From: [email protected]
Subject: Almanac Distribution
Hello, Ames,
I am thrilled to announce that today is finally the day! This year’s edition of the Ames School Almanac will be available for pickup this afternoon. Come to the auditorium after the bell, where I will be handing them out until dinnertime.
Make sure to bring a Sharpie for signatures!
All best,
Daniel
Tag and I made eye contact, and while I spied a smile playing on his lips, all he did was tilt his head at me. “What?” I asked, heart somersaulting. “What’s so funny?”
“He has no idea,” he replied. “He has no idea how well he’s setting himself up.”
I shook my head. “You sound like Alex.”
“Yeah, we get that a lot.” Tag smirked.
“Alex can be a real douche canoe at times, Tag.”
“Well, I guess that makes three of us,” he said lightly, then held up his phone. “This email isabsurd. Could he be more of a narcissist?” He rolled his eyes. “I mean, at least give credit where credit is due. He couldn’t give a shout-out to Manik and the yearbook team? Not even half a sentence?”
I scanned the message again, knowing Daniel scheduled most of his presidential emails. He’d probably written this one yesterday because there was no way he was in this buoyant mood right now.Are you seriously ignoring me, Lily?he’d texted again while Tag and I’d been finalizing our game plan in Admissions.
Plus, he couldn’t have just sent that email. His phone was currently in a cigar box. “Let’s go,” I said to Tag in a small voice. “We only have two minutes.”
Tag nodded.
“You’re not a douche canoe,” I added. “I’m sorry.”
“No, don’t be.” He rested a hand on my waist. “We both know I am.” He gave me a squeeze so soft that it sent sparks through me. “I’m working on it, though.”
I nodded before stepping away from him. Waves of hazy heat pulsed from where he touched me, and it was too much. Affection had always been so natural between us, but now it felt wrong. If no one on campus was watching, I didn’t want to keep up this hoax.
This sad, beautiful, tragic hoax of loving each other.
Tag followed me inside once I turned Bunker’s doorknob and crossed the cottage’s threshold. The front entryway was empty, and so was the living room, but neither of us gave it a second thought. Bunker held Latin in his solarium. “Ah, excellent!” he said when Tag and I entered the all-glass, rounded room. Sunlight streamed through the ceiling, and our teacher had a twinkle in his eye. “We were beginning to worry you’d lost your way.”
Tag made a quip, but it went in one ear and out the other. After depositing our phones in the black lacquered box, I realized that there was no place to sit save for what our class called the “chessboard.” Another one of Bunker’s beloved antiques, the small mahogany table had a marble chessboard inlaid in the center and was only big enough for two people. I closed my eyes for a moment; Tag and I had sat there exclusively for almostthree years. It wasn’t until we’d broken up that a classmate had silently stolen my spot. She took my chair while I switched to the settee across the room. It was the only time the seven murderous Latin students had ever shuffled seats.
Although now that Tag and I were seemingly back together, my old chair was waiting for me. I chanced a glance over at the settee and indeed saw that Daniel had his original seatmate back. She gave me a friendly half smile before taking a sip of tea, but Daniel’s expression was dour when our eyes met.
“Well, well, go ahead and pour yourselves a cup,” Bunker said once Tag and I had shucked off our backpacks. He gestured to his tea service table. “We must begin.”
Neither of us paid much attention to today’s lesson. I’d flipped to a fresh page in my notebook and marked the date using one of my colored pens, but my bullet points were sparse. Tag’s page looked identical, but the true tell was his shaking leg. It was one of his tics, which happened whenever he was impatient or full of anticipation…or full ofexcitement.
I didn’t want Tag to draw even more attention to himself, so I scribbled something in my notebook before angling it toward him.Kindly quit the bouncing, it said.
He picked up his pencil.TRY AND STOP ME, he wrote back.
The solution came much too easily. I took a breath and twined my leg around his under the table, quelling the shaking with steadiness. Tag only bounced twice more before his leg relaxed.
But my spine straightened, sensing someone’s eyes on me. I didn’t need to do a sweep of the solarium to know Daniel was staring. Something in my stomach twinged as I jotted down another message to Tag.
