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—if she doesn’t put out at the end of the?—

And then someone tapped my shoulder. I turned, expecting one of the coaches who doubled as traffic cops but found Darius, and was surprised by how relieved I felt to see him.

“You were doing it just then, weren’t you?”

I opened my mouth to say I wasn’t, but before I could he said, “Don’t lie.”

“I was. Guilty as charged.” I put a hand to my head to try and rub away my oncoming headache. Snooping came with a price.

“Guilty? Of what—of being awesome?” Awesome was not a word that I heard very often in conjunction with my name. I liked hearing him say it. “Hey, those marks on your back—they’re called Lichtenberg figures. I found them on the internet.”

“Yeah, me too. And a lot of other strange stuff.”

“Pictures of Storm, my old childhood superhero crush?”

“Precisely,” I said and tried to stop from stupidly smiling. He’d been researching things, on my behalf, about me, because he wanted to.WhatcouldIsaynexttokeepourconversationgoing?“Who’s your new superhero crush?” I blurted out.

“Uh—” he said for too long, eyes searching the lockers behind me for answers. “I’m too old for that now.”

“Oh. Yeah. Of course,” I said, feeling stupid for asking.

“Anyways,” he went on, all business, “sounds like your marks’ll fade in a few days—so you should get them tattooed on fast or something.”

“If I had any money, and if my mom wouldn’t murder me, sure.”

“So, just then,” he said, waving his hand around us. “What’d you hear? If that’s the right word?”

“All sorts of stuff.”

“Anything good?”

“Not yet.” Not for the values of good I was going for. “Just same old, same old.”

“Oh well. What time did you want to come over tonight?”

I had completely forgotten our plans. And now that I had more pressing matters with Liam— “I’m sorry, Darius. My mom won’t let me. I meant to tell you.”

“Oh,” he said.

“But tomorrow? Maybe?”

“Yeah—it’s not like we have a job to go to yet. What time?”

“Ten?” My mother would still be asleep then, making leaving a whole hell of a lot easier.

“Perfect. I’ll come by and get you.”

“Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

Then the bell dinged and I needed to get to lunch.

Lacey’d already gone through line and was sitting in our corner. She was on our bench with her back was to the wall so she could keep a wary eye out on all our classmates—which, oddly, included Sarah, slumming it in our indoor courtyard instead of out on the fields with Ryan. She was twenty steps ahead of me, and by the time I’d caught up they were already talking.

“I mean I know it’s not your fault,” Sarah was saying. “If you’re not in adult situations, you just don’t pick up that skill, you know?”

“Yeah, totally,” Lacey agreed, hovering perfectly on the edge of sarcastically sincere. The contrast between them could not have been more stark. Lacey looked homeless-slash-goth—as goth as anyone with her limited closet could be, wearing some black and layers of bulk with a general air of malaise, whereas Sarah was wearing a Redson maroon shirt proclaimingBison Pride!for the game tonight, dark jeans you’d have to use a can opener to peel her out of and outrageously cute matching maroon kitten heels.

“Hey guys,” I announced myself, hoping to take some pressure off in either direction. “How’s it going?”