“It’s—?” I reached back and felt the tag on the outside. “Fuck me.”
Stephen smirked.
I yanked the sweater off and started righting it. “Late start to the morning.”
Stephen went to the coffee machine and started wooing it into making me a cup. “Would that be due to an unplanned sleepover?”
I stuck my arms back through the sweater. “Is it that obvious?” I pulled it over my head again.
“No, just a lucky guess. You’re usually perfectly put together, I figured someone had you flustered.”
“We forgot to set an alarm,” I answered, adjusting my bow tie. “Oopsie.”
“Indeed.” Stephen held out the third coffee cup. “Now, I’m not one to judge when it comes to coffee, but Bowen….Hazelnut?”
“I picked hazelnut?” I groaned, taking the cup from Stephen. “The problem with being a coffee person is that half of the time you need coffee just to coffee properly.”
He laughed and followed me out of the lounge.
“Did you need something in there too?” I asked, stopping in the hall.
“Hmm? Oh no. I heard you swearing from out here and decided to check on you.”
We went to the band room across the hall. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“That you curse like a sailor before caffeine? Your secret is safe with me,” Stephen replied. “Still good for yearbook doings tonight?”
“It’s on like Donkey Kong.”
Stephen opened the classroom door for me. “You know, sometimes I suspect you’re a kid in adult-size clothes.”
“You’re not the first person to say that to me.”
“That’s your trick for keeping popular with teenagers, isn’t it?”
I raised my coffee as a toast and winked at Stephen.
“Mr. Merlin?”
I looked away from Stephen and stepped into the classroom. Alan was already waiting for me, sitting in his chair, clarinet case beside his feet. “Oh, hey, Alan.”
Stephen, clearly knowing whose kid Alan was, gave me a brief wave. “I’ll catch you later.”
“Bye, Stephen,” I called. I waited until the door fell shut and then set my bag down by the piano. “I’m really sorry about this morning,” I began. “I didn’t mean—”
“Did my dad tell you?” he asked.
“Tell me… what?”
Alan motioned to his own arm and then made circle motions against his chest. “The scars.”
“Oh.”
“You’re sleeping together, aren’t you?”
Fuuuuck. This was so embarrassing. “Er—Alan, we shouldn’t be discussing this at school.”
“Look….” He took a breath and stood. “My dad really,reallylikes you. I haven’t seen him like this in a long time. And I’m just… afraid of something going wrong because he doesn’t want to talk about it.”
