Bunker Hill’s deadly Latin students and the homicide they were destined to commit.
“No body, no crime,” I said coolly, folding my arms across my chest.
“Are you sure?” Anthony asked, almost incredulously. “Because it certainlylookslike there was.”
He gestured at us, and for the first time in hours, Tag and I looked at each other—studiedeach other. And dear god, our appearances really did scream “brutally murdered our classmate and buried him in the woods.” Tag’s hair was wild from the wind while my ponytail had half fallen out, and our clothes were covered in sweat stains, dried mud, and leaves. The left knee of Tag’s jeans had been busted and his T-shirt stretched out from our tryst at the boathouse. A mysterious bruise had blossomed blue on my shin, and—to top it off—I even had ketchup smeared down my thigh.
How convenient, I thought.Blood.
“I mean, where’s the shovel?” Anthony said. “Am I right?”
“No body,” I repeated.
“Yeah, because you buried it,” he said, cracking up as I saw Tag pull his pump out of his pocket. My pulse quickened. Had it beeped? I hadn’t heard anything. “Seriously, though,” Anthony said once he’d pulled himself together. “What have you guys been…” He noticed Tag now pressing buttons on the pump. “Everything cool, Swell?”
“Yeah, all good,” Tag said, trying to concentrate. “I just have to bolus.”
Anthony nodded. “Gotcha.”
I closed my eyes. Tag was pretty open with his friends about his diabetes, but neverthisopen. He and Anthony swam together in the winter, and Josh liked joking that Tag was Anthony’s hero, but as far as I knew, they weren’t especially close. I doubted Anthony knew what having to “bolus” meant.
Which meant it needed to happennow.
He overdid it, I thought, tiny little needles pricking the back of my neck. Tag’s pump knew how much insulin to administer regularly, but when his blood sugar spiked, he instructed it to deliver a bolus, which was a heavier dose of insulin to even out the rise in his blood glucose level. It was a one-time dosage, mostly deployed after meals…or, in this scenario, hastily thrown together snacks. Why had I brought out the grapefruit juice?
“Lily’s just walking me home,” Tag told Anthony after he’d slipped the pump back in his jeans. “We went camping in the woods last night.”
“Camping?” Anthony asked. “Where’re your pillows and sleeping bags?”
“With the shovel,” I deadpanned.
“Which may or may not be buried with the body,” Tag said smoothly, and I had to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing. He shrugged. “Freshman year, I made a list of things I wanted to do before graduating, and camping was one of them.”
I smiled. He wasn’t lying, but he’d crossed that item offthe list a long time ago. It had been the summer between sophomore and junior year when we’d visited Josh’s cabin in Montana—we’d slept under the sky three nights in a row. I’d never seen brighter stars.
Anthony soon asked the obvious question because no one was immune to Ames’s gossip mill. “What about Blair?”
In response, Tag gave him a quizzical look. “Ant, come on,” he said. “We both know Blair Greenberg doesn’t camp.”
And then he took my hand, laced his fingers through mine, and raised them so he could kiss the inside of my wrist. My heart swelled, absolutely spellbound.
It felt like magic had been injected into my veins.
Even if this was nothing but pretend.
I had to admit that now. Tag and I were playing pretend.
“Have a good rest of your run, Anthony,” I said a few minutes later, and once he’d taken off toward the beach, I squeezed Tag’s hand—hard. “You had to bolus.”
Tag groaned. “Yeah, it wasn’t my first choice to do it in front of him, but I suddenly felt like crap and needed to let you know. I’m never chugging grapefruit juice again.”
“You have my full support on that front,” I said, then swallowed. “You’re sure you got it, though? The right dose? I mean, an accurate one based on—”
Tag covered my mouth with his hand. “Yes, I have it handled,” he said. “Please stop worrying so much.”
Please stop giving me reasons to, I thought, but I didn’t sayit; instead, I swatted his shoulder before beginning an invisible game of hopscotch up the street.
He laughed, then followed me.
