When I get there, he’s right behind me, holding on to his bike and looking like a drowned rat. His hair is in wavy clumps around his head, and his sweatshirt is so saturated that it looks nearly black. I motion for him to follow me down the narrow alley between Morgan Ashton Flowers and the empanada shop. Behind the flower shop is a small car pad where the flower shop delivery van is parked next to the wood stairs up to my balcony.
“Carry your bike up there,” I say loudly. He nods, then effortlessly lifts his bike and climbs the stairs. I follow.
The balcony of our apartment is big—almost as big as the apartment itself. Well, not really, but it’s at least as big as my bedroom and Mom’s combined. Mom had a friend who’s into metalworking help her build a corrugated aluminum roof covering about a third of it. He also built a metalwork grid bolted to the wall. That’s where Mom andI lock our own bikes to protect them from the elements. I yell at Miles to put his bike there, then use my key to unlock the back door and motion him into the apartment after me.
The back door opens into the kitchen, which is good, because at least we’re dripping onto the linoleum instead of the wood floors in the rest of the place.
I don’t see Mom. Maybe she went out with friends. I’m kind of glad she’s not here to see me inviting Miles into our place. Not that she’d have an issue with me having a boy alone in the apartment, because that’s totally not her style. But… I don’t know. I don’t want anyone, even my own mother, to have an opinion on what’s happening here.
And what exactlyishappening here? The balcony is a little noisy, but it’s dry. I could just pass him the bike pump and leave him to it. But here he is, in my house. I don’t know if my kindness has anything to do with how cute I find him.
But if I think about it more… maybe it’s what he said out there in the park—that he couldn’t afford a cab despite his expensive watch and bike. There’s clearly more to Miles than what’s on the surface. And he’s now a part of the Love Street community. We help out our neighbors here. Even when they’re supremely annoying.
“I hate rain,” he finally says after we’ve been staring at each other awkwardly for several long seconds.
“I love it,” I say.
He smiles kind of fondly. “Why does that not surprise me?”
I chuckle, drying my hands with a kitchen towel. I hand him a clean one from the drawer near the sink. “Seriously.Especially spring rain. It smells so mysterious and makes everything look so shiny, but also spooky. It’s like… everything is the same all the time, but then suddenly water falls from the sky, and it makes you see everything in a new way. It feels… romantic. I don’t love what rain does to my hair, though.” I laugh as I pull my hair back using the hair tie on my wrist. “Welcome to my apartment. Do you want something to drink? A bigger towel?”
He’s taken off his wet hoodie. The blue T-shirt under it is mostly dry. “I’m fine.” He looks in front of him into my living room, and I can’t help wondering what he’s thinking. This little place is about the furthest thing possible from a King City mansion. His house is probably a lot like Dad and Noureen’s.
I love our place. It’s just small. And cluttered because there isn’t a lot of space since there are plants on every surface. It feels like there are more plants up here than downstairs in the flower shop. The kitchen, where we’re standing, is narrow and long. Cabinets line one wall, and open shelves line the other for pantry stuff like spices and countless cans of chickpeas. The bathroom is next to the kitchen, and thankfully it’s pretty big. Right after the kitchen is our tiny dining room with a table covered with a busy floral tablecloth pressed up against the wall. Then our small living room. It has a big window, and the walls are a raspberry-pink color right now. Mom’s and my bedrooms are off the living room. Mine is a bit bigger than Mom’s—she gave me the bigger one so it would fit a desk for my schoolwork—and it has a bay window overlooking Love Street.
Miles has slicked his wet hair behind his ears, andsomehow the rain has made his lashes even curlier. “I think the rain has already slowed down,” he says.
I tear my gaze away from him. “I’ll get the bike pump.” I open the last kitchen cabinet, the one Mom and I call the garage because it’s where we keep all the things we’d keep in a garage if we had one. After finding the bike pump, I hand it to him.
“Thanks,” he says, taking it. “I appreciate it.”
“No worries. I couldn’t leave you stranded, could I?”
“Yeah, w-well…,” he stammers. He runs his free hand through his hair, which makes it messy again. He can’t seem to keep his hands out of his hair. “I’ll go pump up my tire.”
I open the door and move aside so he can head out. “Do you need help?” I ask as he steps onto the balcony.
“No. I think I can figure it out.”
“Okay. I’m going inside,” I say, then close the door. I sit at the dining table and start unlacing my Converse high-tops. I’m pretty soaked, so once my shoes are off, I go to my room and quickly change into a pair of purple leggings and a cropped black sweatshirt. I peel off my wet socks and throw them in the laundry hamper.
When I come back out into the living room, Miles Desai is standing alone in my kitchen, looking a little lost and a lot adorable. Damn that Cara for putting the idea in my head that he’s my type. It’s true—Idohave a thing for nerdy Brown boys.
“I think your cat hissed at me,” he says. My cat, Zuri, is at his feet, glaring suspiciously at Miles.
I laugh as I scoop Zuri into my arms. She immediately climbs onto my shoulder and wraps herself around theback of my neck, purring. “Storms make her nervous.”
“It stopped raining,” he says.
“How’s the bike?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I think it might have a leak. I tried to put air in, but it doesn’t seem to be filling. Do you know a bike shop that can repair a tire around here—and cheap?”
Miles is clearly having money problems… just like the rest of the street. I wonder why his wealthy King City family isn’t helping him. “It’s probably a hole in your inner tube,” I say. “I heard bike thieves are puncturing tires so people will leave their bikes in the park, and then they steal them in the middle of the night when no one’s around. If you’re short on cash, why don’t you fix the tire yourself?”
He looks at me like I just suggested he perform open-heart surgery on himself.
I laugh. “You don’t know how to fix an inner tube? I have a patch kit you can use.” I kneel to open the garage cupboard, and Zuri jumps off my shoulder.
