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“Yeah.”

“Still at the same place across town?”

“Yeah,” I say. I don’t mention that I’m staying with Rafe.

“Is your brother still there?”

Across the fire, Emma looks over.

I breathe in. “Dylan?”

“Yeah. Dylan.” Lucas nods like he’s pulling it up from somewhere.

My stomach squeezes.

“He’s my cousin,” I say. “And yeah. He’s still there.”

“Oh, man,” Lucas says, loud and delighted. “I’ll never forget when that crazy bastard went after Bodhi at the gas station.” He looks across the fire at another guy. “You remember that?”

The guy nods. “We had front-row seats to that.”

“He had that kid in a fucking chokehold, and he—”

“Lucas,” Rafe says.

Not loud. Just his name.

Lucas stops. He looks at Rafe. Rafe shakes his head once.

And I watch it land on Lucas’s face. I watch him look at me and feel bad.

“Shit,” he says. “Shit. I’m sorry, Tess. I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s okay.” I make my mouth do something like a smile. “Dylan loves a chokehold.”

Lucas laughs, too loud, relieved. Somebody across the fire starts talking about the Camden game again, and the conversation goes on the way conversations do.

Rafe doesn’t look at me. He looks at the fire. His jaw is doing something.

After a while, he gets up to go get something.

Lucas finishes his s’more. He wipes his hands on his jeans. And then he leans over a little and says, quietly, “Hey. If you want, I’m around for the rest of break. We could grab food or something.”

My mind goes blank. Why would Lucas Palinski want to grab food with me? I sit there with my burnt marshmallow on a stick and look at him.

“Oh,” I say at a loss for words. “Um.”

And I’m waiting. I can feel myself dragging it out, waiting for somebody to come back and end this for me. I’ve never had a boy ask me anything. Not like this. Not in a normal voice by a fire, like it’s a normal thing to ask.

“Is it Rafe?” Lucas says with a kind smile. “He said you two are just friends.”

I nod. “We are.”

“Okay.” He shrugs, easy. “I always thought you were cute.”

My face goes hot again, for the second time in an hour. I look down at the marshmallow.

“Oh,” I say. “I’m not—I, I don’t know, Lucas.”