“Or we could go back out to the parking lot. Nat’s probably waiting for us by now,” Matt says.
“Let her wait,” Rachel says. “I’m not graduating without a good Band Room Ghost story.”
“Woo-ooo-ooo-ooo,” Derek says. “The ghost of a nerd—what could be scarier?”
“Okay, say what you will,” Rachel says, “but last summer at Matty’s birthday, I accidentally got drunk on Cinnabon Vodka with Kelly Schweitzer, and I made out with Wade Gordon, and I am not kidding—he was a really good kisser for someone who spends all his time with his mouth on a trombone.”
“As if you even remember,” Derek shoots back. “You threw up on him, and he still probably counts that as the best night of his life.”
“Omigod, I forgot about that.” Rachel breaks into hysterical laughter.
I look up at the boy, standing between the curtain and me. With the moonlight spilling in from the big window behind us, I can see him clearly now. He’s definitely the same guy from the field. As his eyes shift down to mine he lifts a finger to his lips, then lowers his mouth beside my ear and just barely whispers, “Don’t wanna ruin their ghost.”
He has the smile of a shy little kid, completely at odds with his serious hazel eyes, which are hard to imagine looking any way but mildly concerned. When he pulls back, I nod understanding.
Matt, Megan, and the others are still moving around the room, and the non-ghost and I seem to realize what’s going to give us away at the same time, because he points down to our feet. The curtain hangs almost to the floor, but not quite, and if my friends explore the room much longer, the myth of the Band Room Phantom is bound to get debunked.
He reaches over my shoulder to set his bottle down in the concave bay window behind me. His eyes meet mine, and his hands hover over my hips, silently offering to lift me into the bay. I nod, but when he picks me up, I feel myself blushing, my heart rushing from being so close to a stranger. And not just because he’s a stranger, but because about an hour ago I watched him looking up at the moon and I then listened to him playing that song, and now I’m close to that person.
His skin and shirt are warm, damp with perspiration, his hair soft on the side of my neck. His scent is a nice mix of grass and sweat and the sweet liquor in the bag.
He sets me down, and I shift silently until my back is flush against one side of the deep window bay. I mess with my ponytail just so I have something to do as he lifts himself up into the bay and leans back against the wall right across from me, his head tipped back and full lips parted.
For a while I try not to look at him, and every time I give in and do, he’s got that shy-kid smile, which makes me smile like an idiot in turn. It’s so embarrassing I look away, but when I look back, it happens again, only worse. Eventually I give up and just let myself sit in the window well, staring at this complete stranger, smiling with all my teeth showing while my friends are talking behind a red curtain on the other side of the world.
The boy holds out his paper-bag-wrapped bottle, and I take it and sip, even though for all I know, he may have herpes or at least never brush his teeth. Whatever’s in the bottle, it’s syrupy and sour and makes me wince to swallow. When I open my eyes again, I see the boy’s big shoulders sort of shrug in a silent laugh. He takes the bottle back and holds it in his lap.
“Where do you think Natalie went?” The sound of Matt saying my name pulls me back to the conversation on the other side of the curtain.
“Natalie, Natalie, Natalie,” Rachel groans. “Seriously, Matty, don’t you know that ever since that girl got into Brown, she’s been waaaaay too good for all us little people in Union?”
“Oh, shut up,” Megan says. “Matt, she’s probably back out at her car by now.”
“Try calling her again,” Matt suggests.
My heart hammers in my chest as I dig through my purse. I manage to find my phone and set it to silent before Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks can give away my hideout by demanding to know, in sonorous volume, whether the whole world’s “strong enough to be my man.”
But my phone never lights up with a call alert, and Megan says, “Straight to voice mail.”
I look down at the screen, expecting to see that I don’t have service, but according to the little bar icons, I do. Piece of junk.
“Maybe rather than waste another minute with us, she just started walking to Rhode Island,” Rachel says. “Maybe she’s so smart she already built a hover car to take her.”
“Or she could’ve summoned a horse spirit,” Derek says.
“You guys suck,” Megan says. “Let’s go back to the parking lot, Matt.”