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“Privacy, huh?” Manon waggles her fine brows, and laughter bursts out of me.
She’s a quiet one, but she can be funny when she’s relaxed.
“What about you?” Manon turns to me, a gleam in her eye, and my laughter dies. “I heard a certain blue-haired someone drove you home and stayed the night last week.”
“Yeah, well.” I swallow hard. “That’s all that happened, sadly.”
“That boy wants you,” Ev declares.
She’s said that before. But the evidence points to the contrary. “I don’t think so.”
“He so does. He’s waiting for the right moment to make his move.”
“He never needed a right moment to make his move in the past.” I’ve watched him hit on girls week after week in Halo, leaving with them, my heart feeling all twisty and unsettled. “Can we just change the subject?”
I’m thinking of the lines in his palm. The head line, broken and crosshatched over and over—important decisions he’s had to make in his life. The forked life line indicating interruptions and changes. A fate line, also cracked and marked with obstacles.
The only straight, consistent line is that of the heart. So long and deep. Like a wound.
The fact he let me see? It feels like a much greater gift than my stupid muffin.
“I like Ocean,” Amber says quietly. “He’s a good guy. He’s helping one of Jesse’s friends out, even though he doesn’t know him. Heart of gold.”
Helping out a friend of Jesse’s? I open my mouth to ask more about this, but Ev leans forward.
“Do you girls know anything about his brother? Micah was telling me the other day that he overheard Ocean talking to him, and it sounded bad.”
“Grim?” I lean forward, too, forgetting all about my other question. I’m not even trying to pretend I’m not interested. “Why, what did he say?”
“Well, Ocean kept asking if the brother was okay. Raine is his name, apparently. If he could see him. And that he was sorry.”
“Sorry about what?” The edge of the table is digging into my stomach. “Did he say?”
“Something about an accident. And about their parents.”
“His parents are alive?”
“I know, right?” Ev sighs. “He never talks about any family, so I assumed he was an orphan, like Micah and Jesse. But Micah says they’re alive. Ocean told him so.”
“He doesn’t look so good lately,” Cassie says, and there’s worry in her voice. “Ocean, I mean.”
Yeah. So I’m not the only one who noticed he looks off. Withdrawn, quiet, glum. Worn out.
“Did something happen to him?” I ask. “Something I don’t know about?”
“Aw, you’re concerned,” Cassie says in a singsong voice. “I knew it. You’re in love.”
“What? Why? Not true. Not in love with him.” I grab my coffee mug and hide behind it. “You’re the ones who brought this up.” I gulp down some scalding liquid, tasting nothing. “Did I mention I’m not in love with him?”
Silence falls over the table, and I’m fully aware of four pairs of eyes boring a hole through my head.
“What?” I mumble.
“Don’t you know,” Ev says, a grin spreading on her face, “that denial is the first stage?”
“That’s for grief, not love,” I say, but Ev is snickering like an evil witch.
“Same thing,” she replies. “Same thing, baby girl. You’ll see.”
