Black Bird of the Gallows(6)

“My mom would like to ask your dad about a few things—like who plows your driveway and stuff.” He shifts on his feet. “So I was wondering if I could get your house number or your dad’s cell. To give to my mom.”

“Uh, sure,” I mumble, a little confused. A little more embarrassed. I rip out a scrap of notebook paper and scribble down both numbers, but not mine. He very clearly didn’t ask for that one.

At the table behind Lacey, a strawberry blond head pops up. “Over here, Reece.”

Ugh. Kiera Shaw. Her squeaky voice makes my molars grind. No one here has put more effort into making me miserable than Kiera.

He gives her a smile—a charming one—then looks back at me. Balancing his tray on one hand, he takes the paper from me. Our fingers brush. I pull my hand away, surprised by how tuned in I am to his touch. It’s a zing to the senses. Suddenly, the world seems a little more vivid.

“Thanks.” He tucks the paper into his front jeans pocket. His eyes look darker than they did this morning.

“Sure. No problem.” I squeeze my tingling hands together under the table. Why couldn’t I have felt this with Deno? That would have been so much more convenient.

Kiera calls his name again. “Saved you a seat.” She touches the empty chair next to her. I wonder who was ousted to free up the spot.

He smiles at her, but there’s weariness to his movements, in the set of his shoulders. And again, that strange whiff of despair. It clings to him like the after-stench of cigarette smoke. No one else seems to sense it.

He straightens his shoulders and walks back around my table to Kiera’s. Her smile turns megawatt as he heads for the seat she saved for him. I watch from beneath lowered lids as he’s sucked into the abyss of highlighted hair and varsity jackets.

Lacey lurches over the table. “What was that?”

I shove a cold french fry into my mouth and chew without tasting. “It was nothing.”

“Nothing?” Lacey’s eyes are shining. “He asked you for your number. That’s something.”

I rip the crust of my sandwich into little pieces. “He asked for my dad’s number. There’s a difference. Sort of a big one.”

Lacey shakes her head but drops the subject. A little too late, I remember Deno sitting next to me.

He adjusts his glasses and peers at me intently. “Which one did you give him?”

“Which what?” I ask, unable to keep an edge from my voice.

“Which number?” His brow furrows. “Did you give him your cell?”

“No,” I reply slowly. “I gave him my dad’s cell and the house line. Those are the ones he asked for. For snowplowing purposes.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Deno’s brow smooths out, but he looks confused. “You go up to a girl to ask for a phone number, and you ask for her dad’s cell but not hers?”

Does he have to rub it in? “And the house line,” I murmur with a glower, but part of me is relieved Deno’s more puzzled by this than anything else. Of course, I don’t know what his reaction would have been if Reece had asked for my cell.

I’m not surprised he didn’t want it. I shouldn’t be disappointed.

“Daniel,” Lacey says, using his real name to irritate him. Which it does. “Let’s drop it, okay?”

“Fine,” Deno says with a shrug. “But the dude’s weird, if you ask me. And I wouldn’t sit so close to Kiera, if I were him.” He leans toward us and lowers his voice. “She poisons her boyfriends.”

I smack Deno’s arm. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

He rubs his arm and sighs gustily. “It’s not. Reece better not piss her off, or he’ll find out for himself soon enough.”

“Deno, please stop it,” Lacey says tartly. “That’s not true. I’m sure Kiera Shaw did not poison anyone.”

“No?” Deno raises a brow. “Brayden McKee broke up with her two days ago, and he was sent home this morning with a suspicious ailment.”

“Not suspicious,” Lacey says. “Brayden got stung by a bee in the parking lot and his tongue swelled up. The nurse gave him an epinephrine shot, then his parents took him home.”

“That’s what they want you to think,” Deno says around a chicken finger. “He’s not allergic to bees.”

“How do you know?” Lacey asks.

“Because almost all of us got stung two years ago at that school trip to Thomas Lake, remember? Brayden didn’t need any shots.”

“I don’t remember that.”

Deno turns his gaze to the ceiling. “Geez, Lace…” The rest of their argument fades out.



Stay away from the bees.

I glance up, peering around Lacey to Reece’s back. He’s having an intense, animated conversation with Cody Knox about what I can only assume is hockey, since that’s the only topic Cody talks about with multi-word replies. To look at Reece now, nothing about him appears strange. He’s as normal as a teenage sports fanboy could be, grinning and nodding with no pretense whatsoever. I was probably reading into the entire bus-stop thing with the bees. Some people are really afraid of them. Even big, handsome guys who like hockey are allowed to have phobias.