“It helps with some nerves and aggravates others,” he murmured.
“Why didn’t we just find a tree house to make out in?”
“Was that an option?”
“It’s an option now.”
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Let’s go get gelato before I chase down Harper’s car and make her take us back.”
28
The patio outside Jilly’s Gelato was small, only three round tables with wide blue umbrellas and a single string of white paper lanterns strung overhead, but we had it to ourselves. I hadn’t realized how quiet things were on campus. I was on sensory overload with the indistinct voices floating down the street from the crowded sushi restaurant and brewery up the block and a steady stream of cars coming and going. It was strange to see the world spinning while my whole brain had been wrapped around camp for two weeks.
The cold iron of my chair bit into the backs of my thighs as I twisted to look up at the tall brick building beside us. “What is with this town and brick?”
“No clue. The libraries are brick, too. It’s a real mason’s paradise here,” he said. I could smell dark chocolate and peanut butter on his breath as he huffed a laugh. “Wow. Is that the least interesting thing I’ve ever said?”
“In seventeen years, you don’t think you’ve said anything worse than ‘mason’s paradise’?” I leaned toward him, my elbows braced against the table—manners be damned. “You never got super interested in World War Two or Pokémon or rare coins? I bet you know how much a Buffalo nickel is worth.”
“Pokémon, yes. Coins, no.” He stabbed his spoon back into the large paper cup in front of him, hiding his eyes from me under his hair. “Fine. I’ve been more boring. But I don’t want to be boring tonight. Not with you.”
I stuck my spoon between my teeth and clapped my hands together. “Dance, monkey, dance.”
He stuck his arms out at angles, bobbing side to side in the worst robot dance I had ever seen. He looked like a broken marionette with his hair flopping around his forehead. I choked and covered my face with both hands as I laughed until I wheezed.
He took a victorious bite of gelato. “You asked for it.”
“I did,” I said, wiping at the corners of my eyes. “So, is this what you would be doing if you weren’t at camp for the month? Hanging out at Jilly’s, going to see Independence Day—a great movie, no matter how much your friend Harper sneers at it?”
“Don’t mind her. I once heard her say that Goonies would have been better without Chunk,” he said.
“So she’s a stone-cold monster?”
“She has very pretentious taste.” He pulled a napkin out of his pocket and dabbed at the corners of his mouth, checking for chocolate stains. “If I weren’t at camp, I would have tried to see Independence Day, but my parents would have probably vetoed it. I have a nine-thirty curfew.”
“Seriously?” I asked. I had an eleven o’clock curfew on weekends, but even then I got a lot of wiggle room in exchange for babysitting Ethan and volunteering at the theater. “You have to be home early so that you can get in all that genius school homework?”
“You’re joking, but that’s real. My parents were always really dedicated to making sure my sisters and I were exposed to as much culture as possible. We all learned piano and French with tutors, like we were in a Victorian novel. But then I tested into the Messina and it got—I don’t know, ‘worse’ sounds really entitled—but, yeah, it got worse.” He rubbed his thumb over the lump of his wrist bone. “That’s why I’m at camp, actually. I didn’t get my grades up last year, so I’m sort of grounded. At Rayevich.”
“Your parents shipped you off to win a college scholarship because they didn’t like your grades?”
“Well, first they took my phone,” he said, drumming his fingers against the open weave of the metal tabletop. “And my laptop.”
“Oh!” I said, the last piece of the puzzle finally locking together. I bumped our knees together. “That’s why you have the typewriter.”
“I had to type my homework, so I started using it for spite. It was my grandpa’s and it was around and it was loud. But my parents adjusted to the noise and I got used to using it. And then they signed me up for camp. Messina students don’t have to test in, since we have the same entrance exam.”
I couldn’t imagine my parents shipping me off if my grades slipped, even if it was just across town.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be.” He smiled at me sheepishly. “If I hadn’t flunked Economics of Globalization, I wouldn’t be here with you.”
“And what good is global econ?” I asked, pushing through the flutter that had started up in my chest again. I blew a raspberry. “Financial structures. Pishposh.”
“Enough of my crap,” he said with a huff. “What about you? What would you be doing if you were in Sacramento right now?”
“Right now? I would probably be lacing up my shoes and getting ready for my run.” I pulled out my phone and opened my weather app. “Yeah. It’s eighty degrees now. I’d want to wait until later, but my stepmom gets nervous when I go out too late.”
“How long have you been a runner?” he asked.
“I’ve always liked running,” I said. “When I was a kid and we had to run the mile in PE, I was the person who was like ‘Hooray!’ while everyone else complained. But then my cousin got back from BMT…”
His eyes scrunched before he guessed, “Bone marrow transplant?”
“Basic military training,” I corrected, bracing as the truth started to seep out. “We’re an air force family. And my oldest cousin, Sid, came back and kept talking about all the different stuff you had to be able to do to survive boot camp. Run a mile and a half in less than twelve minutes. Do forty-five push-ups and fifty sit-ups.” I thought of Sid writing down the list of requirements on a piece of Aunt Bobbie’s fancy stationery and how I’d hidden it under my mattress for years. “I didn’t find out until way later that those were the guys’ requirements. Sid didn’t want me to slack just because I was a girl. Anyway, I always kept those numbers in the back of my head. I made sure that I could do them. I never really thought, I’m doing this for BMT. I wanted to know I could do it, so that if I decided to enlist, I’d be ready.”
“Would you want to enlist?” he asked, digging back into his gelato. “If you’ve been training for it your whole life, why run away to Rayevich?”