Chapter 201
Summer's POV
"Observant." But he was already crouching, spreading the CVS bag's contents on the sidewalk with the focused intensity he brought to everything. Two emergency rain ponchos—the kind that came in their own plastic pouches, neon yellow and crackling. A roll of heavy-duty trash bags. A compact umbrella, still wrapped.
He reached for my tote bag. I handed it over without thinking, watching as he pulled out the recorder, the sheet music, even my copy of Anna Karenina with its cracked spine and coffee-stained pages.
"This too?" He held up the book.
"I'm at the part where—" I stopped. He didn't need to know I was at the part where Anna throws herself under the train, or that I'd been reading it on the T and crying into my scarf while businessmen pretended not to notice.
Kieran wrapped the book in a trash bag anyway, his movements careful despite the rain drumming on the awning above us. Then the recorder, cocooned in two layers of plastic. The sheet music, sealed like a precious artifact. He fit everything back into my tote, then wrapped the entire bag in a poncho, securing it with the built-in hood strings tied in a neat bow.
"There." He sat back on his heels, surveying his work. Water dripped from his nose. "Waterproof enough to survive a hurricane."
My throat felt tight. His right hand was shaking—just slightly, just enough that I noticed—but he'd tied that bow with the same precision he brought to physics proofs. The same precision he brought to everything that mattered.
"You didn't have to do all this," I managed.
"Yes, I did." He stood, offering me his left hand. "Come on. We're going to be late."
The umbrella lasted about thirty seconds.
The wind tore it inside-out the moment Kieran opened it, metal spokes jutting at wrong angles like broken fingers. He swore under his breath—a rare slip in his usually careful control—and tossed the ruined thing into a trash can.
"Plan B," he said, and angled his body between me and the worst of the rain.
We half-walked, half-jogged toward the T station, Kieran keeping his left side toward me like a human shield. Rain soaked through his hoodie, turning the gray fabric charcoal. Water streamed down his face, dripped from his chin, but every time I tried to adjust our positions—to share the misery more equally—he just tightened his grip on my elbow and steered me closer to the buildings.
"Kieran, you're getting soaked—"
"I'm fine." His voice was tight. "Watch your step."
We hit a puddle I hadn't seen, and I felt his hand clamp down on my wrist, yanking me sideways just as a car hydroplaned past, sending up a wave that would've drenched me. Instead, it caught Kieran full-on, soaking his jeans to the knees.
"Your shoes," I said, horrified. His Converse were completely submerged, water squelching with each step. "You have Lucas's tutoring session—"
"Wet shoes won't kill me." He was steering me toward the T entrance now, its green sign glowing through the rain like a beacon. "But you catching pneumonia before your competition might kill Ms. Robertson."
Despite everything—the rain, the ruined umbrella, the fact that we were both going to be late—I laughed. It came out shaky and breathless, but it was real.
The T was packed with other refugees from the storm. We squeezed into a corner by the doors, pressed close by the crush of damp bodies and the humid, metallic smell of wet clothes and underground air. Kieran's hoodie dripped steadily onto the floor, forming a small puddle around his ruined shoes.
I dug through my tote bag—carefully unwrapping Kieran's plastic fortress—and pulled out my cardigan.
"Here." I thrust it at Kieran. "At least dry your hair."
He took it, looking bemused, and scrubbed at his face and hair with the sleeve. Up close, I could see how the rain had darkened his eyelashes into wet spikes, how his lips were slightly blue from the cold. How he was shivering, just barely, in that way people do when they're trying not to.
"Your session with Lucas is at eleven too, right?" I asked, just to fill the silence.
"Yeah." He handed back my cardigan, now damp and smelling like rain and his soap—something clean and simple that I'd started associating with safety. "Brookline Junior High is only fifteen minutes from Ms. Robertson's studio."
Something warm bloomed in my chest. We'd be in the same neighborhood for the next hour. Close enough that I could imagine him, on the other side of Brookline, explaining physics to a thirteen-year-old while I butchered Rachmaninoff.
The T lurched into motion. Kieran's hand found the pole next to my head, his arm creating a protective arc above me as the train swayed. I watched the tunnel lights strobe across his face—dark, light, dark, light—and thought about how a year ago, I'd been so sure he was going to push me away forever.
Now he was here. Soaked to the bone because he'd run into a storm to buy trash bags for my sheet music.
"What are you thinking?" Kieran's voice was low, barely audible over the train's rattle.
That I'm falling in love with you. "That you're going to catch a cold."
His mouth quirked. "Worried about me, Hayes?"
"Someone has to be."