even after three months, I hadn’t been able to gather them up. Some, like school, I was slow to confront.

One night on campus, I could’ve sworn I’d seen him by the quad. By the time I’d done a double-take, he was gone. Or at least, the tall, dark-haired back that I’d seen was gone.

After that embarrassing display, I’d resigned myself that his moving was the best thing that could’ve happened. My reasoning was pragmatic: First, I was better off without him. Hadn’t his arrogance driven me insane? His mega-conservative opinions exasperated me beyond the pale? Yes.

Second, he’d taken up too much of my time, been too distracting at the end of the semester when I should have been studying for finals and not cooking up stupid questions to ask him just so we could meet to “research.” Okay, so maybe that wasn’t his fault. I gnawed my thumbnail.

And that car, those stupid suits. He wasn’t a lawyer yet, after all.

Yes, it was a good thing, a very good thing. I blinked, realizing that I’d been staring at my empty inbox.

I had another problem now. An almost daily reminder of Henry’s absence was Alex’s presence. We had a class in the same building at the same time, and there was no escaping him. I didn’t end up inviting him over the day we found out Dart and Henry had moved, but we did have that little chat later. My reasons why we couldn’t hang out like we used to sounded flimsy and vague, but he’d shrugged me off, protecting his pride, and said we’d always be friends.

Whatever.

After that, he was distant with me and pretty testy. I didn’t care, so long as he stayed away. Even though I still didn’t know what happened between him and Henry all those year ago, my gut told me who to trust.

As far as I knew, I was the only person Alex told about being expelled from Elliott Academy. But that changed in January. It was like, the second he knew Henry was gone, he couldn’t stop talking about how unfairly he’d been treated in high school. And by Presidents’ Day, there wasn’t a Cardinal within a five-mile radius who didn’t know the whole sordid account.

Alex’s story also began to include his foe’s younger sister, and what a ghastly character she apparently was. “A carbon copy of her brother, all right!” Alex told anyone who would listen.

Needless to say, Alex and I drifted apart. Well, he drifted while I swam madly in the other direction.

“So,” I said to Mel as I switched off my cell and set it on my backpack, “I finally get to meet Tyler.”

Mel turned to me from the oncoming freeway, face alight. “Ahh, Ty baby.” Her mouth split apart in an open smile, then she licked her lips. “He’s absolutely delicious.”

Here’s what I also knew: Tyler was her on-again/off-again boyfriend from years of summer vacationing at Grandma’s. He was attending college in Seattle but would also be in Vancouver for spring break. Mel warned me that she intended to spend a lot of time with him. I was fine with that. I’d brought stacks of homework and had grand intentions of hunkering down in one of the spare bedrooms of the Gibsons’ home that surveyed the lake. I had a lot of catching up to do.

“He’ll curl even your toes, Springer,” Mel added. “I swear to all that is holy and chocolate that you will faint dead away.”

Doubtful. She and I didn’t share the same taste in men, and her idea of toe-curling meant nothing more than a good body and straight teeth. Perhaps I’d grown discerning.

“The best thing about him,” Mel beamed, “is he’s dumb as a sack of hammers. Seriously, the boy gets his current events from Conan.”

“That’s the best thing about him?”

“It’s refreshing. After spending months surrounded by eggheads and bookworms—”

“Present company excluded?”

Mel held up her cell. “He’s texted twice since lunch. Oh, you haven’t forgotten about tomorrow night?”

I groaned aloud, wishing Mel had forgotten.

“We’ll have a good time, you’ll see.”

“Fabulous. Just what I don’t need this week, a freaking blind date.”

“It’s not exactly blind. Tyler knows him. It’s more of a…a…”

“Set up?”

“No, no.” She shook her head, probably not wanting to give me further reason to bow out. “Not a set up, I swear! In fact, Ty didn’t even know his cousin was in town this week. Not till last night. Well, actually.” She snickered affectionately. “Knowing Tyler, he’s probably known about it for weeks and forgot to tell me.”

That didn’t help. “This cousin person? You’re expecting me to converse with him for how many hours? Why do we have to go all the way to Portland for a basketball game? Can’t we just do a quick dinner? Didn’t you and Tyler already have plans for tomorrow night?”

After my fourth sentence, I realized how many questions in a row I’d just asked, so I shut up.

“These new plans are better,” Mel said. “I thought the Trail Blazers were your NBA team.”

I shrugged.

“It’s not even an hour in traffic down to The Rose Garden from Gram’s house. Ty’s cousin got us floor seat tickets, babe. On the floor.”

That was kind of cool, and Mel was right, I was a sucker for the Blazers. The one thing my father passed on to me. And I’d never been even close to the floor.

“They’re playing the Lakers,” Mel added. “You’re telling me you’re willing to skip that?” She gasped. “Oh, Spring, what if Leonardo Dicaprio is sitting courtside?”

I couldn’t help laughing. “If that’s the case, I promise I’ll give Tyler’s cousin a big, wet kiss.”

Chapter 19

The blue sky shone bright through the skylight above my head. I was on my back in the middle of the four- poster bed, gazing up, my laptop and three textbooks face-open at my side. This morning had been surprisingly productive. While Mel visited with her extended family, I studied, focusing on social science though not rewriting my thesis…which was what I should have been doing, but whatever, at least I wasn’t trolling Facebook.

“Spring, the guys’ll be here any minute,” Mel called as she whipped past my door.

I’d been ready for an hour and was now comfortably letting all my reading from earlier sink in. Machiavelli. Susan B. Anthony. The Cotton Gin… White puffy clouds rolled by, obscuring my view of blue as evening approached.

My eyes popped open when I heard knocking at the front door downstairs.

“They’re here,” Mel hollered from the bathroom. “Will you run down and let them in? Otherwise Grandpa will talk their ears off. He’s mucho embarrassing.”

Some conventional girls would never answer the door for a date, let alone a blind date. I reminded myself that I didn’t care about conventions, so I rolled off the bed and grabbed my jacket.

Knock knock knock.

“Coming!” I called to our impatient dates as I headed down the stairs. More knocking. “Jeepers, hold your horses, Dicaprio.”

I paused before the closed door, taking an extra second to prepare before I reached for the knob.

A bouquet of bright wild flowers was thrust under my nose. “If you don’t kiss me in three seconds, I’ll die of death,” the presenter declared from behind the garland. When I said nothing, he lowered the flowers, stepped forward, and came within an inch of my mouth.

“Oh.” He opened his eyes in the nick of time. “I…I thought you were Mel.”

Tyler. Still crowding my comfort zone, he stared at me vacantly, then stepped back and hid the flowers behind his back. “Uhh, she around?”

“Sure.” I opened the door wider, a bit stunned. “Come on in.”

He was alone.

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