Sunday night, when he wasn’t being a jerk, she’d thought he resembled Julian Casablancas, the lead singer from the Strokes. Almost good-looking, in a moody kind of way.
Today, though, his dark hair is straggly, his brown eyes and thick lashes are masked by sunglasses, and the thin line of dark mustache above his lip is too sparse to qualify as sexy stubble. He’s got a backpack over his shoulder as if he, too, has come straight from school, but he’s in jeans and a frayed black denim jacket, with a ratty-looking T-shirt underneath. Shouldn’t he be wearing a uniform?
“I see you made it back from Greenwich Village in one piece.” Exaggerated emphasis on the Greenwich. “But uh-oh—where’s your sidekick?” He looks around, and bends to check underneath the table. “Lose her along the way?”
“What?”
“Your little sister. Skinny, blond, blue eyes, about yay-high.” He gestures with a face-down palm a few feet off the ground. “I thought your dad told you two to stick together.”
Her heart jumps. Dad did say it, but how does Lennon know? Feigning nonchalance, she asks, “Why would you think that?”
He taps his temple. “Psychic.”
“Yeah, right.”
“What, you don’t believe in that? You should.”
She rolls her eyes.
“And you know your dad will be upset that you misplaced his favorite perfect golden child on the first day.”
Her mouth tightens. Her sister might be perfect—and golden—but Dad’s not the parent who plays favorites.
And anyway, Stacey didn’t lose Piper. She called and checked with Mom first, and Mom said it was fine.
And anyway, it’s none of his business.
He dumps his backpack on the chair opposite hers. “Watch my stuff. Be right back.”
He strides toward the line of people waiting to order and goes right to the front. Flashing a smile at a pimply pair of younger boys who are next, he leans in and says something to them. They exchange a wary glance and step back, allowing Lennon to cut in front.
Stacey rolls her eyes, wishing someone would come along right now and steal his stupid backpack. It’s unzipped, his MacBook carelessly sticking out like an invitation to thieves. She also spots a pack of cigarettes, a knotted necktie, the cuff of a balled-up dress shirt, and a well-creased paperback copy of Stephen King’s The Shining.
If someone tries to grab his bag, she’ll let them. She really will. His sister was right. What a jackass.
Stacey grabs a book from her own backpack and opens it to the page she’d marked with a straw wrapper. Staring down at the text, she reads the same paragraph over and over without comprehension, her brain consumed in conjuring clever things she should have said to the jackass.
It’s just like back in the old days, when the bullies taunted her. She always found herself tongue-tied in the moment, afraid that if she tried to utter a word, she’d cry. The tears came later, when she was alone in bed at night, accompanied by a useless, belated barrage of comebacks as the torment looped back through her head.
Today, she decides, she’ll tell Lennon what she thinks of him, and then she’ll sail out of here with her head held high.
But when he returns to the table carrying a tray, his folded sunglasses are dangling from the collar of his T-shirt, revealing big brown eyes that aren’t just intense, but also seem . . . kind.
“Double shot soy latte, right?” He puts a steaming mug in front of her like a waiter delivering an order.
“For me? I . . . um, how did you . . . ?”
“I’m psychic, remember? And fluent in café code.” He gestures at her half-empty hot cup, with its Sharpie-scrawled D/S S L Stacey. Then he sets down a plate. “Got you this, too, and one for me.”
She stares down at the oversize black and white cookie. Café code couldn’t have told him she’d been coveting it before he got here. It really is like he read her mind, unless . . .
Has he been following her? Was he lurking behind her, catching her longing glance at the glass bakery case? Eavesdropping on her conversation yesterday with her father about sticking with her sister on the way to school? Watching her from the shed behind the house Friday night, or from the steps across the street on Sunday?
All she’d seen that day was a male figure mostly concealed by an open newspaper. He was wearing jeans and smoking a cigarette. Could it have been Lennon? And then . . . what? He’d gone back home, snuck upstairs, and come back down to greet her and her family? Why would he do that?
“I figured we could hang out for a while, but you don’t have to eat that if you’re not hungry. I just wasn’t sure if you’d ever tried one, and you should, if you’re going to live here. It’s a New York thing.”
“Wh . . . what?”
“Yellow cookie, more like a flat cake, half vanilla frosting, half chocolate.”
Yeah, Stacey knows what a black and white cookie is. Her stammered question was in response to his comment about hanging out. Why would he want to when he doesn’t even seem to like her?
“If you want to trade, mine is white chocolate macadamia nut.” He’s moved his backpack to the floor and now occupies the seat across from her, stirring sugar packets into a mug of black coffee.
“I . . . no, thanks. And thanks.”
So much for snappy comebacks.
And for willpower. She breaks off a small piece of the vanilla-frosted side of the cookie and puts it into her mouth. The cookie is dense and moist, the icing pure sticky-sweet sugar.
“Interesting.”
She looks up. “What’s interesting?”
“You broke off a piece instead of biting it and you didn’t go for the chocolate side. That says something about you.”
“That I’m boring?”
“The opposite, actually.” He shrugs. “I like the vanilla side better, too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Why? You think I’m boring?” He leans in, eyes gleaming.
“No. I’d expect you to go for, you know, the dark side. But you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
His eyebrows shoot up, and a smile plays at his lips. “I’m not the only one.”
Stacey’s heart jumps. She’s not sure what’s going on here, exactly. He’s acting almost like he’s flirting with her; she’s almost flirting back.
He bites into his own cookie and says around a mouthful, “So good. Jules always makes these horrible carob cookies on the first day of school and I pretend they’re great but they suck.”
“Jules?”
“My mom.”
“No, I know who Jules is, but . . . you call her by her first name?”
“It’s easier. What are you reading?” He gestures at the book still open in front of her.
“Oh . . . it’s true crime.”
“About . . . ?”
“Uh, Lizzie Borden?”
“Cool.”
Unsure whether he’s back to sarcastic, she breaks off another little piece of vanilla-frosted cookie and pops it into her mouth.
“So we’re both reading about crazy people who go after their own families,” he says, and shows her The Shining. “Only your axe murderer isn’t fictional and she was guilty as hell.”
“You think so?”
“You don’t?”
“No, I do.”
But how do you even know anything about it?