“They don’t? But . . . how did you do this?”
“Stealth Soldier—an app. It’s easy. Want me to show you how?”
“No, thanks. I mean, I don’t really care where anyone is, as long as they’re not bugging me.”
Surprisingly, they haven’t. No questions or unsolicited advice, even from her mother. Not that they’ve seen much of each other this week. But when they cross paths, Mom doesn’t ask questions. She’s quieter than usual.
Maybe she’s bored. She’s the only one who doesn’t have anywhere to go every day. But then, she didn’t in California, either, and she always seemed okay with that.
Maybe she’s homesick.
Or maybe she’s afraid, being alone in the house every day, knowing another family was murdered there.
“So are you coming over, or what?” Lennon asks.
“When is your mom coming home?”
“Later.”
“How much later? How do you know she won’t show up while I’m there?”
“She won’t. Not that she’d care anyway. She likes you. She thinks you’re smart and kick-ass.”
“She said that?” Stacey tries to hide her pleased smile. “So you told her about . . .”
She can’t bring herself to say us, as if that’s a thing. As if they’re . . . a couple, or something.
“I don’t tell her anything. But after you left our house Sunday night, she said you’re smart. And she liked that you spoke up when I was giving your mom a hard time. She said she respects a girl who won’t take shit from anyone, including me.”
“She said that?”
“Yep. Not to me, but I heard her talking to Heather.”
“So, um . . . when were you giving my mom a hard time?”
“When I thought you guys were from Kansas or something and that your mom was shocked that a lesbian couple got pregnant . . . Remember? She said something lame about how she was just surprised by the retro kitchen.”
“It wasn’t lame. It was—”
“Hey, you don’t have to defend her again. Anyway, Jules said your mom was probably just freaked out by the pregnancy because—”
The brakes screech and the intercom crackles an announcement, drowning him out as the train pulls into a station stop.
“What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.”
“Nothing.”
“About what Jules said about my mom?”
“Forget it.” He waves his phone at her. “Let’s go to my house. I’ll make sure no one comes home while you’re there. I can set an alert that’ll ping me when they leave the perimeter.”
“What perimeter?”
“Whatever I set.” He types on the phone app as the train rumbles forward again. “There. I’ll get a notification the second she leaves the café.”
“Wow. You’re like a high-tech spy. Why do you need to keep tabs on your family?”
“Because they bug me. Here, let me see your phone for a second.” Lennon holds out his hand.
“Why?”
“I just want to show you something. Wait, it’s locked. Why do you have a stupid code on it?”
“Because that makes it secure. Why don’t you have one?”
“Because it takes for-freaking-ever to do anything.”
“It takes one second,” she says, thinking it’s an interesting contradiction in personality—that someone so tech savvy would be so careless.
“A waste of a second. Seconds add up.”
“Maybe you should aim for a little more patience.”
“Maybe you should aim for a little more efficiency. Here, unlock it.”
He sounds like he’s delegating tasks to an underling, but she sighs and enters the four-digit pin. Lennon doesn’t even pretend to look away.
She tells herself that’s okay. She can change the code when she gets home. Not that she has anything to hide from him, or that he has any reason to spy on her, but still . . .
He takes her phone, presses a couple of buttons on his phone, and then on hers.
“What are you doing?”
He grins, showing her his screen. There’s a fourth icon now, red and heart-shaped, pulsating in the East River.
“That’s you,” he tells her. “We’re in the tunnel between Manhattan and Brooklyn right now.”
“That’s . . . me? The heart?”
“You deserve to be more than a boring circle, since you’re my girlfriend.” He smiles.
The word catches her off guard. She’s his girlfriend?
He says it casually, as if it’s common knowledge. Is that how these things work? One person says something that transforms the other person into something without their . . .
Permission?
It’s not as if he’s done something to her; violated her in some way. And even when he first held her hand, put his arm around her, kissed her—he didn’t ask if he could do any of those things. He just did them.
She wanted him to.
Does she want to be his girlfriend?
They have a lot in common, like . . . he texts in full sentences, with punctuation. She likes that. She does the same thing.
And he reads. Not just sci-fi novels or comic books, but everything.
They never run out of things to say. He’s smart, funny, interesting . . .
But some things about him make her a little uncomfortable. Like, he can be so direct, though that’s probably just the New Yorker in him.
“I’ll put Stealth Soldier on your phone so you can track me, too,” he says, intent on her phone, expertly thumb typing and scrolling. “So you’ll always know where I am, and I’ll always know where you are. We’ll never miss each other on the train again. Cool, huh?”
She hesitates.
Maybe you shouldn’t overanalyze or question things. You should just accept, and trust. Just be . . .
His girlfriend.
“Cool,” she says, and the train rushes on through the tunnel, lights flickering like lightning bolts.
Nora
Stepping into the Edgemont Grind, Nora spots Jules alone at a table for two by the window. She’s scrolling through her phone, wearing a hoodie and jeans, sneakered feet propped on the other chair.
Nora hurries over, still breathless as though she just ran a mile instead of walking around the corner. “Hey, Jules. Sorry I’m late. I heard from a friend back home. I haven’t talked to her in a while, and I lost track of time.”
Most of that is true, though the call had been hours ago. It’s a quarter past three now. The day passed in a flurry of cleaning and scrubbing, her usual way of coping with anxiety.
“No problem. I’m not in any rush. Wow, you look fancy,” she adds, taking in Nora’s blazer and blouse.
“Well, I figured since I’m meeting Ricardo, I should probably—”
“Okay, first, every time I’ve seen him, he’s in grimy jeans and second, he couldn’t make it, so it’s just us. Hey, when you order, would you get me another pumpkin spice latte?” Jules pulls a twenty from the pocket of her jeans. “Even if I won’t sleep a wink tonight.”
Yeah, that makes two of us.
Nora waves off the money and joins the line at the register, wishing Jules had told her about Ricardo in advance, so they could reschedule. He’s the only reason she pulled herself together and dragged herself here.