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He pays the bill and walks me out to my car. In the parking lot, leaning against my hood, he kisses me. Soft, gentle, respectful.
“Can I see you again before you go?”
“Maybe,” I say. We exchange numbers.
I have a warm feeling inside as I drive away.
It’s only when I turn off the main road to head back to my apartment that I see the big black pickup behind me.
7
Ihad been working solo all year, so when Evan arrived he was assigned to me in chemistry class. I was the odd one out in my AP classes. The rest of “the group” were smart enough, but they weren’t on the AP track like I was. Badger was too into cars, logging all his free hours at the garage with no plans to go to college. Steph was barely passing simply because she didn’t care. Ainsley and Sam had sports—field hockey, soccer, track—that took up too much time for them to do anything but try to keep up a B average, so that they didn’t get in trouble with their coaches and parents. I was the only true nerd in the bunch.
But I still wasn’t nerdy enough for the nerds. I never had a partner, always had to be assigned one. In the ultimate humiliation, Mr. Frasier, my chem teacher, acted as my partner when a second pair of hands was needed for labs.
That first day, Evan slid in beside me in a pair of ripped black jeans, Doc Martens, and a slouchy flannel. He glanced at me from beneath a silky, dark flop of hair, offered a couldn’t-be-bothered nod, and proceeded to blank out for the rest of class, while I stole surreptitious glances at his anime good looks—thick lashes, perfect skin, angled cheekbones.
“Hey,” he said after the bell rang. “Can I get your notebook?”
I looked at him blankly. “My notebook?”
“So I can catch up on the classes I missed at the beginning of the year,” he clarified. “Mr. Frasier said you were the one to ask. Good notes, supposedly.”
I did take good notes, but I also doodled, wrote little observations, snippets of poetry, short story ideas. I might have even been sketching his profile during last period.
“It’s private,” I said, shoving it in my backpack quickly. “No.”
He frowned, amused. “Your chemistry notes are private?”
“I’ll help you catch up, but you can’t have my notebook.”
There was a glint, the light of mischief in his dark gaze. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll come to your house tonight.”
“Uh,” I said, feeling flustered, unused to attention, any attention, from boys except for Badger. “Do you even know where you live?”
I flushed, realizing I’d misspoken.
A smile. “You mean—doIknow whereyoulive? Madeline Martin, right? I’ll figure it out.”
Heat came up on my cheeks. “I can give you the address.”
“I like a challenge.”
“What time?”
But he was already out the door, and I was left in the chemistry room alone, my heart pounding stupidly. I didn’t know anything about Evan Handy then, only the swirling rumors that he had done something to get him kicked out of his old school.
“What’s he like?” asked Steph, her eyes wide with curiosity, at lunch when I told her about my encounter.
“I don’t know. Weird.”
That he made me nervous, that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, how he smelled vaguely of cigarettes—these are things I kept to myself. Steph, though I loved her, was one ofthose friends. If she even caught a whiff that you were interested in a boy, she was all over him, even if she didn’t like him.She’s a taker, Sam always complained behind her back.If you want something, she’ll try to get it first.
And with her beauty, easy sexuality, midriff-baring tops, and painted-on jeans, take it she could. Anyone. Anytime.
“You like him,” she said, staring at me hard. She always wore too much mascara, her eyelashes thick as tarantula legs. It worked for her though, her sea-glass green eyes like buried jewels.
“No,” I said, too emphatically. “No. I heard he was in trouble at his old school. Something bad.”
