Alex:You didn’t have to. (I am pining too, naturally. That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always pining.)
Alex is absurd. I am certainly not pining.
My phone buzzes with a surge of pictures he’s sending one right after the other: the night sky, a blurry shot of the moon. A grinning selfie. He’s a terrible photographer—the only fragment of the picture that’s properly in focus is his broad smile. I think he’s waving, arm a smear. He’s wearing anACTION LEAGUE NOW!shirt and looks so light and happy.
I decide it’s a nice night for a bike ride.
“I’m going for a ride,” I announce, very casually, as I slip on my shoes. “Nowhere in particular. The weather’s nice.”
Zelda sprints toward the stairs. “I want to see his house, too.”
Luna shovels popcorn into her mouth, not turning away from the television. She and Ash are bingeingOver the Garden Wall. “Already saw it.”
I gasp. The betrayal! “When?”
“Foreverago.”
“Yesterday,” Ash inserts. Luna pokes her arm. “We drove by on the way back from getting ice cream.”
Zelda and I scowl. “Where’s our ice cream?” We turn to leave when Luna hops up.
“Hang on, I wanna come, too. Let’s take the minivan.”
“You’ve already seen his place.”
“So? If you’re having a snoop party, I’m not missing out.”
“I wanna come, too!” Ash pipes up. “I love snoop parties.”
Chapter Thirty
PINK CLOVER:
Do not trifle with my affections.
And this is how I wind up in the driveway of a modest yellow house with a small front yard, right where the highway curves. In a cornfield across the road, a big silo painted up withMOONVILLE, OHIOwelcomes tourists to our neck of the woods.
“Turn the headlights on, it’s too dark to see,” Zelda says, reaching between Luna and me from the backseat.
Luna twists around, stern. “Did you have your seatbelt on during the drive over? I’ve told you, I don’t care if we’re driving for a minute or an hour, you’d better buckle up.”
“Yes, Mom. I unbuckled a second ago.” (No, she didn’t.) Zelda switches on the headlights.
“Hey!” I swat her hand, then quickly turn them off. Whoops, no, I don’t. I accidentally turn on the windshield wipers.
“Stop it!” Luna turns the lights off, but then turns them back on again while trying to flick off the wipers. Everybody hollers. We’re flashing our high-beams through the front window of Alex’s alleged house. Gilda Halifax’s information isn’t always one hundred percent reliable.
My phone rings. “It’s the cops!” Aisling yells. “Drive, Mom! Step on it!”
It’s Alex. I stare at his name on the screen, then at the window, its curtains drawing apart. And there he is in his living room, presumably, one hand on his hip. We all duck down in our seats.
“Caught,” I wheeze. “This is mortifying. We should have idled on the street. Why’d you park two feet from his window?”
“You can’t see anything good from the street, Romina. If you’re gonna be a creep, don’t half-ass it.”
I let the call go to voicemail, which he ignores, redialing.
“You gonna answer that?” Zelda asks.
