Seconds later, his large warm hand is against my cheek, turning my face toward his. “My memory is yours.”
My breath hitches. “Okay.”
He withdraws his hand, my skin cooling instantly. “Okay.” And then after a beat, “What does this mean?”
“It means you’re going to have to get a tattoo,” I say.
19
SADIE
“Joe!”I shout as I juggle coffee cups and his scone in my hands, opening the front door and noticing the hinges no longer groan in protest.
I head down the hallway toward the kitchen when an open door—Milo’s bedroom door—and movement within catches my attention. I slow my steps and peek through the crack.
There’s Milo wearing black-rimmed glasses, holding a New York Giants coffee mug, and staring into his phone, propped on a stand with a glowing ring of light around it. He’s moved his desk that is usually pushed up against a wall, so he can stand behind.
“And that’s why you can’t just trust what your teacher tells you, and that’s comingfroma teacher. There’s always more to a story than what’s been written in a book,” he says, his voice so warm that I find myself leaning in farther. He lifts his mug in a toast. “Find me next week, here at Friday Night Footnotes. I’m Mr. Carter, and I want you to know—your history only tells where you’ve been, not where you’re allowed to go.”
He sets the mug down on the desk in front of him.
“Hi,Mr. Carter,” I say as I open the door swiftly.
“Sadie!” he exclaims, fidgeting with the knot ofhis dark blue tie before removing his glasses and hurrying over to his phone, where he ends the recording. “What are you doing here?”
I grin. “It’s Saturday morning.” I lift the coffees and the bag with the scone in it. “The better question is, what areyoudoing?”
“I’m . . . um . . .” He looks around at his setup sheepishly. “Filming next Friday’s episode—for TikTok.”
“What’s with the glasses?” I smirk as I walk into his room, setting the coffees and small paper bag down on the desk so I can grab for the glasses. I put them on.
They’re totally fake.
His cheeks have grown redder, but his eyes don’t reflect embarrassment. Instead, he’s looking at me in a way that seems somewhat pained.
I pull the glasses down so I’m looking at him over the rims. “There’s this boy I knew who always bragged about his perfect vision,” I tease.
He closes the gap between us, slowly moving his hands up to gently slide the glasses off my face. He folds them and puts them on the desk, never taking his eyes off me. My heart shifts as if it was just knocked out of place, or maybe knocked back into it . . .
“They’re good for the part. People like props,” he replies, his voice as low as a hum.
My grin widens as I peek down at the desk. “Is there even any coffee in that mug?”
He picks it up and turns it upside down, spilling nothing. “Guilty.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I mutter.
He chuckles. “I think you once said you liked my kind of ridiculous.”
His breath is on my face, my own breath slowing.
In high school Milo’s kind of ridiculous usually consisted of making bets he fully intended to lose—like betting I couldn’t beat him on a history quiz just to owe me an hour of his time . . . or betting I wouldn’t wear school colors to the football game so hecould sprint to the bleachers and slide his hoodie over my shoulders like it had been his plan all along.
His hoodie that always smelled like clean cotton and something that was just him.
I clear my throat. “Where’s Joe? I brought his usual.”
“He’s not here. I took him to the café this morning so he could drink coffee with some other grumpy old men.”
