“Yes, the purest of strains,” Tag agreed with a nod. “Which means if we use it, Ames will never nail you as the Jester. Daniel’s your prom date. Why would you ever write something like this?” He let out a breath. “But if we skip it and reconfigure things…” He grimaced. “Hops, I worry you’re fucked.”
I crouched down next to him, feeling like a complete idiot. Why? Why would I be fucked? What would give my involvement away?
“Building access,” Tag murmured. “No Jester has ever pulled an indoor prank before because student IDs are powerless after sundown. The only student who still has approval is our commander in chief, but he’s the one solving the puzzle. And while that freshman stole his keys, I think pegging him as the prank mastermind would be a stretch.” He sighed. “We both know those obnoxious alarms go off if doors are open for too long and how Campo never misses them. And there won’t be any signs of forced entry. If we’re lucky, a few classroom windows were accidentally left open, but we didn’t exactly break any for shits and giggles. The only other logical explanation is a faculty ID.”
“And that means me,” I muttered bitterly, then swore. “Shitballs.”
Tag was right; we needed to use the casually cruel Valentine’s Day card. Daniel would recognize that it didn’t sound like me at all, and if the clues went public, I doubted anyone else would point fingers. They’d wonder how the culprits successfully got into Hubbard and the observatory, but because of my reputation, they’d probably conclude that a daring daytime heist was more likely than recruiting me to provide a faculty ID.
Lily Hopper wouldnever!I could imagine Blair saying.
I held the envelope in place while Tag taped it to the boat’s hull, and then he quickly zipped up his backpack before we silently said goodbye to the sailboats and surfboards. Neither of us spoke until the boathouse’s door had been fully lowered. “There are other reasons why Ames would think you’re the Jester,” Tag said. “It’s not just because of Leda’s golden ticket.”
“Okay, yeah.” I snorted, starting toward our golf cart. “Sure.”
But Tag’s sudden hand on my arm stopped me in my tracks. He was already speaking, already rattling off adjectives at a speed that suggested he was extremely nervous. I barely caught any of them thanks to the roaring ocean. “I told Alex after I was chosen!” I finally heard him shout. “It was at the very end of last year, and we pretty much laughed the entire summer about the ensuing madness when it was my turn. I refused to do any concrete brainstorming, of course.”
I gave him a single nod. “Of course.”
“Because I wanted to talk toyou, Hopscotch. It was you I wanted to scheme with…” He dropped off, the wind whippinghis hair. “I procrastinated playing Jester for months, because I didn’t trust myself not to walk over to your house, knock on your door, and ask you to write in a stupid spiral notebook with me. I know prank collaboration goes against code, but I didn’t care about painting by the numbers. All I wanted was to make bullet-pointed lists and annotate campus maps and write ridiculous riddles with you.” He sighed. “If Alex hadn’t locked me in our room one weekend to work out the logistics, I don’t know if we’d be here right now. Nothing about being the Jester seemed worth it if you couldn’t be my partner in crime.”
He was shaking by the time he’d finished speaking, and while part of me wanted to throw myself into his arms, the other part told me to stay put and say, “Yet somehow I wasn’t good enough for you.”
Maybe it had been a mistake, to dig up our relationship’s grave, but…
So it goes, I thought.
Tag’s eyes widened. “What? What are you talking about?”
“You would’ve come over if I was good enough for you,” I said, gathering as much courage as I could. “Tag, you would’ve walked into my house and grinned as you presented me with a brand new notebook after giving thegreatesthello hug. You would’ve chased me up the stairs, and we would’ve put on our invisible jester hats and made some magic.”
God, I could see it. I could see it so easily, right down to theway he would’ve flopped down on my unmade bed and how I would’ve tackled him once he revealed his secret.
“But I already knew I wasn’t good enough for you,” I said, nodding resolutely. “So it’s cool. Totally and completely—”
“Why would you think that?” Tag blurted. “Why would youeverthink you weren’t enough?”
“Because of Blair!” I screamed over the ocean’s rushing waves. “Because you decided to go out with thegorgeousandglamorousand intellectuallysuperiorBlair Greenberg!”
“But you dumped me,” Tag stated matter-of-factly. “After two months of pushing me away—”
“I did not!” I said.
“You did too!” he said back. “You started hanging at home on Saturday nights instead of coming to dances, and whenever I also wanted to skip, you told me not to worry about it—to just go have fun with Alex.” His throat bobbed. “It’s like you didn’t want to spend any time with me. You’d always be doing homework when I came over for Josh’s neighborhood brunch the next morning, and then you invited friends to go to the movies with us later. Sunday matinée showings were ours, Lily. They wereourtradition.”
“Yeah.” I glanced at the ground. “Until you stood me up for one.”
Tag released a long breath. “I did that on purpose,” he eventually said. “I’m not proud of it, but I wanted to see if you’d care.” He shrugged. “You didn’t.”
Tears pooled in my eyes. “That’s not true.” I swallowed hard, remembering. “I sat in my room and stared at my phone for almost the whole afternoon, wondering if I should call you.”
“Why didn’t you?” he asked.
“Because I thought you’d found something better to do,” I admitted. “Something better to do with someone better than me.”
Tag put down his backpack, and my breath caught when he moved closer to pop my flannel’s collar. “What could be better,” he said, “than spending my entire afternoon seeing some strange foreign film…” His fingertips fiddled with the shirt’s cuff, so close to my bare wrist. Something began building up in my chest, as if water were filling my lungs. “With approximately four senior citizens and my one and only—”
I didn’t let him finish; instead, I grabbed his face and all but smashed my mouth against his. “Christ,” I mumbled when it didn’t go as planned. Our heads had bounced off each other.
