We waited a couple more minutes for Josh or the delivery guy to appear, but when neither did, Tag and I tiptoed toward the doorway. From past backstage visits, I knew the kitchen would be to the left, the so-called too-small storage room to the right, and the diner floor straight ahead. We just had to strike at the perfect moment.
Which turned out not to bethismoment.
Someone emerged from the building. Not Josh but Raymond from the dining hall. Tag and I both froze, backs against Hubbard’s shadowed wall. “Hello, little fellow,” Raymond said, spotting Puck over by his van. “You want to help unload?”
The damn cat, I thought.Why must he insist on joining the team?
“Hey, Ray, please tell me you brought…” I heard Josh call from inside, but he trailed off once he’d stepped out into the early morning air and spotted his archnemesis. “Nice try.” He folded his arms over his chest and shook his head at Puck. “Nice try, but I’m not my fiancée.”
Raymond gasped. “You and Leda are finally engaged?”
“You are not setting one paw in my diner,” Josh told the cat, then looked at Raymond. “Yes, we are—have been, actually—but it’s not public yet. We agreed to wait until after graduation.” He smiled. “This is Lily’s year.”
Oh, Josh,I thought, my heart flaring with love for him. Ever since Josh had proposed in October, my mom had been saying they were waiting for the right time to tell people, and I kept wondering why it hadn’t come around yet.
Now I knew.
“Still,” Raymond said. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you, Ray,” Josh said, running a hand through his bedhead. “That means a lot. We’re really—sick of this con artist cat!”
Puck had pounced for the prize. I blinked to see the cat zig past Raymond, then zag around Josh and into the building.
“I knew it!” Josh shouted, stalking back inside with Raymond on his heels. “I told Leda!”
“Hurry, this is our chance,” Tag told me. “Stevie’s alwayssniffing around Alex’s and my snacks, so I bet Puck will go for the food and they’ll follow him into the kitchen.”
Together we ran for the door, and after throwing ourselves inside, I caught whiffs of sugar and spice and savories from the kitchen mixed with the sound of pots and pans clanging. Raymond was trying to mediate between a roaring Josh and a mischievous Puck. “No, Josh, violence is never the answer…”
Puck mewed mockingly.
“What an imp.” Tag grinned while we weaved through the dark diner, booths empty and chairs still up on tables, and then flipped the lock to flee and fly across the student center. “We’ll have to thank him later.”
“If he’salivelater,” I said.
“Cats have nine lives,” Tag shot back.
“But none of them have been hit by Josh’s favorite frying pan,” I quipped.
“Touché,” Tag said, tickling my waist before we skidded through the side exit and back onto the street. All was still quiet except for a distinctmeow.
“No,” I whispered, spotting Puck sitting a few yards away with his tail swishing expectantly. “There’s no way.”
“Pet him,” Tag said when the cat sauntered over to us. “He was willing to take a frying pan for you.”
I shook my head and smiled when Puck let me scratch behind his ears. “Very nicely done,” I told him. “Now let’s go finish this.”
NINETEEN
Somehow, some way, we made it to Admissions. Cutting through Hubbard had helped us avoid crossing the entire Circle, but we still had to army crawl through part of it, flattening ourselves like starfish whenever a headlight neared. Then we crouched by the Crescent’s low wall before porch hopping between junior dorms and hiding behind the auditorium’s pillars. “Better late than never,” was how Alex greeted us when we finally arrived. He and his backpack popped out from the impeccably manicured boxwood hedges that framed the building. “What took you so long?”
“The Ames School equivalent ofAmerican Ninja Warrior,” Tag said as the knot of anxiety in my chest began to unwind. We’d made it, although I swallowed hard when I checked my phone to see5:22displayed on-screen. I glanced at the guardhouse up the street. Gabe’s old post faced the front gates, so his successor had their back to us.
“Oh man, who’s this?” Alex asked, noticing Puck at my heels. He’d kept his distance on the way over but now had moved in close.
“Puck,” I said. “Alex, this is Puck.”
“As in hockey?” He raised an eyebrow. “OrMidsummer?”
