trying to find its way to him.
“How are you?” I asked, leaning against my locker. I liked the way he leaned around me when I did.
“I’m not feeling so good, you know?”
I frowned. “That sucks.”
He grinned. “I don’t think you’re feeling so good either.”
“What?”
“You know. There’s been something going around, and I thought you might have caught it too.”
“No, I’m actually feeling pretty good.”
He sighed. I decided I’d read it as an amused sigh.
“Scout, let me be frank: I think you should cut with me today.”
Ahh—it was an amused sigh!
“Really?”
“Yeah. Wanna cut with me?”
I had never cut. If my parents found out, they’d freak, half because I’d never done anything grounding-worthy before, and half because they’d worry it was the first step on the path to being a delinquent. And I had a Spanish exam later that day and figured I should probably find Eph to make sure we were okay even though I wasn’t sure we were. . . .
“If you don’t want to spend the day with me . . . ,” he started, his face falling.
“No, why would you think that?” I squeezed his hand gently. “There’s nothing I’d rather do.”
“Good,” he said, giving me what I decided that moment was my official favorite Keats smile: the wry one with the eyebrow raise. Keats grabbed my hand, inclining his head toward the exit down the hall. “Let’s go.”
As soon as we rounded the corner, I saw Eph and Audrey talking. She looked surprised by something he was saying, until she met my eyes, and her face shifted, suddenly unreadable. She muttered something under her breath to Eph, and he turned, took in me and Keats holding hands, and his face darkened, chin jutting out.
Audrey squeezed Eph’s arm before leaving, offering me a rueful smile. I lifted my free arm just a bit—not a wave, an incline, an acknowledgment.
The first bell rang.
“Keats, you met my friend Eph, right?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He stretched his hand out to shake Eph’s. “Good to see you, man.”
Eph’s nostril curled at “man,” and I could practically hear the scoff as he shook Keats’s hand. He turned to me. “Can we talk?”
“Now?”
He raised an eyebrow and I shook my head.
Keats nudged me. “It’s almost second bell, Scout. We gotta go if we don’t want to get caught.”
Eph laughed, looking right at me. “You’re cutting?”
“So?”
“So, that’s not very you.”
“Well, maybe you don’t know me so well after all.”
Eph tilted his head back, running his hands through his hair, clearly exasperated.
“Pen, I just want good things for you. That’s all.” I bristled at how he was parroting my words from the Flea right back at me.
The second bell rang.
Eph waited, irritable and tall and all broody like a thundercloud.
Keats waited, his face open and handsome and expectant and new.
I took Keats’s hand and didn’t look back.
• • •
We busted out the side doors and onto the sidewalk, merging with the rest of the world like it wasn’t a school day, like we weren’t students. It was gray and stark outside, the breeze tinged with an unfriendly edge, and my teeth chattered.
“So, that guy Eph is kind of an ass,” Keats said as he looped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me close. “He looked like he wanted to beat the crap out of me.”
“No . . .” I didn’t know what to say, exactly. “It’s not you. We’re just not getting along—sorry you got caught in the middle of it.”
“I don’t mind. If you guys aren’t getting along, it means I get more of you to myself.”
I blushed hard, trying not to smile too much, and we walked down the steps of the nearest subway station, me still tucked into his side.
When the train came, we squeezed into the crowded car, finding two suspiciously empty seats next to a gray-haired woman in a frantically flowered dress.
After a few stops, the woman sniffed loudly, leaned over, and got close to my face: “I hope you have a terrible day!”
I rolled my eyes. “I should have known these seats were empty for a reason,” I said to Keats, but he pulled me up and over to the other end of the car, glaring at the woman over his shoulder.
I was charmed at how chivalrous he was. This would not be a terrible day.
We transferred to the F at Rockefeller Center, and after a much more peaceable ride this time, got out at Second Avenue.
“Let’s get coffee,” Keats said.
I followed him along past a string of bodegas and restaurants