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“Because I was watching him watch you.” Bree smiled, and it was a real smile, the kind Kayla hadn't seen from her in a few days, and she felt something loosen in her chest at the sight of it. “He's so obvious.”

“He's really obvious,” Cat agreed solemnly. “It's actually kind of sweet. He's like a golden retriever who has no idea what to do with his feelings.”

“He's a junior,” Kayla said.

“That's the point,” Mandy said. “A junior. The baseball captain. Who cannot stop looking at you.” She leaned forward. “Kayla. This is a big deal.”

“My dad would disagree.”

“Your dad isn't here,” Cat said, and then immediately winced. “Sorry, that came out wrong. I just meant⁠—”

“No, you're right.” Kayla shrugged, because it was true, and because she had learned a long time ago that flinching every time someone said something like that didn't help anything. “He's not here. But he will be eventually, and when he is, the existence of Connor will not go over well.”

“How do you know?” Bree asked. “Maybe he'd like Connor.”

“My dad,” Kayla said, with the patience of someone explaining something to a person who had never met Mason Gault, “once told a boy at Lisa's soccer game to tuck in his shirt. A boy he had never met. For no reason. Just because the shirt was untucked and it bothered him.” She looked around the table. “Connor plays baseball. There are bats involved. My dad will not like Connor.”

The table dissolved. Even Bree laughed, properly laughed, and Cat nearly knocked over her illegal caramel latte, and Mandy put her forehead on the table and her shoulders shook, and for about thirty seconds the study room was loud enough that Mr. Okafor appeared at the glass wall with an expression of patient suffering and they all pressed their lips together and got it under control.

“Sorry,” Cat called through the glass, with her most winning smile.

Mr. Okafor pointed at the caramel latte.

Cat moved it to the floor.

He nodded and walked away.

“Okay,” Kayla said, when she trusted her voice. “Chapter fourteen. Can we please?”

They could, and they did, for about twenty minutes. Cat read the wrong chapter and had to start over. Bree's notes were better than anyone else's and she shared them without being asked, which was very Bree. Mandy highlighted everything on the first two pages and then stopped highlighting anything, which meant she had stopped reading, which was very surprising.

Kayla worked through the chapter and took notes and answered Cat's questions and kept most of her attention on what was in front of her.

Most of it.

The rest of it watched Mandy.

Mandy was just performing. That was the only word for it. She’d been pretending to care about the Connor stuff; she hadn’t really been engaged. Her highlighter had been sitting uncapped on the table for ten minutes.

And she hadn't turned a page.

And once, just once, when there was a lull in the conversation, Kayla had seen her face go somewhere else entirely, somewhere far away and not good. Then she pulled it back and said something funny about the causes of World War One that made everyone laugh.

Then there was Bree. She was acting differently, too, but Bree wasn't performing. Bree was just quieter, dimmer, like a light that was still on but had been turned down slightly. She participated and she smiled and she shared her notes, but there was a quality of distraction underneath everything she did, a sense that part of her attention was somewhere else and couldn't quite be reached.

“Okay, I have a question,” Cat announced, pushing her textbook aside with the air of someone who had given history a fair chance and found it wanting. “And it is not about chapter fourteen.”

“Shocking,” Kayla said.

“If Connor asked you to the spring dance, what would you say?”

The study room went still.

“He's not going to ask me to the dance,” Kayla said.

“Hypothetically.”

“He's a junior. Juniors don't ask freshmen to dances.”