Undecided(70)

She barrels ahead. “Since I’ll be in Mexico for Thanksgiving, why don’t we make our own post-Thanksgiving turkey dinner? You and Crosbie, me and Kellan. A double date.”

She says “double date” unnecessarily loudly, and entirely for Nate’s benefit. Not that the raised voice is required, since he’s clearly hanging onto every word she says, anyway.

I shake my head and start to stand. Break’s over. “I don’t—”

“The more turkey, the merrier,” Crosbie says, oblivious of my murderous stare. “Why don’t we do it right before the Christmas break? That way everybody gets some turkey.” He glances at me and must interpret my glare as more turkey terrors, because he just pats my hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry, Nora. I’ll keep an eye on it the whole time. That turkey won’t go anywhere.”

Since he’s immune, I turn my glower to Marcela, who smiles smugly.

It’s time for this little emotional tug-of-war she and Nate have going on to come to an end. “You know,” I say, tapping my chin thoughtfully. “A whole turkey is a lot of food for just four people. Why don’t we invite someone else?”

Her eyebrows shoot up when she realizes where I’m going with this. “No—” she begins.

“Nate!” I call. “Turkey dinner at my place. You and Celestia are invited.”

He’s polishing silverware, and I see his mouth quirk up. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he says.

I beam at Marcela. “That settles it.” I do my best to pretend her fulminous glare isn’t legitimately frightening. “And would you look at that? My shift’s over.”

She hustles after me into the kitchen when I retrieve my coat. “Why would you do that?” she demands. “Are you trying to be the queen of terrible dinners?”

“Maybe I’m trying to be a grown up,” I counter, swapping my flats for rain boots. The weather has finally eased up a few degrees, the snow rapidly transforming into slushy puddles and soggy grass. “If you can’t fake a relationship with Kellan for a few hours three weeks from now, why don’t you just call it off?”

“It’s not a fake relationship!”

“It’s incredibly fake. If he was the one dating Celestia, you wouldn’t bat an eye.”

She makes a face. “He would never date her.”

“Yeah, because he learned her name.”

“What?”

I shake my head. “Never mind. Take notes while you’re in Mexico—you’re going to need to stuff a turkey soon.”

She rolls her eyes and huffs as I leave, meeting Crosbie up front and calling goodbye to Nate before heading outside. The morning’s rain has let up, though the clouds are still gray and heavy overhead, making three o’clock in the afternoon look and feel much later.

“Ready for your chem lab tomorrow?” I ask Crosbie, stepping over an especially large puddle. He’d walked over straight from class so he doesn’t have his car.

“A couple more hours should do it.”

“Seriously? That much?”

He shrugs. “I want to do well.” He’d been studying at Beans for the past three hours while I worked, getting Nate, Marcela and I to quiz him on each section he reviewed.

“You’ll do fine,” I assure him. “I feel like even I know everything there is to know about cell division by now.”

“Yes,” he says, elbowing me. “But you’re a nerd.”

“Better than being the girl who lost her scholarship and had to return home to work at a gas station for the rest of her life.”

“There’s no way you were that bad.”

“It wasn’t good.”

“Tell me.”

I exhale. “I guess it’s a matter of perspective. For me, pretty bad.” I think of the moment the flashlight beam cut across my bare knees while I squatted naked behind the compost bin. The moment of unbearable shame as I slowly lifted my eyes to face the cop who had found me.

“What’s bad, though?” he presses. “B minus? Because I’d take that, any day.”

“Ha.” I scoff. “B minus was something to aspire to. I skipped a lot of classes, drank too much, did stupid stuff.”

“Yeah?” He looks intrigued. “Like what?”

I try to hide my flinch. We were at the same parties.

“Just…” I don’t want to talk about frat parties. I don’t want to talk about the mistakes I made there, one in particular. “I got arrested,” I blurt out. If I sound guilty he’ll think it’s because I’m embarrassed about the arrest—which I am. But I’m only telling him this to throw him off the trail of the real source of my guilty conscience.

Crosbie stops in his tracks. “Come again?”

I scrub a mittened hand over my chin. “You heard me.”

“Nora Kincaid got arrested? For what? Wait.” He holds up a hand when I start to reply. “I want to guess. Hmm. Shoplifting?”

“No.”

We resume walking as he ponders. “Vandalism?”

“Nope.”

“Dognapping.”

“Is this really what you think of me?”

“I’ll be honest, Nora. I don’t care what you did—the thought of you in an orange jumpsuit is totally turning me on.”