Lock and Key(75)

I looked at him for a second, then sighed. “All right,” I said, patting the bed. “Come on.”

He didn’t hesitate, instantly leaping up, then doing a couple of quick spins before settling down beside me, his head resting on my stomach. As I began to pet him, I looked down at the scratches Lyle had given me, smoothing my fingers across them and feeling the slight rises there as I remembered Nate doing the same. I kept doing this, in fact, for the rest of the night—during dinner, before bed—tracing them the way I once had the key around my neck, as if I needed to memorize them. And maybe I did, because Nate was right: By the next morning, they were gone.





Chapter Eleven


“All I’m saying,” Olivia said, picking up her smoothie and taking a sip, “is that to the casual observer, it looks like something is going on.”

“Well, the casual observer is mistaken,” I said. “And even if there was, it wouldn’t be anyone’s business, anyway.”

“Oh, right. Because so many people are interested. All one of me.”

“You’re asking, aren’t you?”

She made a face at me, then picked up her phone, opening it and hitting a few buttons. The truth was, Olivia and I had never officially become friends. But clearly, somewhere between that ride and the day in the box office, it had happened. There was no other explanation for why she now felt so completely comfortable getting into my personal life.

“Nothing is going on with me and Nate,” I said to her, for the second time since we’d sat down for lunch. This was something else I never would have expected, us eating together—much less being so used to it that I barely noticed as she reached over, pinching a chip out of my bag. “We’re just friends.”

“A little while ago,” she said, popping the chip into her mouth, “you weren’t even willing to admit to that.”

“So? ”

“So,” she said as the phone suddenly rang, “who knows what you’ll be copping to a week or two from now? You might be engaged before you’re willing to admit it.”

“We are not,” I said firmly, “going to be engaged. Jesus.”

“Never say never,” she said with a shrug. Her phone rang again. “Anything’s possible.”

“Do you even see him here?”

“No,” she said. “But I do see him over at the sculpture, looking over here.”

I turned my head. Sure enough, Nate was behind us, talking to Jake Bristol. When he saw us watching him, he waved. I did the same, then turned back to Olivia, who was regarding me expressionlessly, her phone still ringing.

“Are you going to answer that?” I asked.

“Am I allowed to?”

“Are you saying I make the rules now?”

“No,” she said flatly. “But I certainly don’t want to be rude and inconsiderate, carrying on two conversations at once.” This was, in fact, exactly what I’d said, when I got sick of her constantly interrupting me to take calls. Which, now that I thought of it, was very friend-like as well, in its own way. “Unless, of course, you feel differently now?”

“Just make it stop ringing, please,” I said.

She sighed, as if it was just such a hardship, then flipped open her phone, putting it to her ear. “Hey. No, just eating lunch with Ruby. What? Yes, she did say that,” she said, eyeing me. “I don’t know, she’s fickle. I’m not even trying to understand.”

I rolled my eyes, then looked over my shoulder at Nate again. He was still talking to Jake and didn’t see me this time, but as I scanned the rest of the courtyard, I did spot someone staring right at me. Gervais.

He was alone, sitting at the base of a tree, his backpack beside him, a milk carton in one hand. He was also chewing slowly, while keeping his eyes steady on me. Which was kind of creepy, I had to admit. Then again, Gervais had been acting sort of strange lately. Or stranger.

By this point, I’d gotten so used to his annoying car behavior that I hardly even noticed it anymore. In fact, as Nate and I had gotten closer, Gervais had almost become an afterthought. Which was probably why, at least at first, I didn’t realize when he suddenly began to change. But Nate did.

“How can you not have noticed he’s combing his hair now?” he’d asked me a couple of mornings earlier, after Gervais had already taken off and we were walking across the parking lot. “And he’s lost the headgear?”

“Because unlike some people,” I said, “I don’t spend a lot of time looking at Gervais?”

“Still, it’s kind of hard to miss,” he replied. “He looks like a totally different person.”

“Looks being the operative word.”

“He smells better, too,” Nate added. “He’s cut down considerably on the toxic emissions.”

“Why are we talking about this again?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “When someone starts to change, and it’s obvious, it’s sort of natural to wonder why. Right?”

I wasn’t wondering about Gervais, though. In fact, even if he got a total makeover and suddenly smelled like petunias, I couldn’t have cared less. Now, though, as I looked across the green at him, I had to admit that Nate was right—he did look different. The hair was combed, not to mention less greasy, and without the headgear his face looked completely changed. When he saw me looking at him, he flinched, then immediately ducked his head, sucking down the rest of his carton of milk. So weird, I thought.