Alone in her room, Claire tossed her forest-dirty clothes into the hamper. She was exhausted, which meant that tomorrow was going to suck, but it didn't matter. She wouldn't embarrass herself at the new moon gathering next week, and right then, that was more important than being tired during chem.
Way, way more important. The slam of locker doors and the jostle of a thousand students trying to get to class echoed around Claire. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against the metal shelf at the top of her own locker, breathing in the musty smell of textbooks and ancient gym socks. Her head throbbed, and she promised herself that no matter what, tonight she'd go to bed early. She was used to getting by on much less sleep than a normal human needed, but she'd had too many late, frustrating nights in the forest.
"You okay?" The warm, low voice spread through her, speeding up her heartbeat and easing the pounding behind her eyes. She peeked over at Matthew, who was leaning against the locker next to hers. His backpack was slung over one shoulder, and his hair was still wet. He looked amazing. As usual. Claire smiled, tilting her face up for a quick good-morning kiss. "I'm fine," she said, "but I'm kind of tired."
Matthew's forehead wrinkled the tiniest bit. "Okay. Why?"
"So, I was, um . . . practicing?" Claire gave the word some weight, letting it hang there, so that Matthew would know what she meant.
"Yeah?" He leaned in close, his eyes looking worried as he scanned the faces of the people walking past them.
She glanced around, wondering what was making him act so weird. It wasn't like anyone could guess what they were talking about. She wouldn't take a risk like that. She couldn't. "I got it to smoke," she said. "On my own and everything." The words were sweet as frosting in her mouth.
"Wow. See? Everything works out."
"Well, I mean, it's not quite—"
The edgy look disappeared from his face, and Matthew turned his full attention to her, interrupting her midthought. "So, please, please tell me that means you'll be free on Friday night?" His eyes glittered.
Claire hesitated. She hated to turn him down when he was looking at her that way. By Friday she should have had plenty of time to do the fire thing again. To make sure that it would work at the gathering.
"I guess so. Why?" Claire grabbed her history book and shoved it into her bag.
"Yolanda's parents are out of town, and she's having a party." He hitched his bag higher up on his shoulder.
Claire bit the inside of her cheek. If Yolanda Adams was having a party, it would be a madhouse. A huge, pulse-pounding, wall-shaking, keg-in-the-kitchen event. Yolanda never met anyone she didn't like, and everyone loved Yolanda. Especially when she was throwing one of her famous "my parents are on another weekend trip" parties.
"Do we have to go? I just—there's a lot on my mind." The words slipped out before Claire could stop them. It wasn't that she didn't have time to go to Yollie's, but with the gathering so close it just felt so trivial, so . . . human. She couldn't really afford that much distraction when she needed to stay focused on the fire lighting that was looming ahead of her. "Maybe we could hang out a little bit, just the two of us? Then I'd still have time to do that, uh, thing I've been working on."
Claire slammed her locker door and looked up at Matthew, waiting for him to say something.
"You could still do . . . whatever, after the party," he said. "And I maybe sort of already promised Yollie we'd be there?" An apology lurked in his eyes, like a fish caught in a net.
"So, I guess we're going to Yolanda's?" she asked.
Matthew reached up and slid a hand through her hair. "C'mon. It'll be fun." He gave her the sort of smoldering look that made her forget her own phone number. "And I promise to completely distract you from everything else. But right now, we're going to be late for class."
With her knees still less than solid, they turned and headed down the hall—Claire's history class was only two doors down from where Matthew had economics.
"So, what time? On Friday, I mean?" she asked.
"Eight-ish? Any later and there won't be any street parking left."
Claire sighed. Everyone really was going to be there.
"We'll have some time soon, just the two of us," Matthew said, stopping in front of his classroom door. "I swear. Triple swear. Take-me-out-in-a-field-and—"
Claire rolled her eyes and smiled at him. "You don't have to take it quite that far. What about Saturday night? My mom has a work thing. You could come over, and we could watch a movie or something."
"Deal." Matthew smiled back and disappeared into econ.
Watching him walk away made Claire's mouth water. She was already looking forward to Saturday.