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Nat looked like she was ready to take a swing at her but let Morgan stomp by in peace. She had one foot in the hall when she realized Dustin wasn’t following, and she paused with a hand on the open door.

“Are you coming?”

Dustin was doing a pretty good Arlo impersonation as he stared at the distance, but then he shook his head and pulled himself out of his daydream.

“Nah, I’m good, bro.”

“Ugh, don’t be stupid, Dustin.”

Morgan stared at him like she was getting ready to yank at an invisible choke chain but when all he did was shrug back at her she stomped her foot.

“Fine, walk home then.”

She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room, her footfalls echoing down the hall. Dustin’s eyes landed on Arlo, narrowing before he gave his head a shake and he went back to staring at the wall.

Time stretched on with the four of them frozen like that, the slam of the heavy doors that led outside long since faded from the halls. When Dustin broke the silence, it made Arlo jump.

“Gonna just, go take that walk.”

Bren had half a mind to stop him, but let him saddle past in the end, leaving him with a fuming Nat, and an Arlo who wouldn’t look at anything but the tops of his trainers.

***

Rain spatter painted the pavement in uneven bursts as Arlo steered the van along the road that wound around the border of Wakamow. They’d just passed the spot that Bren had stormed off to at the start of the year when he gave another shuddering huff.

“Arlo, are you sure you’re—”

“I said I’m fine, Bren.”

His lad was good at so many things, but hiding his hurt had never been one of them.

“Well, I amn’t.” Bren had been simmering since they left school, but it was boiling over now. “That wasn’t on.”

“People suck,” Arlo said. “This isn’t news.”

“Yeah, but you shoulda seen how friendly she was that first day, like.”

“That’s what makes her so awful.” Arlo turned down the stereo. “Sweet as honey until she decides you don’t fit her perfect picture of how things should be.” He frowned. “The bigot thing is a new development, though.”

“Some flowers have thorns, Mam always says. But so do weeds.”

They had almost run out of valley when Arlo slowed the van, creaking to a stop in the shadows between two streetlights.

“You’re up in your head about this, aren’t you?”

Bren took his hand and Arlo didn’t pull away. A good sign.

One Cranberries song had faded into the next by the time he spoke, his voice low enough that Bren had to lean in to hear him.

“Do you think she was right, maybe?”

“About pretendin’ we’re just mates in public?” Bren asked, wishing there was a crowd there so he could give it a thrill.

There was another lull before Arlo shook his head. “No. Fuck her on that one for sure, but . . .”

It took Bren a second to realize what Arlo was getting at, and when he did, he had to work hard not to laugh.

“That you were tryin’ to move in on her man?”