You Owe Me a Murder(14)

He snorted. “That’s nothing. If I eat shellfish, I pretty much seize up. I look like a white guy trying to dance.”

I laughed. I searched his face, picking apart his features.

“Trying to guess my background?”

I flushed.

“Good luck. I’m a total ‘all of the above’ kind of genetic pool.” He held out the meat again. “But seriously, green olives in meat?” He turned it back and forth as if he might have discovered some type of new life form. “I mean, have you ever been making a sandwich and thought, Cheese, lettuce, tomato, mayo . . . Ooh, I know—?green olives would go great on this? No, wait—?even better. Green olives in this.”

My lips twitched. “I don’t really know.”

He glanced up. “You don’t know if you like olives on a sandwich?”

I shook my head. “No, I meant I don’t know why people would want olives in their sandwich.” I paused. “Although I suppose if you did, having them embedded in the meat would make it convenient. Easier than slicing them up and having them fall out of the sandwich.”

He smiled. “Excellent point. Hadn’t thought of that. Gotta admire a packaged meat that’s efficient.” He popped the slice into his mouth and held out his hand. “Alex, in case you can’t remember.” When he noticed my hesitation, he wiped his palm on his pants leg to rid it of the bologna sweat before holding out his hand again.

“Kim,” I answered.

He smiled again, his eyes sparkling. “I know. A great memory is one of my many assets.”

“You’re too perky. Did you sleep on the plane?”

“I did—?I was up in business class.” He blushed, then shoved his hair out of his eyes. I would have killed for eyelashes like that. They were thick and long, as if he modeled for Sephora. “My mom works for the airline,” he explained. “She gets all kinds of perks, so she arranged for me to fly up there.”

“Was it nice?”

He nodded solemnly. “You have no idea how good. The seats lie flat like a bed and at one point they brought out cookies and ice cream.” He held up a hand as in the stop motion. “Warm cookies,” he clarified. “Although I heard you had a pretty good time back in coach.”

I flushed. I’d have to thank Connor for making me sound like a drunk to everyone in our group.

“So, I can’t remember—?what school do you go to?” Alex asked, kindly changing the subject.

I smirked, enjoying the chance to tease him. “I thought memory was your asset.”

He rolled his eyes. “I said I have a good memory, not that it’s like a superpower or anything. I can’t have everything going for me. That wouldn’t be fair to the rest of you mere mortals.”

“I go to Handsworth. Our guidance counselor really pushes this program. She thinks the independent travel will look good on our university apps. You?”

“Homeschooled.” He shrugged. “Explains my weirdness. Poor social skills.”

I blinked. I had no idea how to respond to that. I couldn’t tell if he was joking. “Oh.”

We stood silently next to each other while I desperately cast around for something to talk about. If I didn’t come up with something soon, he was going to wander off and talk to someone else who was capable of conversation. I flashed to hanging with Nicki at the airport. She would have taken one look at Alex and instantly known how to connect. He and Nicki would already have been best friends by this point. My mom had some kind of internally memorized list of conversation topics. She could chat up anyone from a cashier to a nuclear scientist at a moment’s notice.

It wasn’t just that I wanted to have a friend on the program, although I did. And it wasn’t that he had a decent sense of humor and, if he was on this program, could be counted on to be bright. The Student Scholars program had sent eight of us, and I had the sense there was going to be a lot of “pair up with your buddy” activities. I wasn’t remotely interested in being the odd one out that someone felt stuck with. Looking around, I could see that people were already matching up. I’d talked to Sophie a bit at the airport at check-in, but she was now chummed up with Jamal.

“You like the Ravens?” I said, motioning to Alex’s T-shirt, which was emblazoned with the band name. “My cousin is their concert organizer.” This was . . . a bit of a stretch, but my cousin did work for a travel agency that had booked the band’s flights. Granted, it was only once, but still, shared interests are a great place to start a conversation.

Alex’s mouth fell open. He reached for me. “Let me touch you so I can say I touched the hand of someone who touched the hand of someone in the Ravens. That is how much I love that band.” He let his fingers rest on the back of my wrist and sighed deeply. “That was amazing.”

I jolted at his touch. Why did I lie? What were the odds that he would be a band groupie? All I had wanted to do was have something to talk about. I glanced around the room to see if anyone had noticed us. The pairs seemed even more obvious now. I took a deep breath. I had to take charge of my life. I had to do things. Nicki wouldn’t be sitting around hoping she wouldn’t be left out. “Listen, if we have to buddy up for stuff, I wondered if you—?”

“—?would be your date?” He flung his arm around me. “I thought you’d never ask.”