There was a long silence and Yuki sighed. “I know. I know, I’m sorry,” she said, her voice small again. She said “yeah” several times and Tamani could tell the conversation was winding down. He took a couple of heavy steps and knocked on the door before she could catch him eavesdropping.
Yuki paused, then said, “I gotta go; Tam’s here.”
Tamani craned his neck at the window. Had she seen him? But then, who else would be knocking on her door this evening? Still, it was more than a bit uncanny. By the time she answered the door, he had a friendly smile plastered on his face.
“Hey,” Yuki said, smiling winsomely. “I didn’t know you were coming, did I?” She reflexively looked at her phone for some sign of a voice mail.
“No, I was just out driving and saw lights. I didn’t think you’d be back yet.”
“Klea got called away on business. Again. She dropped me off early and I got mad and took a walk… anyway,” she said, thoroughly flustered now. “You want to come in?” Yuki asked, holding the door open.
“Why don’t we sit on the porch?” Tamani asked. “The weather’s great.” She was mad at something and already sloppy. Tamani had every intention of using that to his advantage. But there was something almost sultry in her eyes tonight and Tamani didn’t want her using that to
“If you want,” Yuki said after a hesitation that confirmed Tamani’s suspicions. They sat on the steps of her porch, facing out at the street.
“What did you do for Thanksgiving?” Yuki asked.
“We have a sort of Thanksgiving in Japan,” Yuki said. “But
“You can say that again,” Tamani said, grinning now; glad they were on a subject he could be honest about. “Was that Klea on the phone when I walked up?”
“Yeah,” Yuki said, the bitterness back in her voice. “I’d rather not talk about it, though.”
“No worries,” Tamani said soothingly. Was she getting suspicious of him? Or was she just genuinely upset at Klea?
“Tam?”
“Yeah?”
She took a deep breath, as if fortifying herself for something truly painful. “Am I your girlfriend?” she blurted in a rush.
Tamani had to grit his teeth hard to keep the smile on his face. He tilted his head back and forth, as though considering. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I don’t really like to put labels on things. I think they get complicated when you do that. I prefer to just see what happens.”
Yuki nodded. “Okay,” she said, clearly nervous. “I just, I wasn’t sure and I thought… I needed to check.”
“You’re welcome to check,” Tamani said, smiling broadly and leaning back, propping his arms up behind him, resting one on the cement step behind Yuki’s back. He felt like he’d crossed an invisible line.
He steered the conversation toward neutral ground — easy enough, all he had to do was ask if she’d seen any good movies lately — and they chatted for about an hour. Tamani still marveled at how natural it was to be with Yuki most of the time. She was easygoing and even laughed at his dumb jokes. Under different circumstances they might have been friends, and it made him a little sad to know it was never to be — even if she was innocent, if she ever found out how much he’d lied and pretended, she would never speak to him again.
He tried a few times to nudge the conversation back toward Yuki and her life, but she avoided his questions and changed the subject entirely if he so much as mentioned Klea. It was frustrating, but Tamani finally decided that he would chalk up tonight to an evening of building trust. Hopefully that would pay off eventually.
“I better go,” Tamani said, eyeing the moon as it peered out from behind the clouds. “My uncle doesn’t know where I am.”
“Okay,” Yuki said, rising slowly to her feet.
Tamani stood beside her for a second, wondering if he was going to have to hug her.
She took a deep breath, then stepped toward him and he steeled himself to return an embrace. But she wasn’t aiming for his chest. He forced himself not to flinch as she planted a kiss against his lips. It was a nervous kiss, quick and tentative and not at all intimate. He quelled the urge to swipe his arm across his mouth.
“Oops,” Yuki said coyly. “It just… happened.”
“ARE YOU OKAY?” CHELSEA JOINED LAUREL ON the floor, where she was slumped with her back against her locker, wracking her brain for some way to use the final sample. She’d decided to suspend one of the samples in wax yesterday and turn it into a candle to see what happened when she burned it. She had only succeeded in filling her room with a foul-smelling smoke that lingered in her curtains and bedding even after she’d left the windows open all night.
Which had made for a frigid night. Winter was still technically a week away, but a wet chill had descended on Crescent City and Laurel hadn’t managed to really warm up all day.
“I’m fine,” Laurel said, looking over at her friend. “Just a little tired. And I have a headache.” After several headache-free weeks, they had come back with a vengeance after Thanksgiving break. She hadn’t experienced stress headaches like this since last year, when things had gotten sticky with the trolls.
“Do you need to go outside for lunch?” Chelsea asked.
“It’s raining pretty hard. I don’t really feel like it.” She shrugged. “I should probably just eat something.” She always got a little run-down toward the end of the semester, but dealing with David, Tamani, and Yuki was twice as exhausting as fighting trolls, which — as it was practically a holiday tradition now — might have been preferable.
But Shar wasn’t going to let that happen. No matter how many times she or Tamani suggested they just raid the cabin and be done with it, Shar refused. After three weeks it seemed like a lost cause to Laurel, but Shar insisted it was too dangerous to barge in without knowing more, and would destroy their chance to learn something new besides. So they continued to watch and wait and wind tighter with every passing day.
Laurel tried to shake her gloomy thoughts away and smiled at her friend. “I’ll be fine. It’s just the end of the semester.”
“Yeah, finals. I totally get it.” Chelsea sighed. “I should just give up. I mean, unless David crashes and burns this semester there’s no way I can beat his GPA.” She laughed. “Of course, if I do slack off, this will be the one semester he does crash and burn, and then I’ll know that I could have beaten him, but I was lazy. So, it’s studyville for me,” she said, giving Laurel a sarcastic thumbs-up.
Laurel smiled and shook her head. She was proud of her good grades, but David and Chelsea took it to a whole different level.
The hallways were emptying out. Laurel thought about heading for the cafeteria, but she didn’t want to stand up. She wasn’t normally one for naps, but now seemed like a great time to make an exception.
“Can I ask you a really weird question?”
Laurel stared at her. “You just did. At least for you.”
Chelsea chuckled nervously. “I just… I just wondered. You’ve been broken up with David for a while now. Are you guys done for good?”
Laurel studied the floor. “I don’t know.”
“Still?”
Laurel shrugged.
“So, if — hypothetically — I were to ask him to the winter formal next week, would that be a problem?”
Laurel gaped at Chelsea as a strange feeling settled in her stomach. “Did you break up with Ryan?”
Chelsea rolled her eyes. “No, no. Thus the hypothetical part.”
“That’s a pretty extreme hypothetical,” Laurel said. Her mind was racing. It wasn’t that she actually expected Chelsea to ask David. But… what if she did?
Chelsea shrugged.
“I–I…” Laurel couldn’t even think of anything to say. The idea that David would go to any kind of formal dance with anyone but her was beyond comprehension. Laurel and David hadn’t missed a formal dance since sophomore year.
