“Oh, come on.” Charlie flashed us a smile. “That’s poor sportsmanship.”
We both gave him middle fingers.
He rolled his eyes.
Emma laughed.
CHAPTER 30
CHARLIE
The train Luke and I caught wasn’t as earlyas I would’ve liked, but we found an empty section and stuffed our duffels in the overhead compartment before flopping down into our seats. The plan was to do homework on the ride, so I was surprised when Luke unzipped his backpack and pulled out his Ray-Bans. He silently offered them to me.
“What’re those for?” I asked.
“To complete the disguise,” he replied drily, gesturing to my outfit: my wool coat overtop his Adidas sweatshirt. Its hood was pulled up over a black hat Mrs. Morgan had knitted me.
“Oh,” I said, biting the inside of my cheek. Our train had a changeover in DC, and a bunch of Bexley kids lived there. We hadn’t been the only ones waiting on the station platform. “Sorry.”
Luke gave me a long look. “Is it going to be like this the whole weekend?”
“No.” I shook my head. “No, I promise.”
Then I tugged down the hood.
We got to Charlottesville after dark, and took an Uber to our Airbnb. It was an apartment just a few streets over from UVA’s campus, courtesy of Luke’s Keiko Morrissey–tracked American Express card. Unlike me, Luke had real parental permission to leave school. “Does she know I’m with you?” I asked, to which he responded, “You mean with mehere? Orwith me, with me?”
Both, I guessed. She knew both.
That rattled me a little. What if she told my aunt and uncle?
The apartment was a studio, with hardwood floors and each corner serving as a different room. The kitchenette was against the far brick wall, complete with a tiny Ikea table and two aluminum chairs. Taller than the fridge, Luke opened it to find only a bottle of ketchup.
A small sectional couch sat atop a cool ropey rug and faced a flat-screen, and I checked out the bathroom only to almost walk into the sink. Very compact.
“Should we flip a coin?” Luke joked as we eyed the bed. “To see who has to rough it?”
“No way,” I said, falling back against the mattress. After a long day on the train, it was the most comfortable thing ever—a queen with a soft striped bedspread and simple white pillows. “I will happily rough it here,” I told him. “You can have the couch.”
Luke laughed, and then he was on top of me and kissing me. “Such a gentleman,” he whispered. “Thank you for coming.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I asked, a hand now in his hair. “I mean, I’m also—”
Luke’s stomach rumbled.
I tipped my head back and laughed. “Should we go find dinner?”
“Eh, not yet,” Luke said. “Maybe later. Right now I just want to…”
I didn’t let him finish the sentence.
Both our stomachs were grumbling by morning, sincemaybe laternever came to fruition. So we walked over to The Corner, one of UVA’s main social hubs, a street lined with everything from Starbucks to a student center and plenty of stores and restaurants. Pretty much postcard-worthy. There were also a handful of side streets that I knew Luke and I would explore at some point. But first was a trip to Bodo’s Bagels before a campus tour. “I did some research,” Luke admitted as we pushed through the doors. “And this istheplace to come for breakfast.”
“Sounds about right.” I nodded. “If this…” I gestured to the winding line of students, most of them looking pretty hungover from a wild Friday night. “Is any indication.”
Luke smirked and pressed closer to me, and two cups of coffee and sausage-egg-and-cheeses later, we crossed the street to the school. I’d downloaded a map, but Luke already seemed to know his way around. “My dad took me to one of his reunions,” I remembered him once saying, but it was still hard to believe. He’d been so young then.
We started with The Lawn. “Good, similar jargon,” I joked, but unlike Bexley’s circular Meadow, UVA’s lawn was rectangular and rambling, a historical court outlined with neoclassical brick pavilions and rows of individual rooms. “Our founder Thomas Jefferson called this the ‘Academical Village,’” I overheard a nearby tour guidesaying, a group of parents and prospective students trailing behind him. “It’s the symbolic center of campus, and for their final year, forty-seven students are selected to live in its dorm rooms—a true honor.”
