“Hey,” I said. “Nothing. Bored. What are you doing?”
“Running eight miles.”
“Really?”
She laughed. “Fuck no. I’m microwaving cookies.”
There was no one else in the bathroom, so I pressed myself into the space between the hand dryer and the sink. My skin felt crawly and alive, like I’d just chugged a liter of soda.
“So?” Mika said. “You want to come over tonight? We can watch One Piece. Eat some cookies or something.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Maybe. Are you going to invite David?”
“Why? Are you trying for a last-minute make-out session before you abandon us forever? You can’t make out in my apartment, you know. I don’t want to be haunted by the visuals.”
“Mika. Gross.”
“It’s not gross. You want to make out with him, right?”
Heat rushed over my face, and I was glad Mika couldn’t see me. “I like David. I would not be opposed to kissing him, if it came to that.”
“Wow!” she said. “That there was some sexy talk. Bust that out on David, and he won’t be able to resist.”
“Shut up. I back up my statements with data.”
“Stop it! You’re turning me on!”
“Anyway,” I said, talking over her, “it’s probably sexier than anything Caroline could say. Like, wow! You are so much cuter than all the guys in Tennessee combined!”
“You got that right, baby,” she said in her mock David accent. “I am one hot Aussie. I am—the Thunda from Down Unda.”
“Oh God.” I giggled so loud it bounced off the bathroom walls. “You are disturbed.”
David did come over to Mika’s, and they decided we should go to Shibs. It was dark out, but the air was still cloying with heat. David and Mika kept walking ahead of me, which was irritating. We went to an arcade and they played video games, which was even more irritating. They were all built for two players.
“I keep kicking your ass,” Mika said matter-of-factly.
“Damn it, Tamagawa!” David said. “Do you even know which score is yours?”
“I saw Jamie today,” I said, and instantly regretted it. The idea of talking about Jamie made me fizzy and anxious. But his name had come out so easily, like I couldn’t physically keep it inside.
David and Mika didn’t notice my awkwardness, though. They were playing the taiko drum game, each of them smacking wooden drumsticks against wide-barreled drums, trying to match their beat to the one scrolling across the screen.
“Baby James!” David said. “And where is Baby James this evening? Didn’t he want to hit on Mika again?”
“Fuck off,” Mika said.
“Oh, come on,” David said. “I just don’t get why you like the guy so much. He’s so boring. He’s like…” David slouched and pouted and rubbed the back of his head.
A nervous laugh escaped my mouth, and Mika scowled at the screen. “Ugh, guys. Concentrating now.”
“Hey.” David pointed at Mika with his drumstick and then at me. “Anyone else think it’s odd that James just moved back here? All of a sudden?”
“Maybe?” I said and scratched my collarbone. I could have told them what I knew. I could have told them and given up my new duty as Jamie’s official secret keeper.
Mika sighed through her teeth. “Thanks for throwing the game, jackass.”
“Bloody suspicious,” David said, “if I do say so myself.” He smiled at me, but I couldn’t bring myself to smile back.
“It’s not suspicious,” Mika said. “He hated that snobby-ass school. He’s been begging his parents to let him come back for years. And, trust me, if you knew them, you’d get why it took so damned long to wear them down.”
“So… what’s up with his parents?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
But not casual enough, I guess, because Mika frowned at me. “Why do you care?”
“I don’t care. It’s just a question.”
She watched me for a second longer, then shrugged. “His parents are—I don’t know. They’re uptight. His dad’s always away on business, and his mom wants to move back to the States, but his dad won’t ask for a transfer. I swear, they make my family look normal.”
Your family is normal, I wanted to say. But didn’t. I stared at the opposite end of the aisle, where there were purikura booths and a guy feeding money to a claw machine full of Sailor Moon dolls.
David clapped me on the back. “That must have been nice for Sofa. Seeing James.” He rubbed circles between my shoulder blades. “Sofa can’t wait to spend some quality time with James.”
I recoiled. “Don’t be weird.”
“You were acting pretty fucking weird last night,” Mika said, the blue spikes framing her face like an angry tiara. “You didn’t talk to him at all. What? Are you too good for him now or something?”
“I talked to him. He just—he’s different. Which you obviously noticed.”
David guffawed. “Well spotted.”
Mika’s face was frozen in irritation, the colors on the screen glimmering in her eyebrow stud. “Whatever,” she said. “Clearly you’re not Team Jamie anymore. That doesn’t mean you have to go all sullen bitch whenever he walks into the room.”
“I don’t go all sullen bitch,” I said, in a distinctly sullen and bitchy way. They ignored me and went back to their game. But in the chirps and pings and ploings of their machine, I heard it. I couldn’t stop hearing it.
I got kicked out, that’s why I’m back, don’t tell Mika.