Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

MARA

Monday at school was different.

Not visibly different. Nothing had changed on the surface — same hallways, same noise, same Jess materializing at my locker like she'd been there all along. But something had shifted in the way I moved through it. Like a frequency I hadn't known was bothering me had finally gone quiet.

Cole passed me between second and third period. The hallway was packed, the usual Monday crush, and he was coming from the opposite direction with Dex beside him talking about something with his hands. Cole saw me from six feet away and the corner of his mouth moved, just barely, and I looked straight ahead and kept walking and felt it in my chest the whole way to calc.

Jess caught it.

Of course she caught it.

She appeared at my elbow at lunch with her tray and her sharp eyes and sat down without asking. "Something happened."

"Nothing happened."

"Mara. I have known you for two years. Something happened."

I opened my notebook. "Eat your lunch."

"I'm eating and interrogating. I'm good at both." She stabbed a piece of pasta. "Is it Cole?"

I said nothing.

"It's Cole." She pointed her fork at me. "What happened."

"We just—" I stopped. There was no version of this that didn't sound like exactly what it was. "We talked. On Saturday."

"You talked."

"And other things."

Jess put her fork down. She looked at me with an expression I'd never seen on her before, something between delight and genuine concern, and then she picked her fork back up. "Okay. Are you good?"

"I think so."

"Does he know what he's doing?"

"I think so."

"Does Brianna know?"

I hadn't thought about that. The good feeling in my chest shifted slightly. "Not yet."

"That's going to be a moment."

"I know."

"Okay." She ate a piece of pasta. "I'm happy for you. I'm also putting on record that if he messes this up I will make his life academically difficult in ways he can't trace back to me."

"You're in none of his classes."

"I'll find a way."

Cole came to my table ten minutes later. Not quietly, not with any particular hesitation — he just came, tray in hand, and sat beside me instead of across, which was new, and close enough that his arm was warm against mine.

Jess looked at this. Looked at me. Ate her pasta.

"Hey," Cole said.

"Hey," I said.

Dex appeared behind him, looked at the seating arrangement, looked at Jess, looked at me, and sat down across from Jess with the expression of someone who had just walked into a movie already in progress. "So," he said.

"Don't," Cole said.

"I'm just sitting here."

"You have a look on your face."

"This is my regular face."

Jess pointed her fork at Dex. "I'm Jess."

"Dex." He nodded at her food. "Is that the pasta? Don't eat the pasta. It's been sitting since this morning."

"Now you tell me."

"Better late."

Jess considered him. "You're less annoying than I expected."

"People always say that."

The five of us — four, technically, since Jess and Dex had somehow immediately started talking about the pasta situation as though it was personal — ate lunch and the table felt different. Louder. More crowded in a way that wasn't bad. Cole's knee was against mine under the table and he wasn't hiding it and I was trying to be normal about that and succeeding maybe sixty percent.

"Quiz Friday," I said to Cole, quietly.

"I know."

"You need to review active transport tonight. The ATP cycle specifically."

"Is this our version of flirting?" His voice was low, just for me.

"This is our version of keeping your GPA alive."

"Same thing." His arm pressed warmer against mine. "Come to practice today."

I turned to look at him. "What?"

"We finish at five. Come watch the last twenty minutes."

"Cole, I have—"

"Twenty minutes. Then I'll drive you home and we can do the ATP thing."

"That's not—" I stopped. He was looking at me with that patient expression, the one that wasn't pressure, just waiting. "Twenty minutes."

"Twenty minutes," he said.

\---

The field was cold and bright and I stood at the fence in my jacket with my hands in my pockets and watched thirty boys run drills in the late afternoon light. Jess had not come. She'd said I'm happy for you, not that happy and gone home.

I found Cole immediately, which was irritating because I'd told myself I wouldn't. But he moved differently here than anywhere else — certain, quick, every motion with a purpose — and it was hard not to watch.

He looked over once, from midfield, and found me at the fence without searching. Like he'd known exactly where I was.

I looked away first.

At five-fifteen Coach blew the whistle and the team broke apart and Cole jogged over still breathing hard, cheeks flushed from the cold, and stopped in front of me with that barely-there smile.

"You came," he said.

"Twenty minutes."

"You stayed twenty-three."

"I was being polite."

He laughed, low and warm, and pushed the gate open for me. We walked to his car and he threw his bag in the back and turned the heat on and for a moment we just sat there while the engine warmed up, the windows fogging slightly at the edges.

"Mara," he said.

"Don't make it a thing."

"Too late." He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, easy, like he'd been doing it forever. "Thank you for coming."

"Don't thank me. Quiz Friday."

"Yeah." He pulled out of the lot and the school shrank in the mirror behind us. His hand found mine on the center console, casual, certain. "ATP cycle," he said. "Let's go."

I looked out the window at the passing street and smiled where he couldn't see it.

Almost where he couldn't see it.