chewed for a second, then decided to tell me. “She had an affair, and then my dad took her back. How messed up is that?”
“Shit,” I said in shock. Then I added, “Don’t swear, it’s bad.”
Tess ignored my lame attempt at advice. “Anyway, I guess I’m still mad about the whole thing. I don’t think I am, but then my mom and I start screaming at each other and I realize I probably am. The trip from Long Island isn’t far, and I can take the train by myself. My sister said I could stay with her, but she and her husband work a lot.” She looked at her phone again. “It’s fine, I don’t need them to babysit me. They can just give me a key and I’ll take care of myself for a while.”
Take care of herself in New York City. At fourteen. “What about school?”
“Got out last week.” Tess put the last bite of grilled cheese in her mouth. “I get straight A’s,” she said past a mouthful of sandwich.
“Of course you do.”
She smiled a cheesy—literally—smile at me, and then her phone pinged with a text. She pulled the phone out of her pocket. “She’s home,” she said. “Finally. Thanks for the sandwich.”
“You’re welcome.” I dug through the small glass bowl on my end table and held out a key.
“What’s this?” Tess asked as she stood up and grabbed her bag.
“A key to my place. In case you get locked out again.”
She looked unsure. “You shouldn’t give your key to strangers. I could steal all of your stuff.”
“You’re not a stranger, you’re a kid alone on the streets of New York. And unless you have a weird fondness for Ikea furniture, there’s nothing here to steal. I’m the brokest person you’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t think brokest is a word.”
“It is now. Take the key.”
She did, sliding it into her back pocket. “See ya, Dracula girl,” she said, and walked out the door.
Five
Mina
Ten minutes later, there was another knock on my door. I had popcorn by then. I figured Tess had come back to ask for some, so I brought the bowl with me to my door and flung it open. “Popcorn?” I said.
It wasn’t Tess in the hallway. It was Holden Whittaker.
He was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt that said “EMT Crew” on it. His dark hair was slightly mussed and he had his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. “Hi,” he said.
I stared at him, popcorn bowl in hand. “Oh, Jesus,” I said.
Holden looked me over, his eyes moving swiftly. “Am I interrupting something?” he asked.
“How do you know where I live?”
“I was just here the other day getting you out of an elevator, remember?”
“Yes, but you didn’t know my apartment number.”
“I might have looked it up.”
“Oh, God.” I looked down at myself. T-shirt, yoga pants, huge bowl of popcorn. I was a single girl cliché.
“Listen, Mina, can I come in?” Holden said. “We really need to talk.”
I looked back up at him. He sounded sincere, and those eyes of vivid blue were fixed on me. He looked good in a T-shirt, which showed off his really nice arms. He smelled good. He was Holden Whittaker, my nightmare from prom in Wisconsin. This sucked.
“Okay, fine,” I said, taking a step back. “Come in.”
He came into my apartment, his hands still in his pockets. As I put down the bowl of popcorn, he looked around. “This is a really nice place,” he said.
The apartment made me look like I made a lot more money than I did. “It isn’t really mine,” I said. “I have it because of Theda’s Polish aunt and Starlight Express.”
Holden blinked at me, bemused. “Starlight Express, the musical? The one about trains?”
“That’s the one. Actually it’s about trains that want to have sex.” His eyes went wide, and I said, “That really is the plot, honestly. You can look it up.”
“You have this apartment because you were in Starlight Express?” Holden asked me.
“God, no. I can’t skate. I have it because my roommate is in it. Right now she’s on the road.”
“Huh,” he said thoughtfully, looking around again. His arms really were nice in that T-shirt. I’d never had a man in here, and his testosterone seemed to fill up the room, pushing out my estrogen waves.
He looked like the Holden I remembered, perfect and charming and handsome. But he also looked different. I hadn’t been wrong about that. His face was a bit thinner, a bit older, and that definitely was