“I like the art.”
He nodded slowly. “That’s actually kinda cool.”
He said it like it wasn’t lame. LikeIwasn’t lame.
My mom dropped off our sandwiches on paper plates and told us to holler if we wanted dessert. As soon as she left, Darien stuffed half of it into his mouth and made a groaning sound.
“Oh my God. You weren’t kidding. This is insane.”
I smiled around my bite. “Told you.”
We finished eating, and I showed him my GameCube, the beanbag chair I’d won at a school raffle, and my room. I went through everything carefully, letting him in on my secrets. He flopped on my bed as if he lived there, arms behind his head. “You always this nice?”
I froze. “I dunno. Am I?”
He shrugged. “Nicer than anyone I know.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. So I turned on the video game and handed him a controller.
We played until my mom knocked and asked if Darien’s mom was still planning to pick him up. He checked his phone. Nothing.
“She’s probably busy,” he muttered, not meeting her eyes.
She raised an eyebrow at me. “You want to stay for dinner, honey?”
Darien looked at me. Then at her. Then back at me.
“If it’s not a big deal,” he said, voice small for the first time all day.
“Not a big deal at all,” she assured him. “You boys have fun.”
We did. After he trounced me in the game, he checked out my extensive collection of comic books, which, again, I told him I collected for the art.
After dinner, and finally getting in touch with his mom, he asked if he could stay the night. My mom made up the trundle bed and brought us popcorn in a giant mixing bowl. We watched cartoons until we passed out, him half-tangled in blankets, me staring at the ceiling, brain wide awake.
Darien didn’t talk about his parents, and I didn’t ask. Butsomething in the way he clung to the comfort of my house—the grilled cheese, my room, the warm lamp glow in the hallway he asked if we could leave on—told me more than I needed to know.
He didn’t want to leave.
And I didn’t want him to.
CHAPTER 2
DARIEN
Some houses feel like sunlight, even when it’s raining.
Tru’s momalways let me sit in the front seat, even though I wasn’t technically her kid. She’d pass me the bag of Twizzlers with a wink and say, “Don’t eat them all before the trailers.”
We went to the movies almost every weekend—a big old theater with red velvet seats and sticky floors. We took turns picking the movies. One weekend, Ms. Jameson would choose, and the next, Tru and I would agree on something. But Tru always left the decision up to me. I had a thing for action, sci-fi, and dumb horror movies where everyone screamed at shadows. To me, it wasn’t scary because it was so predictable. I’d lean over and tell Tru who was going to die next, and he’d roll his eyes but never argue.
We always shared the same jumbo soda and a bucket of popcorn so greasy it turned ourfingers orange.
“You sure you wanna see this one?” I asked once, when I picked some alien monster flick.
Tru nodded. “Yeah. It looks... cool.”
But I caught the hesitation in his voice. He didn’t like the movies I picked. Not really. He just liked that I pickedhim.
