Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda(31)

No one is really listening to Cal except me. Well, and Taylor.

“Do you want us to clear away these music stands?” I ask.

“Uh, yeah. That would be awesome,” he says. “Thanks, y’all.”

There’s a piece of paper on one of the stands that catches my eye—neon orange, with the words “SET LIST” written in black Sharpie. Underneath that is a list of songs—classic, awesome songs, like “Somebody to Love” and “Billie Jean.”

“What’s that?” asks Taylor. I shrug, handing it to her.

“I don’t think this is supposed to be here,” she says, throwing it away. Of course she doesn’t. Taylor is the enemy of everything awesome.

Cal has Ms. Albright’s laptop, which has piano recordings of the accompaniment to all the songs. Everyone’s a pretty good sport about running through everything once, and it’s not a total disaster. As much as I hate to admit it, Taylor probably has the best voice out of anyone in the school other than Nick, and Abby is such a good dancer that she can seriously carry the whole ensemble. And anything Martin touches is strange and absurd and hilarious. Especially when he’s wearing a nightie.

There’s still almost an hour before we’re supposed to reconvene in the auditorium, and we’re probably supposed to run through everything again, but I mean, really. It’s Saturday, we’re in an empty, dark school, and we’re a bunch of theater kids wearing pajamas and jacked up on donuts.

We end up singing Disney songs in the stairwell. Abby weirdly knows every word to every song in Pocahontas, and everyone knows The Lion King and Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. Taylor can improvise harmonies, and I guess we’re all warmed up from singing the Oliver! songs, because it just sounds really amazing. And the acoustics in the stairwell are freaking awesome.

And then we go back upstairs, and Mila Odom and Eve Miller pull a bunch of rolling chairs out of the computer lab. It’s pretty convenient that Creekwood has such long, straight hallways.

Perfect happiness is: gripping the bottom of a rolling chair with both hands, while Cal Price pushes me down the hall in a full-on run. We race against two of the sophomore girls from the ensemble. Cal is kind of a slow-moving person, so they totally dominate, but I don’t even care. His hands grip my shoulders, and we’re both laughing, and the rows of lockers are a toothpaste-blue blur. I let down my legs, and we skid to a stop. And I guess I have to get up. I raise my hand to give Cal a high five, but instead, he threads his fingers through mine for just a second. Then he looks down and smiles, and his eyes are hidden by his bangs. We untangle our hands, and my heart is thudding. I have to look away from him.

Then Taylor, of all people, mounts one of the chairs. Her blond hair flies backward as Abby pushes her, and they’re the indisputable champions. Abby and her leg muscles, I guess. I had no idea she was so freaking fast.

Abby collapses into me, laughing and panting, and we slide to the floor against the lockers. She leans her head on my shoulder, and I slide my arm around her back. Leah can get weird about touching, and it’s this unspoken thing that I don’t really touch Nick. But Abby’s a huggy person, and I sort of am, too, so that’s been nice. And everything has just felt really natural and comfortable between us since that night in the car after the Waffle House. It’s pretty cozy sitting next to Abby and smelling her magical French toast scent, while we watch the freshmen take turns racing in the chairs.

Abby and I sit like that for so long my arm starts to prickle. But it isn’t until we’re finally about to head back to the auditorium that I realize two people have been watching us.

The first is Cal.

The second is Martin, and he looks pretty goddamn furious.


“Spier. We need to talk.” Martin pulls me into a stairwell.

“Um, now? Because Ms. Albright wants us to—”

“Yeah, Ms. Albright can f*cking wait a second.”

“Okay. What’s up?” I lean against the railing and look up at him. The stairwell is dark, but my eyes are pretty well-adjusted, and I can see the tension in Martin’s jaw. He stops and waits until the others are too far down the hall to overhear.

“So, I guess you think this is all hilarious,” he says under his breath.

“What?”

He doesn’t elaborate.

“I have no freaking clue what you’re talking about,” I say finally.

“Right, of course not.” Martin crosses his arms in front of his chest and tugs on his elbow, and he just radiates the stink-eye.

“Marty, seriously. I don’t know why you’re upset. If you want to fill me in, great. Otherwise, I don’t know what to tell you.”

He exhales loudly and leans into the railing. “You’re trying to humiliate me. And believe me, I get it. I get that you weren’t a hundred percent on board with our arrangement—”

“Our arrangement? You mean you blackmailing me? Yeah, I’m not on board with being blackmailed, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“You think I’m f*cking blackmailing you?”

“What the hell else would you call it?” I say. But it’s funny—I’m not really pissed off at him. A little bewildered at the moment, but not angry.

“Look. It’s over. The Abby thing is done, okay? So you can forget about the whole goddamn thing.”