“I ate the science.”
“Noah! Not again. We talked about this.”
“I know, but we were learning how marshmallows get fluffy. I just ate a couple, and then Reese narced on me.”
Narced.I laughed. Okay, he was growing on me.
“Did your teacher send you to the principal’s office?”
“Not for that.”
Jess shook her head. “What does that mean? Did you get sent to the principal’s office for something else?”
I already knew the answer. Oh yes, he’d been there. But I kept mum as I was enjoying the show.
“Noah?”
“I called Reese a snitch.” He sighed. “And then he got mad and told the blacktop lady.”
“Ugh, Noah.” She shook her head. “Why can’t you just keep your mouth shut?”
“Because Reese was being a snitch! And then he proved he was a snitch by snitching again.”
I chuckled. “He isn’t wrong, Jess. A snitch is a snitch.”
She backhanded me. “We don’t encourage bad behavior, Quinn.”
Too late. Noah was already looking up at me like I was his savior. He lifted his arm up. “You wanna sign my cast?”
It all made sense now. The emergency. Noah was why she’d rushed off that night. Noah was why she hadn’t texted me back. Noah was the piece of her puzzle.
“He was the emergency,” I said to Jess.
She nodded.
I returned my attention on Noah. “Sure, I’ll sign, but first you gotta find me some real estate.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he said.
“Real estate? Like a place to sign.”
“Ohhh,” he said, and I could see his brain turning, committing the phrase to memory for future use on the blacktop. “Real estate.”
I grinned. He was funny. A free spirit. So much like his mother, it was eerie.
Noah went to work examining his cast, searching for an empty spot, but there wasn’t an inch of spare space. He was a popular kid. Good for him.
Finally, he came to a decision. “You can sign on top of Joey’s name. He’s my least favorite friend.”
Ouch. Poor Joey.
“You got a pen?” I asked.
“No. I thought you guys carried them around.”
“A pen? Why would I do that?”
“’Cuz you’re famous.”
