“Blair,” I mumbled. “It won’t be funny to Blair.”
Like I really cared.
Tag snorted. “Believe me,” he said, “Blair will not only survive, but she willthrive.” I raised my brim to see his brows comically furrow. “You truly haven’t noticed how much she likes her name in the papers?”
Blair Greenberg did love people buzzing about her, whether it was thanks to one of her bylines in the school newspaper or a TikTok. Or even better, school gossip. She lived for the publicity.
I couldn’t help but give Tag a tiny smirk.
He gave me a tiny smirk back. The exchange was so natural that I wasn’t surprised when his hand suddenly swiped my arm. “You’re it!” he said and went dashing down the balcony.
I followed as fast as I could, hoping to leave all thoughts of Blair Greenberg behind us.
Although I swore I saw her ghost ahead of me.
Tag beat me to the gate but chivalrously held it open before I took over, slamming it shut and then wincing at the wrought iron clanging against its frame. The echo made me fumble with my mom’s key. How was Daniel going to get through later? I had no idea but knew he would figure something out. He was Daniel Rivera. “His ID has full access,” Tag said, reading my mind. “The administration gives the president full campus access. As for the gate…” He eyed it. “I think he can climb it. I could climb it.”
“Oh, really?” I said airily but also kind of annoyed. “Care to demonstrate?”
It took him less than fifteen seconds.
I refused to acknowledge it. “We should hurry,” I said once his feet were firmly back on the ground. “The sculpture sanctuary isn’t exactly close.”
Ames’s sculpture sanctuary, where Tag and Blair wereinfamous for doing “yoga” early in the mornings and reconciling from fights on Saturday nights. Even the faculty was aware of their routine because they kneweverything. “If it affects his performance in the pool,” Josh once said, “I’m going to—”
“You can’t knock his teeth out, Josh,” Headmaster Bickford had interrupted. She sighed dreamily. “The boy has such beautiful teeth.”
Yes, the many wonders of orthodontics!I’d thought. Tag had spent freshman year in braces but sophomore year searching for his retainer. Alex constantly hid it.
But somehow his smile had stayed straight.
Soon, Tag and I were spiraling back down to the observatory’s first floor. I led the way with Tag’s hand latching onto my flannel to better navigate the staircase. When his fingertips grazed the back of my neck, I wondered if he felt the goose bumps bursting on my skin. They were breathtaking like fireworks. That initial jolt of surprise, but then a dazzling crackle.
Together we raced across the worn black-and-white tile floor toward the door and exploded into the night. Still dazed from the twisting stairs and Tag’s touch, I stumbled over the building’s crumbling front steps. Tag stayed silent as I dramatically dropped every expletive in the book, but then he broke down laughing and said, “Man, I’ve missed your mouth.”
I took one step forward and then froze, going as still as a statue…but my mind did not turn to stone with it.Man, I’ve missed your mouth.
I told myself not to overanalyze; I knew what he meant. “You’ve got a real seafarer there, bud,” I remembered Josh joking when Tag and I’d started dating, because while I didn’t curse in front of the neighbors, I swore like a sailor at home.
Tag had always found it hilarious.
A deep ache settled in my stomach. Because I missed Tag’s voice too. I missed his confident cadence. I missed his soft whispers. I missed his easy laugh.
I also missed kissing him. Sad, maybe…but true. I missed his lips on mine and my skin. “Isn’t it a bit warm for a scarf, Lily?” Zoe and Pravika giggled two Septembers ago, and all I could do was smile at the ground. The picnic Tag and I’d packed the day before had gone untouched; we’d spread out the blanket on a far-flung stretch of campus but then ended up devouring each other instead of the food. “Best picnic ever,” Tag said while we’d walked back to main campus hand in hand. His hair was a mess and his Henley on backward, but he twirled me around in his arms before I could tell him. We both laughed when his stomach rumbled halfway home.
Man, I’ve missed your mouth.
I stood there, waiting for the tips of Tag’s ears to burn red and for him to backtrack and clarify what he meant. “We need to hurry,” I said when it didn’t dawn on him. “Alex and Manik are probably wondering where we are.”
Tag murmured something that sounded like, “I don’t think Alex is worried.”
“Well, he should be,” I said, now stalking across the grass. “This isn’t some…” I searched for the right phrase and, after a second, ironically found it. “This isn’t some silly prank.”
It took only three bounds for Tag to catch up to me. “Technically, it is,” he said. “So let’s embrace the silliness and lighten up a little.”
I turned on him, my voice sharp. “Lighten up a little?”
The Jester nodded merrily. “Yes, it’ll be easier if—”
