“A ride,” he repeated, with what looked like the hint of a smile threatening to take over the corner of his mouth. “I can give you one.”
Of all the questions I could have asked, somehow this is the one that made it out: “What about Norah?”
He didn’t even blink. “There’s only room for two. I’m sure she’ll understand.”
We stared at each other for a long moment as my mind raced through the options. I didn’t know Adrian—more importantly, I didn’t want to know him (I didn’t really want to know anyone), but I really didn’t want to friggin’ bike to and from school. And I could just picture the look of stunned horror on Rachel’s face as Adrian dropped me off at the ranch. He was a bad boy—even if he wore cashmere sweaters and swung for the other team, he was definitely a bad boy. But I didn’t understand his motivations, and I didn’t trust him.
“I don’t want to bother you,” I said, stalling.
He shrugged. “No bother. Run it by your aunt and uncle and let me know.”
I hesitated a moment longer, but the idea of freaking out Rachel was too great to turn down. Besides, it wasn’t like I’d done a great job of keeping a low profile so far. “Yeah,” I agreed finally. “Thanks.”
He returned to his book, which I took as my cue to go. I sat in the opposite corner of the tiny library. From the few quick glances I stole through the gaps in the shelves, he seemed completely engrossed by his book. When the bell rang, he simply reached over his shoulder and put it back on the shelf without even looking, escaping through the door back into the fog and rain. I crept over to his spot and looked at the title, but couldn’t read it—whatever it was, it was written in Latin. It looked strange and out of place in this forlorn little library, much like Adrian himself.
Yeah—definitely not from Stony Creek.
3
DOES YOUR UNCLE OWN A SHOTGUN?
“So are you going?” asked Ben, a fellow junior and a giant of a man. Or, boy. Boy-man. The dude was huge. We were outside eating lunch on my second day at Warren County—which, let’s be honest, sounds more like a prison than a school—and all the upperclassmen had decided to sit together to discuss the upcoming Halloween party. As the new girl, my decision to go or not go was apparently a hot topic.
“Yeah, I think so,” I told him.
“Where are you from, anyway?” asked a senior I hadn’t met yet.
“Mystic.”
“Where’s that?”
I said, “Connecticut,” but I was thinking, Leave me alone, strange upperclassman.
“Mystic,” Trish said. “I like it. I’m gonna call you that from now on.”
Two days in and I already had a nickname. Super.
“Did anyone call the Kellogg guys about bringing their sound system?” Ben asked, and the conversation steered blessedly away from me.
I was considering whether I could slip my earbuds in without anyone noticing when I heard Trish ask, “Hey, de la Mara, you’re coming, right?”
Without meaning to, I looked up, right at Adrian. And for some reason, he looked right back at me, just for a moment. His gaze went immediately back to his sandwich.
“I don’t know yet.” He said it quietly, but his voice somehow carried so everyone heard. He was wearing a thick green sweater with a wooden clasp holding the neck closed. It looked cozy and expensive.
And it totally confirmed my suspicions.
“Aw, come on, man; you gotta go!” a senior protested. “You’re graduating! And what you did last year at initiation was sick.”
There was a general chorus of agreements. Around us, I could see the other tables quiet down as they caught on to the gist of the conversation, and that it was now revolving around Adrian. Freshman girls—all of them but Norah, anyway—were craning their necks to see him, which just struck me as funny. Did no one else see the obvious? Trish was definitely going to win the pool.
Aware that the entire student body was looking at him, he cleared his throat. “I’ll probably show up.”
Content with this answer, the normal buzz of conversation resumed. I turned to Trish. “What did he do last year?”
She leaned in. “Only juniors and seniors are allowed to go and I was a sophomore, but I heard it had to do with jumping off a balcony or something.”
I stared at her. “He jumped off a balcony?” That sounded lame. And dangerous.
“Yeah, but, like an Olympian. I heard he did six flips in the air.”
“Seriously?”
She grinned. “Guess we’ll see this weekend.”