Frankly in Love (Frankly in Love, #1)(11)

“I already said you’re insane, right?” I say, and slip the disc into my back pocket.

“And to answer your question, no, I don’t take the stuff. I just redistribute it to other cars.”

“That’s hilarious. It’s like a metaphor for something.”

“For what?”

I think for a moment. Metaphor not incoming.

Is this bad? Sure. It’s just a little bad. To be sure, it’s nothing compared with what other kids are doing, like failing out or getting pregnant or arrested or, in the case of Deckland Ayers, drunk-racing his brand-new Q2S sport coupe into a pole and failing out in the most permanent and tragic way.

But for Apeys, it’s just bad enough.

And I love it.

“Hey, a minivan,” I say. “A trove of treasures.”

The minivan is the same as Q’s mom’s, so I know it has sliding doors on both sides. I guide Brit to the minivan’s shadow, quell her sputtering giggles by squashing her cheeks with both hands, and then try the handle with practiced familiarity.

Click, whoosh.

Inside the van are toddler seats and stuffed animals and spilled puffed crackers and so on. I guide her in and can feel every sinew of the small of her back with my open hand. And together, we slowly slide the door shut behind us. The silence is absolute and ringing. I can hear her every breath. I can hear the brush of her fingertips on my shorts.

“It smells kinda good in here,” she says.

And it does, because here we are, crushing toasted Os beneath our knees. Releasing their stale aroma. The space we are in is small and new and secret, and no one else in the world knows about it because no one else in the world is here but us two.

Brit is waiting. Brit is nervous. As nervous as me.

I find our mutual nervousness strangely comforting. It makes something in my heart loosen its grip and let go.

I pull her in and our mouths fit perfectly.

This is really happening to me. I am kissing Brit Means.

And, I realize, this is really happening to Brit Means, too.

Has she been planning this? How long has she liked me? To think, we’ve been friends all through high school, and this—this kiss—has been waiting in plain sight the whole time.

“Hi,” I say, breathing.

“Hi,” she says.

Her gray eyes are dilated wide to see in the night. We kiss deeper this time, and I don’t care that she can now taste the garlic pita in my mouth because I can now taste it in hers, too. The silence focuses in. Every shift in our bodies crushing another piece of toasted cereal. The fierce breathing through nostrils flared wide. It takes me forever to realize the dome light has come on.

The light is on inside the van.

Someone has clicked a key fob remote. Someone close by, getting closer by the second.

We spring apart and duck.

“Oh shit,” says Brit. Her eyes have tightened.

I’m still gasping for air. “Okay. Uh. I think we should probably go.”

In the far distance, voices.

“I think you’re probably right,” she says, and snorts.

Brit Means snorts!

I pull the door handle and slowly slide it open. We slink out into the street. As quietly as I can, I slide the door shut, but it needs one good shove to latch closed. Usually I can get Q’s mom’s van to shut with barely a sound. But I guess it must be my heart dropping beats or the fact that my arms feel like they’re in zero-g, because the best I can manage is a crisp, clearly audible chunk.

“Ei,” says a voice. “Inch dzhokhk yek anum?”

“Go go go,” I hiss.

“Sorry, can’t understand you,” yells Brit.

We sprint into the darkness, leaving a trail of giggles behind us.

Just bad enough.

But so good.





chapter 5


plane crash




I’m in class the next morning, struggling to keep my eyes forward. I know Brit is too. I can feel it. We are like two horse statues facing the same direction.

Horse statues?

Q’s eyes rally between Brit and me. I smile back with derp teeth. He knows something is up.

What the hell is up with your stupid face? say his eyebrows.

“Frank and Brit, nice work with the volumes,” says Mr. Soft. “Could you draw a little tinier next time?”

I am barely listening. I like hearing him say Frank and Brit like that. Like we’re officially Frank-n-Brit. Frankenbrit.

Brit smiles. She glances at me and bites her thumb, breaking the first Rule of Being a Person.

“Q and Paul, you turkeys ready?” says Mr. Soft.

Q gives me a parting eyeroll, gets into character, and stands. “Yes.”

He and Paul approach a lumpy cloth spread on a table and lift it to reveal six grapefruit-sized geometric forms done in KlayKreate.

“Behold,” says Q. “The new Platonics.”

For the first time in my short life, I want Calculus to never end. But it does, and after we leave the classroom I find myself doing something I never normally do: walk and text.

Meet me behind the greenhouse at lunch?

My phone buzzes back.

Okay, says Brit, with a little purple heart.

The day passes. AP Bio, AP English Lit, and finally my favorite, CompSci Music, where I get some serious time hammering out live beats on the flashing Dotpad made up of the samples I recorded at Lake Girlfriend. I think about the coins in the water there.