Care to be lured away? I’m in the parking lot.
He felt his neck get warm. Technically, he should stay. There was still inventory to finish and all the cleanup backstage. But there was always tomorrow . . . and he needed to bring this light downstairs anyway. He began to make his way carefully back along the ledge, hesitant to admit the truth even to himself: He was drawn to see Ty again. Not because he had a crush on her. It was more like some sort of magnetic curiosity. As if he were playing a video game and needed to see what the next level would hold.
And he wanted to find out how she knew that stuff about Chase. Had she been lying to JD when she’d acted all oblivious about it? He had no idea why she would lie, but he also felt instinctively curious about her, like she held secrets he needed to know more about.
Onstage, Ned was telling the actors to take five. It was the perfect chance to tell Ned he’d be back tomorrow, ready to talk light plot and sound design. JD had almost reached the stairway when he heard Skylar’s voice again. She was in the wings now, backstage, and her tone was hushed and urgent. JD froze—he was probably not supposed to overhear what she was saying. But given the urgent tone of her voice, he couldn’t help but listen.
“No,” she said shrilly. “That’s impossible. They can’t just . . . let her go. Let them all loose. Isn’t that, like, against the law?”
JD held his breath, wondering who she was talking to. Through the grate by his feet, he could see her blond hair, her frantic pacing.
“No. Please,” Skylar said. “Isn’t there another place we can send her? She cannot come stay with us. I can’t . . . You don’t understand. . . . ”
Creeeeaaaak. The floorboard below JD gave a groan, and he winced. Skylar whipped her head from side to side, then looked straight up. Right through the grate. Busted.
She snapped the phone away from her ear as though it were on fire. He quickly made his way to the stairs and intercepted her just as she was about to run back onstage.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t want to interrupt.”
She looked at him like an animal in a cage, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Said nothing. Just stood there, quivering.
“Are you okay?” he asked warily. He knew he was butting in to the private affairs of a girl he barely knew, but she just looked so . . . scared.
“Just mind your own business,” Skylar snapped, brushing by him and throwing her shoulders back as she did.
Fair enough. JD shook his head, grabbed his backpack from the light booth, and headed out to meet Ty. He pushed through the double doors and squinted as the afternoon sun flooded his eyes, which had gotten used to the dim theater lighting. Through half-lowered lids, he saw the silhouette of a girl leaning against the hood of a car—tall, graceful, her hair haloed with light. He was close enough to touch her by the time he could make out Ty’s features.
“I’ve been waiting forever,” she groaned playfully, hopping around to the driver’s-side door. “I’m glad you decided to meet up. Come on, let’s go. I have a surprise for you.”
The car smelled heavy and sweet, like a perfume he couldn’t identify. ?“Where are we going?” he asked as they passed Ascension’s forests, fields, and buildings in Ty’s maroon Lincoln. The sun was getting lower in the sky; soon the horizon would be a muddy wash of pink and orange and purple. Ty looked like she was dressed for a nightclub, in tight black jeans, a flowing red top, and earrings that dangled as far as her collarbone. He wondered if he’d made a mistake.
“I told you, it’s a surprise,” Ty said in her singsong voice. “But I hope you’re hungry. I packed us a picnic.”
Now that she mentioned it, JD realized he hadn’t eaten anything since lunch. “I could go for something to eat,” he said. But he worried: Was this a date? He wasn’t an idiot—he knew most guys would kill to be him right now. Ty was ridiculously gorgeous and, from what he could tell, perfectly nice—but there was something . . . off about her. He had a gut feeling there was more to Ty than met the eye, and it wasn’t necessarily beautiful.
And then there was Emily Winters. There was always Emily Winters, and would always be.
Ty turned down the industrial road on the edge of town, near the old train yard. He’d passed this place a million times on his way to the highway, but he’d never had any reason to explore further. “What’s down here?” he asked.