She was still glaring when he looked back over.
He shrugged.
The scowl deepened.
He picked up his pen and wrote,Would you believe me if I told you it was classified?
Ames practically snatched the note out of his hand when he offered it across the aisle.
Fuck no. Where. Were. You?
Noam sighed. He almost didn’t write back at all, but Ames would probably find a way to kill him with malevolent thoughts alone if he didn’t, so.Tell you later.
Ames didn’t waste time, once class was out, in grabbing him by the arm and dragging him past a very befuddled-looking Bethany and Taye and into the boys’ bedroom. She kicked the door shut and rounded on him, arms folded over her chest.
“Three days, Noam,” she said. “That’s how long you’ve been gone. So what the hell were you doing?”
“It really was classified,” Noam said. In hopes of seeming casual, he added: “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
“Youwerewith Lehrer, then?”
“Of course. I told you. It’s fine.”
But that was the wrong thing to say; color flooded Ames’s cheeks, and she jabbed one tattooed finger in his direction. “I’m not putting up with this bullshit from you too. At least Dara—” She broke off, then scrubbed a hand over her scalp, mussing her hair.
“What about Dara?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
Noam lifted both brows.“Tell me.”
“If Dara wanted you to know, he’d’ve told you himself.” Ames shook her head. “Nope. Although I’ll be shocked if you can’tguess, at this point.”
She narrowed her gaze at him, as if trying to track every little shifting microexpression that crossed his face.
He should tell her. It would be so easy.Dara’s still alive.He’d get to watch the relief dawn on her face—he could bring her to him, smudge out the misery that lined her eyes and mouth.
But if he told Ames that Dara was alive, that’d be one more person Lehrer could take advantage of.
“You’re being cryptic,” he said instead.
“No more cryptic than you,” she shot back. “But I guess that’s what happens when you get tight with Lehrer. You start keeping secrets.”
“Oh, fuck off, Ames,” Noam said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Ames shifted her weight from foot to foot, her jaw clenched hard enough Noam could practically hear her teeth grinding together. “Listen. I do know what I’m talking about. Okay? I do.”
“Why don’t you enlighten me, then?”
She looked like she would rather peel her own skin off slowly. But she said: “I know you don’t want to think of yourself as a victim, Noam, but—”
Noam had heard enough. He shoved past her, stripping his shirt off over his head and tossing it into the hamper. When he glanced around again, she was staring at him, color high in her cheeks.
“I have to shower,” he said and jerked his thumb toward the bathroom door. “Do you mind?”
She left, but not before throwing her hands up and making a sharp, exasperated noise between her teeth.
He rinsed off quickly—there wasn’t much time between Swensson’s class and Adebayo’s—and ran his fingertips over the skin on the underside of his wrist. The same place Lehrer’s fingers had touched, tracing the lines of Noam’s veins. The same place Dara’s lips had kissed as they lay in bed together, Dara’s hair sweat-damp and his body bare.
