himself, and he didn’t care what people said about it. And I knew that if he really knew what my life was like, he’d want to be a part of it. That was the kind of guy he was—all in.

And being “all in” with me would get him killed.

“It’s fine,” Dex said, breathing more slowly. “As long as we can be friends, I’m…I’m good with that.”

“Me, too,” I said. And even though I knew that was true, I wondered why it made me so sad.

CHAPTER 27

“So…Everton likes Leslie?” Romy asked around a mouthful of popcorn.

“Yeah. Loves her, actually. But that was before the amnesia.”

We were sitting in Romy’s room on Saturday night, a big bowl of popcorn on the floor, two different kinds of sodas on her desk, and all three seasons of Ivy Springs sitting beside her TV.

I’d filled in her on what had happened at the cave. Well, the love spell part. Not the me and Dex kissing bit. Romy had told me about her and Anderson finding salt on the grave—and I tried to act very surprised about that—but in the end, both of us agreed that Friday night’s field trips had been pretty successful, all things considered.

Then we’d put in Ivy Springs and let the trials of Leslie and Everton distract us from our failure. Romy had already changed into her pajamas—naturally, they had cute little ghosts on them—and I was painting my toenails. Well, trying to. Since I’d never done it before, my feet looked like I’d accidentally stepped into a meat grinder. As I dabbed at the bright scarlet mess, Romy glanced up.

“Whoa,” she said, eyes going wide. “What have you done?”

Sighing, I yanked a tissue out of the box on Romy’s nightstand and began trying to wipe off the worst of it. “I think I used too much.”

Romy laughed as she sat up. “Think? Iz, it looks like you poured half the bottle on your foot. Here, give me that.” She snatched tissues away from me and rummaged in her nightstand drawer until she emerged with a bottle of nail polish remover. I reached for it, but she held her arm over her head. “Uh-uh. You cannot be trusted with dangerous chemicals, clearly. Give me your foot.”

Hesitantly, I stretched out my leg, and Romy doused a few tissues with the polish remover. As she went to work scrubbing the worst of the mess off my right foot, she glanced at me over the top of her glasses. “You’ve never painted your toenails before, have you?”

I thought about lying, but seeing as how I’d somehow managed to get It’s a Bit Chili in Here between my toes, I didn’t think Romy would buy it.

“No. My mom is really strict about makeup.”

Giving a low whistle, Romy shook her head. “Never played dodgeball, never been kissed, never used makeup…”

My face was nearly as scarlet as my toes. Well, my whole foot, actually.

When I didn’t say anything, Romy raised her eyes. “Izzy?” she prompted.

I cleared my throat and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. I hadn’t planned on telling Romy about the kissing, but my stupid fair skin had given me away yet again. “I, um…me and Dex, we—”

Romy sat up so quickly she nearly turned over the bottle of polish remover. I caught it, but she didn’t seem to notice since she was too busy clapping and squealing something that sounded like, “Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod!”

Leaping off the bed, she paused the Ivy Springs DVD just as Everton was about to kiss Lila, Leslie’s identical cousin. “I cannot believe we’ve been sitting here for an entire hour, painting nails and watching TV, when you could have been telling me every last detail about yours and Dexter O’Neil’s mega-hot makeout session.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I protested. “It was… Okay, it was exactly like that, but—”

Romy cut me