“How do you know I’m not protesting the exact right amount?”
“Because your left hand looks like it was hit with a hammer.”
“Maybe it was. Maybe I—”
“Had a confrontation with Thor?”
He rolled his eyes, which seemed pretty convincing.
But glanced away, in a manner that wasn’t.
“My hand doesn’t look that bad.”
“I think the middle knuckle is broken.”
“Man, those are some good X-ray eyes you’ve got.”
“I don’t need X-ray eyes. It looks like it’s on backward.”
“It’s fine. It’s nothing. I did it in practice.”
“You haven’t been to practice for a week. Coach stopped me in the hall yesterday to ask if I had seen you and pretty much suggested that I had poisoned your mind.”
He had acted fairly casual until that point.
But now he whipped a look at her. He raised his voice an octave, loud enough that a pixie-haired girl in an absolutely gorgeous red jumpsuit turned around and shushed them.
“Are youserious?”
“Yeah.”
“He bugged you about it?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“I’ll punch him, too.”
She knew he was being funny. He boxed the air with his one good fist, like some cartoon from the 1930s.Why I oughta,she thought, then wanted to laugh.
So it was a surprise when her voice came out so furious.
“You shouldn’t be punching anyone,ever.”
“Not even when the punching is justified?”
“Punching is never justified, you lummox.”
He wanted to laugh, overlummox. She could see it in the flash of brightness that suddenly lit in his eyes and the way his lips trembled at the corners.
But he managed to swap it for withering dismissal at the last second.
“Yeah okay, I know, I know, it’s brutal and aggressive and—”
“I don’t care about the brutal aggression. I care that your hand looks like raw beef. I care about you getting kicked out of college because you pounded some asshole who took a nudie picture of me.”
“He didn’t get a nudie picture of you. He got like half of your elbow.”
“Well then what did you hit him for? An elbow isn’t so bad.”
