Текст книги "The Queen of Bright and Shiny Things"
Автор книги: Ann Aguirre
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Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page
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For my daughter, Andrea.
Every word of this book is for you.
CHAPTER ONE
I know what they call me. The goth girls started it, all ripped black fishnets and heavy kohl, with chipped black nail polish and metric tons of attitude, like any of that makes them cooler than anyone else. It so doesn’t, but high school is full of people who think what they wear matters more than who they are. But I should talk. Before I came to stay with Aunt Gabby, I was worse than those girls. But she’s taught me a lot in the years I’ve been living with her, mostly how to stop being angry about things I can’t control.
Like my mom. My dad. And especially the nickname.
It echoes as I walk past the burners, which is what I call the pot and pill heads, who cluster near the emergency exit. They disable the alarms after each inspection, so they can slip in and out for a smoke. A bleary-eyed guy who’s failing to rock a soul patch says, “What up, Princess?” and holds up two fingers in what’s supposed to be a victory sign … or maybe peace, I dunno.
I ignore him, though it’s not easy. There’s always a part of me that wants to make people sorry when they piss me off, but I’ve swallowed her whole, wrapped the shadow me in plastic, and I’m waiting for her to stop breathing. I walk on, brightening my smile through sheer determination. I’ve heard if you pretend long enough—or maybe wish hard enough—faking normal becomes real. I’m counting on that. Until then, I’ll carry on.
Everybody at JFK has a thing. For the drama dorks, it’s huddling up in the auditorium, singing or running lines every chance they get. They all have big Broadway dreams, fattened by watching Glee. Since we’re also in a podunk Midwestern town, they figure the show speaks directly to them. I don’t mind the concept, but it’s ironic that they get twenty-five-year-olds to play high school students. Which explains why all the performers have such poise and polish. I’d like it more if they looked real, if they occasionally had zits or bad hair.
The burners take pride in not doing anything. Most of them have a 1.2 GPA, barely attend class, and are heavily into recreational drugs. The preps are all about grades, sports, and pretending to be awesome in front of adults. Ironically, they also drink the most; a few of them do it binge style and suffer from blackouts on a regular basis.
I fit in with the crunchy granola do-gooders. I’m involved in eco-related clubs, partly because it looks good on your college application, and I don’t intend to stay in a crappy Midwestern town. When I graduate, I’m getting out of here, where everything feels small. Maybe that sounds like I don’t appreciate Aunt Gabby, which is the opposite of true, but I can love her without thinking this is the best place ever.
“Is she ever gonna stop with that?” one of the goth girls asks.
“Whatever. Let Princess Post-it do her thing,” says a dude with a safety pin in his ear.
I wish they’d listen to him; it’s not like I’m hurting anyone. Basically, my thing is this—and it started freshman year—I had a pack of pink Post-it notes with me on the first day of school because I was so scared I’d forget something important. Before I started at the junior high here, it had been years since I attended a normal school, and I felt pretty sure that junior high wasn’t the same as high school. So yeah, reminders. Inside my locker. On my notebooks. Everywhere.
There’s this girl, Becky, who has great hair, bouncy and red, but she’s … big. Not like me, with a small chest and a big butt, but all over large. So that day, first day of freshman gym, they didn’t have shorts or a tee that would fit her. So she’s sitting in the bleachers in her school clothes, red-faced, shiny-eyed, fighting tears while she hears people saying stuff like “orca” and “lard-ass” as we run laps. I can tell by watching her that she’s about to cry, which will just make her humiliation complete. But the bell rings before she breaks, and we go back to the locker room. The other girls treat her like she’s invisible, and I see her register that this is how high school is going to be; her place in the social strata is already cemented from one bad day. And I couldn’t change that. So I don’t know why I did it—just an inexplicable impulse—but later that afternoon, I wrote You have amazing hair on a pink Post-it and stuck it on her locker, where everyone could see it.
I waited for her to read it, and after she did, Becky looked around to see if somebody was punking her. So I made eye contact to be sure she knew I meant it, smiled, and gave her a thumbs-up. Maybe it was stupid; maybe it didn’t help at all, but from the way she lit up, I feel like it did. She gave me two thumbs back, and we went our separate ways.
However, I liked the feeling. I enjoyed cheering her up. High school is hell and I’m trundling around passing out ice water. Maybe it doesn’t end the torment but if the nice balances out some of the crap, then I feel like it was worth my while. So that’s how Post-its became my thing. Hence the nickname.
I do this daily, scope for somebody having an awful day, and look for a bright side. Sometimes it’s lame, but at least I’m trying. Aunt Gabby says if you put positivity out into the world, it will come back to you tenfold. I don’t know if that’s true, but I want it to be. I’m trying so hard to build up good karma, like when you can’t see how furiously a duck is paddling beneath the placid surface of a pond.
Aunt Gabby is actually my half aunt because she was my dad’s half sister. Apparently she and Dad weren’t raised together; they have the same father, and he was the kind of guy who thought it was awesome to impregnate multiple women and then wander off. I don’t remember my grandma. She passed on when my dad was young … and he died when I was seven. That doesn’t bode well for my potential lifespan, I suppose. But bad ends run in my blood, not genetic disorders or congenital health problems. So whatever goes wrong, at least it’ll be quick.
“Sage!” My best friend, Ryan, wanders out of Mrs. David’s classroom, falling into step. “You going to Green World tonight?”
That’s our eco-awareness group. Supposedly, we’ll come up with ways to save the planet, brainstorm green technologies, and sponsor community cleanup projects. So far, one month into the school year, we’ve only managed to order pizza and screw around.
“Yeah. I hope we actually do something soon.”
“Ditto that. I signed up to pad my college apps, but this failure to launch is becoming problematic.”
“You sound like you already work for NASA,” I say.
“I try.”
Ryan is over six feet tall with black hair that refuses to lie down, regardless of how it’s cut or combed, and he’s a total string bean. He wears hipster glasses to disguise how much of ginormous dork he is, but so far, this strategy has fooled no one. Not that it matters to me how he looks.
He was the first friend I made when I moved here three years ago. That day, I forgot my lunch; I was a huge mess, and I sat down in the corner of the cafeteria at a broken table, or at least, it was half broken, because it almost collapsed when I leaned my elbows on it. Everyone else at the school knew not to sit there, but after I plunked down, I was too nervous to move. To this day, I have no idea why Ryan came over. I had terminal new-kid disease, which can be mad contagious, but I guess Ryan was vaccinated—or lonely. That day, he gave me half a peanut butter sandwich and the courage not to drown myself in the girls’ toilet. We’ve been inseparable ever since.
“Seen anyone who needs a pick-me-up?” I’ve got my Post-it pad in hand, purple glitter pen at the ready.
It’s super girlie, I know, and faintly ridiculous, but I was into that two years ago, and since that’s what I did the first time with Becky, who has since lost weight and joined the volleyball team, I’m still doing it. I don’t claim I’m the reason she got motivated to change her life, but I believe in the power of ritual. So if I have any positive mojo to give to people who need it, maybe it comes from my pink Post-its or the purple glitter pen. Also, this is how people know the message comes legit from the Princess herself.
Occasionally, there are pretenders.
Ryan groans. “Are you seriously doing that again this year?”
“I’m doing it until I graduate. There are plenty of people who go around being dicks. Not enough go around being nice.”
“That much is true.” He hugs me around the shoulders, then dashes into history class.
This period, I have Mr. Mackiewicz for math. The Mackiewicz math class is the ninth circle of hell, and I’m currently failing. Everyone thinks I’m super smart, but I can’t get geometry. This was a huge revelation, as prior to this year, I skated through the rest of my classes. I made dioramas and participated in discussions; I did extra credit and gave my all in group projects. I’m a good test taker, too. I don’t get nervous or anything, have no trouble memorizing stuff.
But geometry? It’s a foreign language. So the first test of the year is still in my bag. I haven’t been brave enough to show Aunt Gabby yet, but that big circled F haunts me. If I close my eyes, I can see it, along with the smear of red sauce and the grease stain at the edge of the paper. I suspect Mr. Mackiewicz was eating pizza when he graded my exam. Somehow that makes it worse. He’s cramming cheese and dough into his face while decreeing my epic failure? So uncool.
I trudge to the back of the class, wishing somebody would write something nice on a Post-it and stick it on my locker for a change. The classroom hasn’t been updated in forty years, I bet. The globe probably still has Persia and Constantinople and other places that were dissolved prior to 1900. The math trivia cards that have been posted around the room are yellowed at the edges, starting to fray. Mr. Mackiewicz’s desk is crooked.
The jocks have a bet going—every day, they nudge it back an inch, and they’re running a pool to see how long it takes for Mackiewicz to notice that it’s majorly askew. So far that’s half a foot. It doesn’t speak well of the cleaning crew that it stays that way, even less of Mackiewicz that he hasn’t spotted a problem. But the guy’s fairly myopic: thick bifocals, a white monk fringe, and a wispy mustache. If that doesn’t sound enticing enough, he’s also all about baggy cardigans, plaid, and corduroys.
I take my seat, wondering if this is the day when math lightning strikes, and suddenly all of the theorems will make sense. Since fakery seems like the only answer, I get out all my supplies, notebook, pencil, iPad. One cool thing about JFK, we aren’t using textbooks anymore. They’re all available electronically, and the school subsidized iPads. Of course that meant cutting metal shop and drivers ed from the budget. Doesn’t affect me, as I refuse to drive on principle until affordable electric cars are widely available as an alternative; I’d prefer a solar one, but Ryan says I should keep dreaming. As for metal shop? Well, I tried to build a birdhouse in eighth grade. It didn’t end well. God only knows what would happen if I attempted to weld.
I’m fiddling with my supplies when Mackiewicz shuffles into the room. He’s wearing the gray sweater with the red stain. People reluctantly settle down, folding into their desks like grumpy origami dolls. Geometry is the only class where I sit near the burners, who slouch in the back, letting sunglasses and hair hide their bloodshot eyes. Most of them, I suspect, doze off before Mackiewicz sits down at his crooked desk.
The bell rings. Anyone who enters at this point is officially tardy.
Before the teacher can numb my brain with an hour of droning, the door creaks open, and a new kid slides in. New Kid is kind of a big deal because people don’t move to Farmburg, Illinois, by choice; you can guess what’s around here by the name of the town. He’s almost as tall as Ryan with a mop of brown hair, not curly, but messy and hiding most of his face. Though it’s late September, he’s got on an old army surplus jacket, which pretty much hides any sense of chest and shoulders. His legs are long, though, feet encased in battered boots. They’re not Docs, more like something soldiers would actually march in. His jeans are faded, torn up and down one leg, but in his case, I don’t think it’s a fashion statement. You can tell intentional grunge from pure wear. He keeps his head down as he hands a slip to Mackiewicz.
The math teacher skims it, then drops it on his desk. “Please welcome Shane Cavendish, transferring in from Michigan City. Take any empty desk.”
What Mackiewicz hasn’t told New Kid Shane is that he’ll be stuck wherever he sits for the rest of the year. I wish I could warn him. Shane never looks up entirely, his shoulders hunched like this is a horrible ordeal. Though I was thirteen when I first hit JFK, I still remember that awful feeling, like a pit in my stomach, because starting over just sucks so hard, especially when other stuff is bad, too.
Shane skims the room and then he’s coming down the aisle one over from me. He drops into the desk with the uneven leg. It rocks a little, making it annoying to write, but he doesn’t move even after he discovers the fault. It’s like he just wants to disappear, but people watch him get his supplies out like it’s fascinating.
Finally, Mackiewicz gets started on the lesson, and I tune out. Fifty minutes later, my brain switches back on. My notebook is empty. As the bell rings, I scrawl the assignment, which I’ll make a mess of, into my work diary. I’d like to say something to the new kid, but before I can, he’s up like a shot. At the door, Dylan Smith, one of the jocks, shoulder slams Shane into the jamb, and his buddies do the same on the way out. Yeah, I guess they’ve decided where he fits in the pecking order. Because he doesn’t have the right haircut or the right clothes, he’s an auto-reject? It totally sucks.
“You all right?” I ask, but if he heard the question, he’s ignoring me.
He doesn’t turn. I tell myself it’s because if he acknowledges my concern, then the bad junk is real. To face the day at the new school, he told himself, This time it’ll be different. You can lie to yourself about all kinds of things. Until you can’t, anymore. Until reality pounds a hole through your fantasy castle and the reality check must be cashed.
But he must be fronting because nobody ever wants to be lonely. You just pretend not to care if anyone talks to you because otherwise, you’re the desperate loser begging for friends. Whatever, Shane’s gone, long strides eating up the hallway, and he’s not even rubbing his shoulder, like he’s used to pain.
For some reason, that bothers me.
CHAPTER TWO
After school, I stick a Post-it on Emily Franklin’s locker. Seeing as she dumped her lunch tray everywhere in the cafeteria, I figure she could use an ego boost. I don’t always stick around to watch people read like I did that first time. Sometimes I have places to be.
Like today.
I unlock my bike from the rack out front. My house is two and a half miles from school, not an easy distance, but I’m determined. Riding five miles daily should keep me fit, but it’s bulked up my thighs while doing little for my butt. There are probably other exercises I should try, but I don’t care enough. Pedaling doggedly—while responding to the occasional greeting—carries me home.
Aunt Gabby is still at work when I arrive. She manages a new age place, where they sell healing crystals and hand-dipped candles. You’d think there wouldn’t be much market for that in a small Midwestern town, and mostly, you’d be right. Which is why she spends a lot of time filling Web orders. There’s a light walk-in business, but mostly she parcels things up and takes them to the post office.
Home is a two-bedroom bungalow, the exterior painted a cheerful robin’s egg blue. The house has pine-green shutters and a fanciful menagerie of statues in the front yard. Now, in early fall, the garden is bright with orange and yellow mums, an explosion of color curling around the side of the house. The lawn itself is browning around the edges, as we’re in a bit of a drought.
We live in a western subdivision, not far enough from the town center for the farms to take over. Once you leave Farmburg, drive four miles in any direction and fields are all you’ll see. It’s a fair drive to the interstate from here, so we don’t get highway traffic often. In the spring, there’s nothing but fertilizer and in the fall, there’s the scent of cut hay. This is a peaceful place, I suppose, better than where I’ve been. Most of the houses around ours are bigger, but they lack the quirky charm my aunt has cultivated. I imagine our neighborhood looks like a patchwork quilt from above, but since I’ve never been on a plane, I wouldn’t know.
After parking my bike in the shed out back, I let myself in, passing the hand-carved umbrella stand and driftwood coatrack. Aunt Gabby has a thing for primitive arts and crafts and natural furnishings, so our place looks like a roadside museum. The result is bright and cozy. My room is nestled at the back of the house, past the bathroom. It’s small, so I’ve got a battered bureau, a bookshelf made of reclaimed lumber and cinder blocks, painted scarlet and yellow for cheer, and a daybed that we bought at the thrift store downtown, and then sprayed a shiny gold. I’ve piled the bed with tons of throw pillows in all manner of fabrics, mostly inspired from watching Arabian Nights, as there’s lots of satin and sparkle. I never crafted or sewed before coming to Aunt Gabby, but she taught me, so I made the pillows myself. My closet is tiny, too, but that’s fine, as I don’t have many clothes. I hide that fact by rotating my skirts and leggings with different tanks and shrugs.
I spend two hours doing homework, and then leave a note, advising her I’ll be home by nine thirty. Then I haul my bike out of the shed. It’s not dark yet, so I don’t worry about reflectors; I’ll put those on later. I have plenty of time; I don’t kill myself peddling to the library, where we hold our monthly meetings. This isn’t a school club, so we had to find someplace else to host our group. It’s open to all ages, but so far, it hasn’t taken off. Only six members have joined.
I wave to Miss Martha, the librarian, as I push through the doors into the air-conditioning. The public library is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s an old building, two-story and historical looking, with marble floors, full of nooks and crannies where people can curl up to read. The books are organized by subject and then via the Dewey decimal system. Back near the reference desk, there are a couple of ancient desktops that people can use to check their e-mail. Fortunately, I don’t need those. I saved enough money this summer to buy myself a laptop. I’m pretty stoked about that.
Since I’m fifteen minutes early, I drop off my books at the front desk and pick out a couple of new titles. I carry them to the conference room upstairs where we hold our meetings. To my surprise, somebody’s already sitting there, reading, arms propped on the table. I recognize the green Army surplus jacket before I place him—Shane Cavendish, new kid.
How did he hear about Green World?
“Hey,” I say, as I sit down. “Good to see you.”
His head jerks up; he was totally into the book and didn’t hear me at all, which makes me like him instantly. I know all about the transportive power of fiction. Back in my old life, there were plenty of days when I wouldn’t have made it if I didn’t have an exit into the pages of somebody else’s life. My breath catches as his gaze meets mine. No joke, it’s like the whole world pauses for that second. Because Shane Cavendish has the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen, aquamarine flecked with darker blue and green, fringed with long dark lashes that actually curl up toward his brows. Eventually, I notice he has a nose with a bump in the bridge, like it’s been broken, a pair of sharp cheekbones, a faint scar on his left temple, and a layer of scruff at his jaw. His mouth … no, I can’t even.
But it’s incredible, too.
Though I could probably stare at him for another five minutes in awed silence, he’s not on board with that plan. His brows pull together as he shoves his book into his bag. “What’re you talking about?”
I thought “good to see you” was self-explanatory. It’s a universal greeting and expression of welcome, isn’t it? “I’m happy the group’s adding a new member,” I offer cautiously.
“Oh.” Shane pushes out a breath. “Is there a meeting in here?”
I check my watch. “In five minutes.”
“I’ll clear out then.”
“You’re not here to join?”
“Unlikely,” he says.
That tone tells me what he thinks of people who organize and try. He’s probably a nihilist or something, who thinks it’s a waste of energy because nothing will ever get better. I admit, there are some days when I understand that philosophy. But without people agitating for change, there’s only the awfulness of the status quo.
“You’re welcome.”
“What am I supposed to be thanking you for?” His expression is outright puzzled, but he’s paying attention to me, his eyes trained on my face like he really sees me for the first time.
Which is cool, except … “I didn’t mean it that way,” I explain awkwardly. “You’re welcome to check out Green World.”
“Let me guess. You sponsor recycling drives and bug people to stop using plastic grocery bags.”
I guess that breathless moment where our eyes made contact was a one-way circuit. It’s a good thing I have a sense of humor or his attitude might bother me. “So far, we haven’t achieved even that much. Mostly, we argue and order pizza.”
Shane laughs, surprising me. His fingers relax on the edges of his ragged backpack. It was like he thought I was setting him up. In some respects, he seems like a kindred spirit, as if life has taught him to expect the worst.
“I could eat.”
“Then stay,” I say.
My heart pounds crazy hard, like, I can hear it in my ears. I’ve never said anything like that to a guy before. I wonder if he knows how bad I want to keep him here, just so I can look at him. His mop of chestnut hair has a hint of curl, and it’s pretty adorable the way it falls around his ears. In geometry, he used it to hide, but he’s not doing that now. He’s letting me see him.
“Okay.” It’s apparently that easy.
Before I can figure out where to go from here, Ryan bounds into the room, tossing his backpack onto the table with a thunk. He flings himself into the chair next to me, beaming, and then launches into a convoluted story about why he couldn’t get a burrito. I must admit, while I usually love Ryan’s stories, I’m not riveted by this one. It feels like he interrupted something, though maybe that’s just wishful thinking. At the end of the epic saga, I laugh because that’s what he expects of me. Shane goes back to reading.
The other four file in, some of them late, so it’s ten past before we’re all assembled. In Green World, there’s Kenneth, aka Kenny Wu, Gwen Reave, Tara Tanner, and Conrad Loudermilk—two freshmen, one senior, and one other. Conrad is in his twenties, but for reasons known only to him, he hasn’t gone off to college yet. Instead he putters around his mom’s house and hangs out with high school people when he’s not working at the local supermarket, the P&K. Which is like an A&P, I guess, only crappier.
Gwen is the senior, which means she has a car and the sense that she’s in charge, so she orders the pizzas—one cheese, one veggie, from Pizza the Action. The main thing you need to know about this town is, it’s a small place, so the biggest name restaurant we have in town is the Dairy Queen. The whole downtown can be traversed in five minutes on foot. There’s a strip mall toward the highway, but there’s nothing shiny in there, either, mostly low-rent shops and stuff like the dollar store, only it’s not even a national franchise; it’s called Bang for Your Buck.
Anyway.
Once Gwen gets off the phone, she calls the meeting to order while studying Shane through her bangs. I can tell she’s wondering who he is. I don’t clarify. It’s not like I own him.
But he does the talking. He cants his head at me and mumbles, “She invited me. I’m Shane Cavendish.”
He doesn’t even know my name, I realize. Smooth.
“Sage Czinski.”
Nobody ever spells my last name right from hearing it pronounced, and they rarely get it when reading off a list. It’s not that hard, really: suh-ZIN-skee. But I’m prepared for a career of correcting people as I go through life. My first name is kind of strange, too, but my dad always said that when I was born, he thought I had wise eyes for a baby, so that’s why he called me Sage.
“Good to have you, Shane.” Gwen sparkles at him. She’s pretty, with blond hair and blue eyes, and good teeth from three years of orthodontia.
I’m self-conscious about mine, as I have a slight overbite, and they’re a bit crooked. Not bad enough to merit braces, but not perfect. My canines are a little too long, too, which means I get vampire jokes at Halloween. Better than every day, I suppose.
The rest of the members introduce themselves to him, too. Then we go around the room as we wait for the food, offering our presentations for the first Green World project. Each week for the past month, we’ve done this and not gotten anywhere because everyone wants his or her idea to be implemented first. It’s starting to feel like a waste of time, but Wednesday is two for one at Pizza the Action, and I’ve gotten used to bickering with these people.
We’ve just completed the pitches when Steve the delivery dude taps on the door. This is old hat for him, too, as he knows to come upstairs if he wants a decent tip. For a few minutes, we scramble, scraping together his payment from crumpled ones and pocket change, then I add a little more to keep him happy. I don’t look at Shane, who hasn’t reached for his wallet. Based on the state of his jacket, jeans, and backpack, I bet he doesn’t have any cash on him. The promise of free food might even be why he agreed to stay.
He goes for a couple of slices of plain cheese while I pounce on the veggie. I’m not horrified by the idea of eating meat, but Aunt Gabby is, and since she was kind enough to take me in, I feel like I should conform to her values for solidarity. So for the last three years, I’ve been on tofu and vegetables. Fortunately, she’s not vegan because I don’t think I could live without cheese. Seriously. I’d die.
Eating takes up ten minutes of the meeting, and then Gwen calls us back to order. “Now we just need to decide which idea to go forward with.”
This is where everything usually breaks down. We’ll spend the last half hour arguing among ourselves. But before we can get started on that, Shane says, “Why not just vote? If you’re worried about hurting somebody’s feelings, do a closed ballot. Write down the idea you like best.”
Gwen looks like he just gave her a tiara. “That’s genius. Make sure you vote for the idea you truly think is best. Because if everyone votes for himself, nothing will get done.”
I don’t point out that since Shane didn’t present an idea, he has to vote for somebody … and that means his support will carry the day, even if everyone does vote for his own project. After digging a scrap of paper from my backpack, I jot down a name, not my own. I actually like Ryan’s idea better.
The slips of paper go into Kenny’s Mario hat, then Gwen reads them out.
“Gwen. Kenny. Tara. Ryan. Ryan. Sage. Sage.” A frown. “We have a tie.”
“We can’t do both.” Conrad is staring at me with a happy smile, which makes me think he voted for me.
It occurs to me that Ryan probably voted for himself, so does that mean … Shane chose my plan? That doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself.
Tara offers, “We should vote again, now that we’ve narrowed it down to two. Pick between Ryan and Sage.”
Gwen nods. “Good idea.”
The atmosphere is surprisingly efficient without the usual garbage. I wonder if they’re showing off for Shane. I understand why Tara and Gwen would want him to think well of them, but what’s up with Kenny, Conrad, and Ryan? My bestie’s been wearing a faint scowl for the last ten minutes, and he hasn’t said much since Shane suggested the vote.
“Okay, round two.”
Just to be consistent, I vote for Ryan again, but when the vote comes up, it’s four to three in favor of my idea. Which is to clean up a vacant lot downtown in preparation for planting a garden in the spring. I’m not clear on the legalities of using land you don’t own, but maybe I can get permission. I say as much to Gwen when she proclaims the project a go.
“That’s your top priority,” she tells me. “Next meeting won’t be here. Let’s go directly there after school next week. Dress comfortably and bring biodegradable bags to hold the garbage.”
“Sounds good.”
The meeting breaks up thereafter with everyone mumbling good-byes. Like I always do, I start cleaning up the room. The others are used to my routine, so they don’t stop to help. They all have curfews or other places to be, apart from Ryan, who musters a smile when he sees me looking at him.
“You’ve won this round,” he says, pretending to twirl an imaginary mustache. “But I’ll be back with another nefarious plan next week.”
God, he’s a dork. And awesome.
“See you tomorrow,” I answer.
“They just leave you to deal with the mess?” Shane asks, after Ryan bails.
