look at the book that’s open one inch from my leg. “You just wanted to have a good time and I was a drag.”
“You are so not a drag, Fifth.” He leans a little closer. “Can I make it up to you?”
I kind of shrug and shake my head, giving him a shy smile. Anything but have his eyes move one foot over and spot his dad, whose picture looks so much like Josh they could be twins. “It’s no problem, really.”
He touches my face again and, for some reason, it’s all I can do not to recoil.
“Come over to my house tonight,” he says.
Not a chance. “I’m busy … studying.”
He rolls his eyes. “You don’t have to study and everybody knows it. We’re having a list party.”
Through superhuman effort, I manage not to blink in shock and disbelief. “A list party?” No one told me about it.
“Just some friends and, of course, the girls on the Hottie List.”
Why wouldn’t one of them text me about this? After all I told them last night? I search for a response that won’t give away my thoughts. “Nobody calls it that anymore, Josh.”
“Hey, it’s legacy at Vienna High. You should love being on it.”
I look at him like he’s lost his mind because, well, he has. “Two girls on that list are dead, Josh.”
“They had bad accidents, but we can’t stop living, babe.”
With a small shudder, I look down again, stealing a glance at his father’s face.
“You don’t like when I call you that, either.”
“Just Kenzie,” I say. “Because I’m not your girlfriend.”
“Could be,” he says without a second’s hesitation, moving a little closer and tunneling his hand under my hair possessively. “I’d like you to be.”
I can barely breathe. “Josh, I …”
“Think about it, okay?” He leans so close he puts his mouth against my ear. “I really like you, Kenzie. Come tonight and we’ll make it official.”
How could I not go tonight? I could find something out, or learn more about the coins—even Jarvis. And all the girls will be there, as vulnerable as possible. But do I want to put myself in a dangerous situation?
“I don’t know,” I say vaguely. “I really have to study.”
He glances down at the book on my lap and my heart absolutely freezes. My one hand is splayed over the cover, hiding the year but not what it is. Only an idiot would not ask why I’m reading thirty-year-old yearbooks. Maybe he’s an idiot. Please be an idiot.
“What are you doing studying old yearbooks?”
He’s anything but. “I’m just …” Empty. Totally without anything that could be a plausible explanation. “Looking back at …”
He smiles. “Previous hotties.”
That’ll work. In fact, it’s like he handed me an answer. “Just curious what became of some of those girls.”
His expression softens with sympathy. “You’re worried about the curse, aren’t you?”
“Sort of, yeah.”
“Then you have to come tonight.”
“Why?”
He cozies up next to me, his hand on my back. “Listen, Kenz, a bunch of us have been talking and we know there’s something … serious going down with this year’s list.”
I try to back away but he’s holding me close, his voice nothing but an intimate, airy whisper, appropriate for the library, a little too personal for me. “I’ll say.”
“And that’s why we’re getting together tonight. Gonna put an end to this shit before anybody else … gets hurt.”
Does he feel the chills that are dancing on the nape of my neck? “How?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer for a minute, but somehow manages to get closer. “I can’t tell you now because walls have ears, you know?”
“I need to know,” I tell him. “Otherwise I’m not coming.”
He plants a kiss on my temple, holding me tight, then moves his lips right over my ear again. “Someone’s gotta take the fall.”
I jerk back. “What does that mean?” Images of unprotected platforms thirty feet in the air flash in my head. “Who?”
“We don’t know who yet, but it’ll be the right person. I have some ideas.”
“Someone else is going to die?” I practically shriek and he slams his hand over my mouth.
“Shhh! No one else is going to die.” His eyes are bright blue, reminding me of the gas flame that flickers when I turn on the stove.
Or someone else turns on the stove when I’m upstairs.
“But I have to take control of this situation, or what kind of guy would I be?” he asks, clearly a rhetorical question. “What kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t protect you and