“I like Flake bars myself,” he said. “The process for making them is a secret, kind of like the formula for Coke. Very mysterious and appealing.”
He made it all sound so sexy and romantic. Which was totally not how I wanted to be thinking about him. I opened up the Flake bar and took a bite. He was right about it having an unusual texture; little pieces of it literally flaked off as I sank my teeth into it. “This is really good.”
“Try the Wispa,” he said. “Same chocolate, but a very different experience.”
I peeled off the wrapper and tried it. Right again—it was gritty, and the inside of it once I’d taken a bite looked like coral.
“You like it?”
“I think I like the Flake better.”
“Is that why you saved some for later?” Raj tapped his upper lip, and I licked mine to find a crumb of the Flake bar there. So embarrassing. Except Raj hadn’t taken his eyes off me the whole time. Maybe Alex was right; maybe he really was into me. For a second my heart jumped at the idea of it—apparently the Novalert had finally worn off—but then I remembered the things that kept me away. The things about him, and the things about me.
“Wispa Gold now,” he said.
“I’ll pass on that one,” I said. “Too much going on. I like things simple. Plain.”
“Unadulterated, you mean. Plain sounds boring, and I don’t think you’re boring.”
“You don’t know me that well, though,” I said. “Maybe you’re giving me too much credit.”
“I don’t think so. I like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character.”
I felt my face turning red under the makeup. I hoped he couldn’t see. “This is all very nice, but I don’t understand—”
“What I’m doing here?” He smiled. “We’re celebrating. I’d hoped to celebrate at the party, but you’re not at the party. You’re here, so we’re celebrating here. Alex told me about the SAT.”
I was flattered that he’d given it—me—this much thought. I didn’t know what to say. “Thanks. I feel bad that you left the party, though.”
“Don’t. Those parties get old quick. It was all lovely and novel when it started, but now it’s just an excuse for the ladies to buy formalwear. I keep suggesting they spice things up a bit, maybe have themes or secret passcodes or something more than just fancy drinks and fancy DJs and the like, but so far I’ve not been very convincing, I’m afraid.”
I thought about Alex’s Closet of Wonders. He was probably right about the clothes, at least. I held up my bottle and tilted it toward his. “Well, cheers.”
We clinked bottles and I took a sip of the ginger ale—I’d never tried that kind before, and I was surprised to find that it burned my mouth a little. It was like I finally understood what ginger ale was supposed to taste like. “You were right about the spicy,” I said.
“Good, isn’t it? Let’s see if it goes with the chocolate.”
It didn’t, really. Raj made a face. “Should have taste tested that one.”
I took another drink. “It’s not that bad. It gets better after the first sip.”
“So you weren’t crazy about it at first, but then you got used to it? Kind of an acquired taste?”
He wasn’t the most subtle. And he’d gotten it all wrong. I decided to ignore it. “Thanks for the Novalert,” I said. “It really did help.” Which was true, at least with respect to the test. No need to get into anything else.
“Glad to hear it,” he said. “Did you have any problems? Any side effects? They’re not usually too bad, but it’s worth being aware.”
“You sound like a doctor.”
“I get that from my parents,” he said. “Along with the prescription pads, of course.”
That explained some things, at least. “You seem to know a lot about this stuff. Have you been taking it long?”
“Oh, I’ve never tried it,” he said.
“No mixing business with pleasure, is that it?”
“I wouldn’t really call this business. I just help my friends out on occasion.” He looked over at me; I was trying to hide my skepticism, but apparently I wasn’t doing a very good job. “I’m not some nefarious underworld figure, trying to hook all the children on drugs so they’ll be in hock to me forever. Is that what you thought?”
The way he said “figure” kind of melted me a little. That accent! I hated all this going back and forth I was doing in my head—it wasn’t like I could ignore how cute he was, or his voice, or how I hadn’t realized he had such nice lips until he’d pointed to them, but nothing he was saying really changed anything. He might not be a nefarious underworld figure, but I’d bought the Novalert from him, and now bad things were happening to me. I didn’t see that fact changing anytime soon. “It just seems like a dangerous thing to do.”
“Not if I’m careful. Besides, I like being someone my friends can count on.”
How had I ended up in a position where the person I’d bought drugs from made me feel like a bad person? A bad friend? “It sounds like you have a lot of friends,” I said. “For someone who just moved here.”