The bell rang and we trudged off to class. History passed by quickly. We were going through the Industrial Revolution and Mr. Warren was showing us a series of documentaries. It was only my second day, but he was quickly becoming my favorite teacher. Music with Mrs. Leckenby was mostly painless, but a little smelly—the entire high school was stuck in one room and had to sing for forty-five minutes and the ventilation sucked. Escaping the choir room, I headed to the library and sat down in my secluded corner behind the bookshelves.
Looking forward to a nap, I’d just propped my feet next to a row of encyclopedias when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.
“May I?” Adrian asked, nodding at the empty chair.
I shrugged. He set his backpack on the floor and took the seat opposite me. Now that I’d confirmed, in my own mind at least, that he was definitely not straight, my earlier nervousness evaporated—but that didn’t make the growing silence any less awkward. As I sat staring at him, he finally cleared his throat and asked, “How are you?”
“Good,” I said slowly, wondering where this was going. And then because he didn’t seem like he was going to say anything else, I asked, “How are you?”
He smiled and murmured, “Good.” And then the smile faltered and he rubbed his eyes.
I frowned. “Do you get headaches a lot?”
He looked up at me sharply. “What?”
I pointed a finger at his head. “You keep rubbing your eyes like you have a headache.”
“Oh,” he said, relaxing. “No, I don’t get them often.” He looked up at me again with a soft smile. “All better.”
I smiled back awkwardly, but the silence stretched.
“So,” I said, searching for a safe topic to break the weirdness, “I heard you had an impressive initiation last year at the Halloween Hoedown.”
His mouth quirked up at the corner in a half smile, but he didn’t say anything.
“I heard you somersaulted off a balcony about a dozen times,” I prompted.
“Did you?”
“I did.”
I stared at him, trying to get a read on his expression. He just stared back evenly. For a second, my conviction about him wavered, but then I looked at his flawless skin, the eight-hundred-dollar sweater.… Maybe in New York City he could merely be a meticulous dresser, but not here. Not in Stony Creek. Honestly, what was someone like him doing in a place like this, anyway? Trish had said he’d been here since sixth grade. Add that to the fact that he was a senior and had never gone on a date—no way he was straight. It felt safe to stare right back at him without worrying that he would consider it flirtatious.
Finally, he smiled. “I guess you’ll just have to wait and find out.”
I smiled despite myself, rolled my eyes, and settled back in my chair for my nap. I heard him open a book, but I was asleep after a few moments.
Half an hour later, the bell rang and I jolted awake to the sight of Norah hovering over me. Adrian quietly packed up his books to my left as I sat up and tried to remember where I was.
“Hey,” she said. “Mom called the office. She and Dad are having a problem with one of the horses, so they can’t come pick us up. I usually throw my bike in the back of Molly’s mom’s truck and she said she could take you, too.”
Before I could respond, Adrian stood. “Actually, if you don’t mind, I was going to take Caitlin home.”
We looked in tandem at Adrian. Then Norah turned to me, obviously expecting an explanation.
“Uh, yeah,” I said belatedly. “Tell Molly I said thanks, though.”
“All right, well—see you at home.” Norah was wide-eyed as she walked off.
As we left the library, snaking our way through the rush of students, it took about point-three seconds for everyone to notice that I was walking with Adrian. And I mean everyone: parents, students, even the faculty heading for their busted-up cars. I very much got the impression that Adrian was a big deal here—and Adrian deviating from the norm was practically unheard of, based on everyone’s reactions. Distracted by our audience, it took me about six seconds to realize what vehicle Adrian was heading toward.
I stopped dead. “You’re kidding me.”
Ignoring me, he unlocked a helmet from the seat of a matte-black Harley-Davidson. I walked up to him, knowing and not caring that everyone had stopped to watch us.
“You drive a motorcycle.”
“Yeah.” He put his sunglasses on.
I couldn’t stop staring. “You drive a Harley.”
He handed me a helmet then settled onto the bike. “Yeah.”
I took it, dumbfounded. This was not what I had expected when he offered to give me a ride, though it did explain why there wasn’t room for Norah. The bike was huge, which made sense since he was at least six feet tall, but it meant the backseat, where I imagined I was supposed to go, was at waist level.
“Hey, Adrian,” I said casually, testing out his name in his presence for the first time. “How do I, y’know, get on?”
He pointed at the back footrest. “Step there, hold on to my shoulder, swing over.”
I stalled. “What if the bike falls over?”
“The bike will not fall over.”
“How do you know the bike will not fall over?”
He stared down at me. “Because I’m on it.”
Good point.