“Is he seeing other people?”
I shrug.
“You havegotto sit down and talk about it. But honestly that sounds like bullcrap to me.”
“What does?”
“That he doesn’t care what you do when you’re not together,” she says. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you. The day Eric was saying all that stuff about you, he looked like he was going to hop the table and smash his face in.”
Oh, Willow. Sweet, sweet Willow.
“Obviously he opted for kissing the living daylights out of you instead,” she says, smiling. “An unexpected choice, but since I’m pro kissing and anti punching, I wholeheartedly approve.”
“There’s an xothelodown saying there somewhere, isn’t there?” I say. “Smash lips, not faces.”
She laughs. “Not bad, not bad. Take anger, make love. See, it only works when it comes out naturally.”
“No, that was actually pretty good,” I say.
As our campers start arriving, I still think Willow is completely off about the way Luke feels about me, but our talk makes me feel better.
The day passes uneventfully until it’s science time and we’re in Luke’s classroom.
The kids are in a particularly rowdy mood, so Willow and I are sitting with different groups of kids to try to limit the level of acting out. I’ve made a point of not making eye contact with Luke, not that he’s looking at me.
Each table is creating a papier-mâché volcano in preparation for tomorrow’s experiment. When Luke comes around to my table to see what the kids are doing, a kid named Kevin goes, “Hey, Duke? Is J.J. your girlfriend?”
“Kevin, that’s so not appropriate,” I say right away.
“We saw you kissing in the cafeteria,” Patrick, Kevin’s wingman, pipes up.
My face burns, and I pointedly do not look at Luke.
Then Kevin is singing, “‘Duke and J.J. sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.’”
“Kevin, you’re asking for a time-out right now,” I say. How the hell did I end up back in third grade? “Is that what you want?”
“Butareyou his girlfriend?” Kevin asks. At this point I am exasperated, but Luke stoops down to his level and says, “Depends why you’re asking, Kev. If it’s so that you can keep singing, then it’s none of your business. If it’s so you can ask Jessi for her number, then yes, she is most definitely my girlfriend.”
Patrick laughs, but Kevin says, “Why do you call her Jessi?”
I don’t hear what Luke says, because at the table behind him, Willow is grinning maniacally and mouthing,I told you. I roll my eyes. As if what Luke says to a nine-year-old is of any importance when we’re lying to pretty much everybody we know.
Later, at lunch, Luke slides into the seat beside me.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I say coolly before going back to listening to something Rouge and Willow are discussing.
Luke’s arm falls around my shoulder, and as his fingers make circles on my arm, I try to ignore the feeling of his touch on my bare skin. Embarrassingly, goose bumps prickle all the way down to my elbow, and I’m hoping he doesn’t notice.
“Hey, Jessi?” Willow says, and I startle at the sound of her voice. I guess I wasn’t doing that good a job of listening to their conversation. In fact, Rouge seems to have moved on completely to talking to the person beside her.
“So I meant to tell you ... Brett is coming over to my house tomorrow,” she whispers to me.
One of my eyebrows skitters up. “You told your parents?”
She shakes her head. “No. But I agreed he could come over—under ... duress.” Her face flushes, and I laugh.
