Page 32 of 16 Forever

“Yeah, no, I get all that,” I say, fighting to concentrate solely on her. “But I worry an opening like that will just put everybody to sleep—”

I stop speaking because Carter is waving at me.

At least that’s what it looks like.

“Lindsey!” he says, looking straight at me as he leaps and grabs a tree branch, kicking his legs in random directions. “Right?”

My heart pounds. Fast.

Shana gasps. I’m frozen, my heart the only part of me in motion. It’s thumping like I just finished a race.

Carter grins as he hangs from the branch like he’s the subject of an inspirational cat poster. “Anyway, whoever you are, how’s it goin’?”

I nod like a bobblehead and mutter a nonsense response: “Uh, yes.”

“Keep walking,” Shana hisses in my ear as she gives my torso a gentle shove. “Just keep walking.”

Carter loses his grip on the branch and falls on his ass, which gets a monster laugh from the hyenas—actually just Robbie and Amir, Bodhi is looking at his phone—and helps thaw me out enough so I remember how to walk.

Or speed-walk, as the case may be, since Shana is pushing me along like a shopping cart at a Black Friday sale.

“What was that?” Shana asks once we’ve made it safely into her car and are pulling away from the school. “Why is he waving at you? Have you been waving at him?”

“Of course not!” I sputter. “I’ve been avoiding him!”

“Oh Christ. Someone told him about you.”

I think about Bodhi looking at his phone. That twerp. He said he wouldn’t say anything!

“Well,” Shana says, taking the ramp onto Route 51, “he clearly doesn’t know all that much, considering he thought your name was Lindsey. So you just need to play it cool. Cooler than cool. Ice-cool.”

“You mean ice-cold.”

“Sure, if that phrasing is more helpful for you. Whatever you need to do to avoid falling for him again.”

She’s right. Of course she’s right.

But the freakiest part of Carter waving and shouting at me was howexcitingit was.

My heart didn’t just pound; it leaped out of my chest and landed on the pavement, pulsing blood squirts onto my white Nikes.

Minutes later, I’m still not okay. My brain is sideways, my hands are unsteady, and, even if you paid me a hundred dollars, I wouldn’t be able to focus enough to return to whatever conversation we were having.

The car stops. We’ve pulled into a spot in the Costco parking lot.

“Okay, so I have something,” Shana says.

“Oh boy.”

“No, it’s good. You’ll approve. It’s directly related to you needing to be ice-cool.”

“Ice-cold,” I say.

“Right. So my family’s going skiing this weekend.”

“We hate skiing.”

“That’s right, we do,” Shana agrees. “With a passion. Which is why I convinced them I should stay home.”