The girl with box braids was sitting on the counter eating an apple.
She lifted her eyebrows when I came in.
“You said that the bread was better here. So I put in the effort to find it.”
“Heroic.” She grinned.
“I also met a boy named Caspian Ashford in the corridor.”
She rolled her eyes and pulled a face. “Ew. Sorry.”
From the far counter, someone snorted.
The girl took another bite of the apple. “Reverie LeJoi.”
“What?”
“My name. Rev, if you’re going to make a habit of popping in.” Rev looked past me to him. “Ignore Kieran.”
The boy at the far counter lifted his apple in a lazy salute. “Reverie’s introductions leave something to be desired.” The boy—Kieran—tossed the apple in the air and caught it.
He was taller than Caspian, with brown skin and locks braided back.
His eyes were green.
Not hazel. Not brown with light in them. Bright green.
He watched me over the apple like he had been waiting for me to notice him and was pleased I finally had.
Something pulled inside my body. A strange sensation like the one I’d felt around Caspian, but this time it was the sour-sweet taste of green apple. The feeling of sun on warm stone on my skin, and a clean edge of wind, like a window cracked open above a river.
That’s twice today my body has done a thing I don’t have a word for,I thought a moment before my knees went loose.
I caught the edge of the table, hoping neither of them noticed.
“Can I sit?”
“Before you fall down?” Kieran asked. His mouth curved. “That was an attempt at sympathy,” he added when Rev shot him a look.
“It needs practice.”
“Most of my better qualities do.”
Rev pointed to the counter beside her. “Sit there before he reveals another one of his qualities.”
I sat on the worn pale corner of the counter.
Kieran watched me do it.
Not the way Caspian had watched me, like I had offended him by existing near him. This was worse in a different direction. Interested. Amused. Too direct to be polite.
Rev glared at him again.
He ignored her because he was still staring at me.
“Kieran. Be a person.”
“I am being a person.” He bit the apple. “Just not the one she expected.”
