Hey, how’s it going?


Steve calls back right way. “Lainey?” His voice is half sleep and half worry.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

He laughs under his breath. “It’s five fifteen in the morning. Yeah, you woke me. What’s going on? You okay?”

I slump back against the building. Damn it, I can’t do anything right tonight. “Sorry, Steve. I thought the time difference was bigger. I thought maybe you’d be at breakfast.” My voice wavers a little. A rogue tear trickles down over my cheek.

“No big deal.” He yawns. A moment passes. “Are you crying?”

“Not really. I just saw Jason with his new girlfriend and I’m wondering what’s wrong with me.” I wipe the tear away, almost like I think my brother can see through the phone. Another one quietly takes its place.

Steve is completely awake now. “There is nothing wrong with you,” he says firmly. “Forget about Jason. Find a better guy. One who doesn’t make you feel like crap.”

If only it were that easy. “I’ll try.” I sniff. “What about you? Did you find a pretty Irish girl to bring home to Mom?”

“Ha! You know she emailed me the other day about my tea leaves. A forked path. A big decision.” He chuckles. “That could be the fortune for every single person for every single day of their lives.”

“I know, right?” I smile through my tears. “Thanks. You always make me feel better.”

“Likewise,” Steve says. “Seriously. You’re a superstar. Any guy who doesn’t see that is too stupid to date you.”

They’re nice words, but he’s my brother. He’s not exactly objective. Still, I appreciate the effort.

“Speaking of stars,” I say. “Did you know that one we used to wish on was actually Venus?”

“Yeah, I learned that last year in Intro to Astronomy,” he says. “Explains why we never got any snow days, huh?”

“How come you didn’t tell me?”

“I don’t know. I guess it was one of those cool childhood memories I didn’t see the point of messing up for you.” He yawns again. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Get some more sleep. Love you.” I hang up and slide my phone back into my purse.

“Hey.” I flinch at the sound of Micah’s voice. He’s standing a few feet away, the mix of shadows and fluorescent parking lot lights distorting his features. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop but I didn’t want to interrupt your conversation.”

Instead of responding, I blot at my eyes with the back of my hand. A rush of emotions tunnels through me as my brain replays what happened inside Beat. Jason. Alexandra. My sister’s friend. Any strength I got from talking to my brother disappears instantly, like a kite snapped from its string and stolen away by the wind.

Micah leans against the wall next to me and pulls out his cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

I shake my head. I can’t talk, because if I do I’ll cry.

A moth buzzes around his head and he swats it down to the concrete. He flicks his lighter and I stare at the small flame. As he touches it to the tip of his cigarette, the end glows bright orange. Then the lighter flame winks out and something else seems to vanish with it. Jason. Maybe part of me always knew he was gone, but I never let myself believe it.

Until now.

I stare down at the fallen moth. It takes a few tentative steps toward a sidewalk crack, stunned but not injured. I think I’m ready to give up. My brother is right—there’s nothing wrong with me. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with Alexandra either. If Jason likes her better than me, maybe I should let it go. She might be really cool or she might be a dumb bimbo, but either way he’s with her now, and not me. Maybe it’s all decided, like my mom with her tea leaves. Maybe it’s pointless to fight the universe. I try to swallow the sob that is working its way up my throat.

Micah turns away to exhale a puff of smoke. He turns back to me and instantly sees the emotions on my face. “Lainey.” He drops his cigarette to the ground and crushes it under his boot.

Tears fall from my eyes. “I think I quit,” I whisper. “I think maybe it’s over.”

“Come here.” Micah puts his arms around me and pulls me in close, but I’m so tall in my platform sandals I end up crying mostly into the tips of his mohawk. I try to slouch down but then I’m crying directly onto his pierced eyebrow and that’s no good either.

He doesn’t seem to mind. He strokes my hair with one hand and pats my back with the other. “We should go,” he says. “You don’t want people to see you like this.”

He doesn’t mean people. He means Jason. “I don’t care,” I choke out. “Let him see what he did to his ‘sister’s friend.’” Another storm of tears spews forth.

“You do care,” Micah insists. “You care more than anyone I know, even when you shouldn’t.” He turns me toward the car but my legs are rubber, my feet stuck to the ground. “Hold on to me,” he says. Bending down, he loops one arm beneath my knees and picks me up.

I try to tell him to put me down before he gets a hernia or something, but my words get lost in the spot between his chin and his neck. He’s so warm . . . and strong. He carries me easily across the parking lot, like I’m made of feathers. The next thing I know, I’m tucked safely inside the passenger seat of the Civic, still crying, and Micah’s sitting across from me, the keys dangling from the ignition.

“Do you want music?” He’s got his phone out and is swiping at the screen.

“Do you have some kind of crying-girl playlist?” I wipe at my eyes. “Why aren’t you telling me to stop, like every other guy would?”

“Sorry. You didn’t come with an owner’s manual,” he says. “Besides, I’m not big on telling people what to do.” He reclines the driver’s seat of my car and looks over at me. “Is there anything I can do?”

I shake my head. Gradually my tears dry up, my sobs become sniffles. “Things are never going back to the way they were, are they?”

“Maybe not.”

“But we’re wedding cake people,” I say, more to myself than to him.

“What?”

I sniff. “Me and Jason. We’re like those little people on top of a wedding cake.”

“Made of plastic?” Micah’s lips quirk into a smile.

“Quit trying to be funny.”

“Sorry.” He falls silent.

“You should be. Did you do it on purpose?” I ask. “Run me into him?”

“No,” Micah says. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. To force the issue, I guess. It’s like something Kendall would have done.”

He whistles long and low. “I am many things, but I am not Kendall Chase.”

“So what? You got klutzy all of a sudden?”

“You really want to know?” He glances sideways at me.

My heart thuds against my rib cage. Maybe I don’t want to know. No, I do. Knowledge is power. Not sure if I got that from Sun Tzu, but I know he’d be down with the idea. “Yeah. I want to know.”

Micah is looking straight ahead again, staring out through the smudgy windshield. “The way you touched my hair. It kind of . . . turned me on.”

I make a sharp, bitter sound, part laugh and part bark. “I don’t believe you,” I say. “You’ve made it perfectly clear you’re not into me. That’s the whole reason our little arrangement works.” For a second, I consider telling him about the way I felt at The Devil’s Doorstep, that some part of me is attracted to him. But no, I’ve endured enough humiliation for now. I don’t need to add more rejection to the night’s list of disasters.

Micah doesn’t say anything. His fingers tap out an imaginary beat on the Civic’s steering wheel. “I never thought of you as my type,” he says finally. “But that doesn’t mean you’re not hot.”

My face gets warm, even though I’m sure he’s only saying it to make me feel better. “Thanks,” I whisper.

“Don’t act like you don’t know. The whole school thinks you’re hot.”

It’s funny. Kendall always says beauty is mostly a state of mind, that if you act like you’re pretty, everyone will believe it. Getting dumped has made me question everything I used to think. Maybe my whole high school existence has been nothing but theatrics.

“I don’t feel very hot right now,” I admit.

Micah pokes me in the shoulder. “Come on. You got those legs and that smile and that shiny hair.”

I bury my face in my hands. As much as I want to hear the things he’s saying, I feel like the world’s biggest loser. How lame am I that Micah has to take over where my brother left off? It’s like I need a full-time personal cheerleader or something.

“Sorry. I sound like such a lame-ass,” Micah says.

I peek at him through my fingers. “Why are you being so nice?”

“I guess I’m just a nice guy. Don’t tell anyone, okay? It’ll wreck my rep.”

Letting my hands fall to my lap, I lean across the center console until my head is resting against his shoulder. “Sorry about your hair. I don’t know what it is. I’ve wanted to touch it since that first day at Mizz Creant’s.” I exhale hard. “And now I sound like a lame-ass.”

Micah laughs under his breath. “All the ladies love the mohawk.” Turning to me, he lowers his chin so the top of his head is in my face. “You can touch it, now that I’m prepared.”

“Seriously? Like a pity grope? No thanks,” I say drily, trying to ignore the fluttering in my chest.

“Touch it,” he whispers. “You know you want to.”

“Shut up.”

He gives up and leans back in his seat. “My sister cuts it and dyes it for me. She could give you a matching one if you’re game. Think of how scary you’d look on the soccer field.”

“I’ll pass.” I rest my head back against seat and look through the windshield again. Beyond the rows of parked cars I can just barely see Venus, low on the horizon, unblinking.