“Okay,” I say. “You did not just bring an alleged treasure book into my house without knowing whotheBenjamin Franklin Gates is.”
Cam takes a second, then snaps. “Oh, you mean the kite-and-glasses dude!”
“Gah!” I scramble up and grab the laptop off my desk. “That’s it! We are watchingNational Treasureright this second.”
We’ve had so many impromptu movie nights and random sharing of online videos that Cam rises as if on autopilot and plops down onto the left side of my bed. I take my usual spot on the right and start searching for the crème de la crème of movies about treasure hunting, or, as the incomparable Nicolas Cage character Benjamin Franklin Gates puts it, “treasureprotecting.” But just as I get the movie queued up, I feel the gentlest touch on my arm.
“Ivy,” Cam murmurs.
My whole body freezes, the way it always does when Cam says my name. I peel my eyes off the screen and look at my best friend.
Cam gazes deeply back at me. “You think this is real too. Right?”
I glance down at the soft hand resting against my elbow.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I think it’s real.”
Then, all too quickly, the opening music swells, lightning strikes over a young Benjamin Gates, and Cam and I snap back to doing what we do best: pretending to be more focused on anything else than we could ever be on each other.
Present
Chapter One
The view before me is sublime.
A gorgeous girl with thick, auburn hair and cat-eye glasses sits across the café table, her eyes soft, lips parted. Her nails trace the rim of her latte mug, tapping along to cheerful French music as it trips from the speakers. In the background, rows of books with shiny, uncracked spines gleam on the shelves.
Everything in my vision comes together like puzzle pieces. The girl. The coffee. The books.The girl.It’s all making this perfect picture. But the very best part of it, the biggest piece you can’t even see, is the person who isn’t here. I get to sit back and enjoy a world of total calm and sophistication without a certain someone—
The gorgeous girl, aka my date, Rachel, suddenly gasps.
“Is that Cam Leonardo behind you?”
I swear, even the violin in the background music shudders.
“No,” I say automatically, though I haven’t turned my head to look. I scrunch down in my chair and lift my giant mug like a mask.
No, no, no, I think.Please, God. Not again.
It can’t really be him, I reassure myself. The Cam I know would never show his face here. Rachel and I are parked in a corner table at Lady Business, my favorite bookstore slash coffee shop in San Francisco. We’re early to a slam poetry reading Rachel’s performing in, and more importantly, we’re on our ever-crucial third date.
Rachel adjusts her glasses and smooths her hair, though I notice she’s staring somewhere just above my head as she does both things. My heart sinks. While I cannot imagine what the hell Cam would be doing in a bookstore…I know from the way Rachel’s staring that it’s him. No one else makes girls stare the way Cam does.
I clear my throat, hoping this will remind Rachel that, actually, she’s on a date withmeat the moment.
She startles and shakes her head. “Sorry.”
“Nervous?” I ask gently.
“What?” Her eyes flick up, then back down to me.
“For your performance.” I nod toward the crescent-shaped stage near the doors.
Rachel glances at the stage. She laughs. “Not really. I’ve been a performer since I was born.”
“Hmm.” I try to think of some witty response about babies and poetry readings, but every drafted sentence in my head sounds either humorless or just plain stupid. My tongue gets stuck to the roof of my mouth. This is the part where I’m supposed to come off as charming. Cam used to say I could be charming, in my own nerdy little way. But that was forever ago.
I force down a sip of my latte to loosen up a little and…Rachel is already back to staring over my head.
