Rory stares. “You’re fucking with me.”
“I’m really not,” Chloe tells him. “At school, on Friday.”
He squeezes his eyes shut, starts to run a hand through his curls, then stops himself before he can mess up the way he arranged them.
“Okay, so, this”—he gestures between the two of them and the room at large—“makes more sense.”
A miserably awkward silence settles like a cloud of jock B.O. in the school gym on a pep rally Friday. Chloe bares her teeth to speak—
The front door opens downstairs.
“Hell,” Chloe says. She checks the clock on the nightstand: 12:13 p.m. Rory made her lose track of time.
“You’re gonna have to take the ladder,” Rory says, already on the move.
“Shara fucking Wheeler,” Chloe mutters, and she launches herself out the window so violently, she almost misses the first rung.
On the ground, Rory puts the ladder on one slight shoulder and clumsily tries to move it back to the fence. He really is just a very nice face on top of a broomstick, physically speaking. She gets why so many junior and sophomore girls are obsessed with his hot-surly-guy-with-the-guitar-in-the-school-parking-lot vibe, but it’s sad to watch him lift something.
“Here,” she says, reaching for the other side. He grunts unhappily but doesn’t complain.
They climb into his backyard, which is as pristine and lush as the rest of the country club. Back in California, Chloe had never been inside a country club with a subdivision in it, sprawling acreage with a manned gate like a golf course bouncer. She had to pretend she was someone’s nanny to get in.
“Okay, screw it,” Chloe says, wiping at her leftover eyeliner. The back of her hand comes away black. “What does the peach thing mean? From the note?”
“I have no idea,” Rory says.
“Then we’ll tell Smith everything tomorrow at school and see if he knows.”
Rory makes a face. He looks ridiculous, standing inside a gated community pretending to be some kind of dirtbag indie softboy.
“We?” he says. “You want to tell Smith you kissed his girlfriend?”
“Don’t you want to know what she’s doing? Where she is?”
“Why don’t we just wait until she comes back and ask her?”
“What makes you so sure she’s coming back anytime soon?” Chloe demands. “What if she has some kind of—some kind of secret second life in another town, or some sugar daddy she’s holed up with, or something? What if she doesn’t come back before we all leave for college? What if she ghosts everyone forever? What if you spend the rest of your life wondering why, in the name of God, Shara Wheeler kissed you?”
Rory, whose eyes have been narrowing more and more the longer she talks, tucks in one corner of his mouth and says, “She really got you fucked up, huh?”
“Bye,” Chloe says, turning on her heel. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Wait,” Rory calls after her.
She stops.
“When tomorrow?”
“First thing,” Chloe says. “Football Physics is first hour.”
“Great.” He unlatches the gate for her. “I’ll get my affairs in order.”
“Why didn’t you ever audition for spring musical? You’re so dramatic.”
“Not my thing.”
They stand there, Chloe’s keys jingling in her hand, Rory looking like he’s going to start writing depressing poetry about Shara any second. Or whatever his deal is. It feels alarmingly like she’s just been assigned to the world’s worst group project, and she can’t imagine the addition of Smith Parker will be an improvement.
“Um.” Chloe clears her throat. “Maybe … don’t tell anyone else? About Shara kissing me? I don’t know if I should’ve … well, anyway, I don’t think it should be spread all over school unless she tells people herself.”
Rory shakes his head. “I wasn’t gonna tell anyone.”
Satisfied, Chloe lifts her chin and whips around, forcing the gate open. “See you at school tomorrow. You better show up. I know where you live now.”
“Threat received,” Rory says with a sullen salute, and she shuts him behind the gate.
* * *
She crosses the front yard of the Heron house and rounds the corner to a copse of trees and an elaborate fountain in the shape of a very ugly dolphin, where she parked her car.
In the driver’s seat, she finally lets her body relax the way it only can when she’s really, truly alone. Her shoulders slump. Her keys slide out of her hand and onto the floor mat. Her head drops against the steering wheel. The miniature lucky cat on her dashboard waves at her, nonplussed.