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Jordan walks over to us a minute later. “You didn’t tell me Cassia was coming.”
I tense as soon as I hear her name, the rest of his words taking another few seconds to register. Once they do, I turn, my grip automatically tightening on the bottle. I might break the glass.
Assuming Jordan was mistaken.
But he’s not.
I recognize the sedan as soon as I spot it. Excitement and confusion war within me.
Nothing about our conversation earlier left me with the impression she might show up here.
I abandon my beer on the table by the grill, avoiding the questioning looks aimed my way as I walk straight toward her car.
Cassia climbs out of the driver’s seat right as I reach it.
“Hi,” is the only greeting I can come up with.
I know her better than anyone else. Know her intimately. And I can’t seem to come up with a single interesting thing to say to her.
“Hi,” she repeats, fiddling with her keys like she’s nervous.
“You came.” I state the obvious.
“Yeah.” She reaches into her car and grabs a water bottle out of the cupholder, studiously avoiding eye contact as she flips offthe lid and takes a sip. “Did the invitation expire after an hour or something?”
“No, of course not. I just… I didn’t think you were going to take it.”
She continues to avoid my gaze as she flips the lid back on. “I didn’t come to fight.”
“Me neither. I mean, I don’t want to fight either.” I push away from the hood and straighten. “Can we start over?”
“How far do you want to go back? High school? Middle school? Maybe the day you moved—”
I fight the smile that wants to appear in response to her heavy sarcasm. “This morning. I’m talking about this morning, Cassia.”
She looks at me, her expression serious. Then something shifts. A lightening or relaxing. Some break in the clouds. “My mom said you came by the house last night.”
“Yeah. Pop the trunk.”
Cassia flips the handle on the door, opening the back of the sedan with a softclick. I round the back of the car, grabbing her duffel and sleeping bag out of the trunk.
“Were you going to tell me?” she asks.
“I don’t know.” I thought about it when she started surmising about my priorities earlier. It didn’t occur to me Mrs. Nolan might mention my brief visit. When I stopped by, three of Cassia’s five siblings were screaming.
“More people here than I was expecting,” Cassia comments, glancing down the line of parked cars. Her fingers play with the hem of her shirt. She’s definitely nervous.
“Is this everything?” I ask, closing the back.
“My backpack is in the middle.”
She steps toward the door, but I beat her to it, grabbing her backpack and slinging it over one shoulder.
“So, where do your parents think you are?”
Cassia holds my gaze for a minute. Then exhales, nodding a couple of times. Admitting I know her. “My dad’s working. My mom thinks I’m in the city visiting Sydney.”
“You’ve been to see her?”
