Grace said, joining us, May and Oscar following behind, as giddy and proud as I felt.
“Hey,” he said. “Good to see you, Grace. The journal is amazing.”
Oscar stepped forward, shaking his hand. “Wait, you’re the dinosaur guy? Those blew me away. Tell me you’ve got more for our next issue. Maybe you could show them getting on the ark with Noah?”
Eph froze.
“Dinosaurs weren’t on any ark . . . ,” Eph started, and Miles leaned over.
“He’s messing with you. It’s his thing. Don’t engage.”
Eph’s face relaxed into an appreciative grin. “Nice one.”
Oscar nodded at the compliment.
“Hey, wanna come celebrate with us?” Grace asked Eph. “Your girlfriend can come too.”
The word “girlfriend” immediately bothered me.
“I’ve got plans, but thanks. And yeah, we can talk,” he said to Oscar, and they shook hands again, all cool-guy nodding, before Eph waved to me and left.
“Hmmm,” Miles said loudly over my shoulder, watching him leave.
“No,” I said. “It’s not like that.”
“I’m just saying . . .”
“You’re not saying anything!”
He grinned.
“Celebratory churros at Coppelia?” May asked.
“Yes!” Grace said, pulling on her coat and scarf.
As we walked out the door, Grace yanked May’s and my arms, her face surprised, and pointed ahead of us.
Oscar was talking animatedly and Miles was listening, rapt, periodically and affectionately nudging Oscar on the arm.
“That’s amazing,” Miles said to him.
May’s mouth dropped open. I spun to Grace.
“What is that?”
“When did that happen?” May asked.
“How did it happen?” I asked.
Grace threw her hands up. “I have no clue!”
Miles looked over his shoulder to see if we were coming, and I can only imagine how the three of us appeared right then, stunned, mouths hanging open.
He stuck his tongue out at us and leaned closer to Oscar, and we all followed them into the early evening.
Gold necklace
Monile aureum
New York, New York
Cat. No. 201X-19
Gift of Keats Francis
ON MONDAY, KEATS WAS WAITING for me in chemistry, giving me what was clearly meant to be an übercharming boyfriend smile.
I ignored him and sat down, pulling out my chemistry book and flipping to the day’s reading.
I was tired from last night. After saying good-bye to Grace, Miles, Oscar, and May, I went home, ready to happily fall asleep thinking about the journal. Instead, I couldn’t stop fixating on Keats’s crappy behavior: his attitude when he discovered his story hadn’t been picked, how I could hear his and Cherisse’s irritating whispered murmuring throughout most of the reading—how everyone probably could.
I must have fallen asleep at some point; my alarm jerked me up. But if I didn’t already recall being awake at four, the bags under my eyes when I got to chemistry would have confirmed it.
“How are you, babe?” he asked.
I grunted, feeling distinctly unpleasant.
“Scout.” He reached across the desk and grabbed my hand. “I was up all night feeling like crap about how we ended things yesterday. Let me make it up to you?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Mrs. Carroll came in as the first bell rang.
“I know, I know. Last night wasn’t my thing. But you are. You’re my girl. Please?”
I had never been someone’s girl before.
Maybe this was just what relationships were like—you fought, you made up, you made out.
I felt myself thawing. “My birthday is on Saturday. Want to come over and have dinner with me and my parents?” I asked.
“Celebrating the day you were born? The best day in the history of the world? Scout, I wouldn’t miss it.” He leaned across the aisle and kissed me in front of everyone as the second bell rang.
It wasn’t until halfway through Mrs. Carroll’s endless lecture on the Bohr model of the atom that I realized Keats hadn’t apologized for last night.
• • •
On Saturday, when Keats got to my house for my birthday dinner, he was forty-two minutes late. I opened the door, anger making my breath fast, but he was clearly flustered, his cheeks red, his nose running.
“I texted you—where were you?” I asked.
“Sorry, I’m so sorry, Scout. Subway problems. You’re totally mad at me, aren’t you?” He stood hesitantly at the doorway, his chest heaving, and I wanted to point out that he should have left earlier, that in New York you always give yourself a subway-delay buffer when you’re going somewhere important, but he was here, celebrating my birthday, a big bouquet of pink peonies in one hand, a small wrapped gift in another.
Let it go, let it go, Penelope.
“Come on in,” I said.
He handed me the flowers and started to unpeel all his layers of clothing—hat, scarf, gloves, two coats.
“Is your