“It might be closing earlier tonight. You never know.”
I faux-gasp. “Can you do that? Your dad will freak.”
“We haven’t had a customer insixhours. Somehow I doubt in two—”
A scrambling sound, Mr. Laird’s voice, a pause, and then, “So where were we, babe?”
“Kevin, stop flirting with my girlfriend!” I hear Zach say, and I can’t help smiling.My girlfriend.
Zach’sgirlfriend.
“Zach’s back pretending to stock shelves now,” Kevin informs me. “He says please let him know of your decision.”
“Tell him yes,” I say.
“She says yes.”
“Zach said to tell you that just so you know”—he pauses while Zach passes on a message I can’t hear—“he has sent a strongly worded text to Raj.”
More mumbling from Zach.
“With threats of dismemberment and/or”—more mumbling—“Raj wearing the nun costume for the next ten films”—more mumbling—“if he comes within a mile of our house tonight.”
I laugh into the phone.
“Why can’t Raj come to our house?” Kevin asks Zach.
“Tell Zach,” I say, “that I do not condone dismemberment or threats of any kind, but that sounds perfect.”
Kevin relays the message. I’m already texting Katy to cover for me and pretend I’m spending the night at her place.
U slotmachine!she texts back instantly.But done.
“Have a good trip to Caldwell tonight,” I tell Kevin.
“It would be better ifyouwere going,” Kevin says.
“Kevin,” I hear Zach say on the other end. “Didn’t you getfiredfor this?”
BEFORE
Mid-October
I haven’t been this nervous about seeing Zach since the day we met. When he opens the front door, we stand there and grin awkwardly at each other. Then Zach holds the door open for me to come in, and I do.
So we continue smiling awkwardly at each other in the foyer until Zach laughs and says, “There is no way to be smooth about this. Do you want to come upstairs?”
I laugh now, too, and he leads me up to his room, holding my hand.
I tell him how I only just managed to get here. Despite the pains I’d taken to create an alibi with Katy, Mom set up camp in the living room tonight and patted the couch as I approached to ask if I could borrow her car. Caleb was already in the chair across from her, his hairy feet on the ottoman, and his eyebrows went way up when I mumbled something about wanting to meet Katy to practice for orchestra and how we had a chem project and also she was tutoring me in English. I wasnota good liar.
“I did pretty well inEnglish,” Caleb said. “Want me to tutor you?”
“That’s okay,” I said quickly, and shot him a pointed look. A part of me was worried; Caleb might decide to call me out just because, just to remind me that we aren’t allies. But he only smirked at me. To my surprise, Mom was relatively easy to convince, but she made me promise to spend next weekend at Dad’s, since Caleb had been there the last two, and I’d seen my father once all summer.
“Sure, I promise!” I said, a little too quickly and brightly to be believable. How had I made it into Zach’s movie again?
Zach cracks up as I relay this to him.
