He’s quiet, and I’m so nervous, I can’t speak. As I drive the familiar route toward home and he stares out the window, interest wars with my anxiety. Like earlier today, when I talked to him near the school’s front doors, I feel an uncharacteristic sense of boldness. It’s like a shot of adrenaline making me act braver, although I feel more nervous than ever.
“Let me tell you this,” I say, daring a glance at him. “Your room is awesome.” I force myself to smile, even though he looks like misery personified, and my heart is beating too fast. “It’s got a Star Wars poster and airplanes on the sheets. In your bathroom, there’s a Hogwarts shower curtain.”
His eyes are skeptical, his lush mouth tense.
“My little sister and I picked it all out for you, for seven-year-old Landon.” I laugh.
His eyebrows arch as he crosses his arms over his chest. His lips are pressed together, the corners of his mouth curved upward in a kind of smile but kind of grimace, too.
“Em, she wore her favorite Minnie Mouse dress to meet you at her elementary school today. You have to love her or you’ll break her heart. She’s expecting a new friend.”
He doesn’t speak, not with his mouth, so I continue. “I think you’ll find your clothes a little bit too small, but don’t go stealing any shirts. We’ll get you more.”
His smirk bends into a smile; his eyes crinkle. “It’s not funny,” he says, as if he’s trying to convince himself.
“It’s sort of funny.”
He rubs his hand across his face to hide a small smile.
“You did steal the shirt,” I venture.
“Why do you say that?”
My gaze flickers to him. “Because it’s got gray seams. I couldn’t see before, but now that you’re up close… Pax wears name-brand undershirts. How did you get away with it?”
He does the smirk-smile-grimace thing again, making a dimple bloom in his left cheek. “I’ll deny it if you ever ask again.”
“I wouldn’t. I’m a little square, but I’m no rat.”
“I found it in the locker room this morning…” He taps his forehead. “Wrote my initials on the tag.”
I laugh. “That’s crazy smart.”
“I’m crazy smart.”
“That’s what my parents said.” I laugh. “I was wondering! What kind of elementary school kid needs help prepping for college?”
His eyes shut, and he shakes his head. I want to grab him by the shoulders just to feel their thickness: cotton-covered muscle…
“That’s a pretty big fuckup,” he says, stretching out his legs.
“Age is just a number, right?”
“Is that what the greeting cards say?”
“You’re a skeptic, aren’t you? I can tell. I bet you like Jack Handey. You’re a reluctantly hopeful agnostic who wishes you didn’t have an optimistic streak, but you do, don’t you? I can feel it.”
As soon as the words fall off my tongue, I want to clamp my palm over my mouth. I’ve never been so forward with anyone, nor so presumptive.
To my shock, he laughs. “You’re right. That’s pretty fucking good; I’ve gotta give it to ya.”
“You should be more optimistic,” I say. “Look at what you pulled off today with the shirt. I think things are going your way, Landon. James Landon?”
He nods.
“And what’s your last name? Jones, right?”
“Like Indiana.” He winks.
“Oh my gosh, I bet Em looked for you all day. Poor thing.”
“Your parents…” He shakes his head. “Wouldn’t be surprised if they send me packing after tonight.”
“Why would they do that?”
“You know why.” His eyes narrow.
“Because you’re my age?”
He nods. “Coyote in the hen house.”
I give a laughing hoot. “I’m the hen?”
Again, that rakish nod. His eyebrows lift, and those gray eyes study my face. “I didn’t notice much at first, but now I’m talking to you…” He shakes his head again, and runs a hand back through his hair.
My heart pounds. “Now you’re talking to me…what?” I half-whisper.
He shrugs. “You’re the kind of good girl bad guys always go for.”
“Are you a bad guy?” I ask.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe you play one. Like an actor in a movie.”
“Are you always like this?”
“Like how?” I ask.
He looks at me again—a searching look that unlocks things inside me.
“Blunt and presumptive?” I try.
“You’re a Gryffindor, aren’t you?”
This makes me giggle. “I have socks—and possibly a winter scarf—in my Hogwarts house colors.”
“I figured.” He looks smug. Relaxed now.
“And what are you?”
“You need to ask?” Again, the eyebrow lift, the skeptic.
“No. I really don’t. I know you’re Slytherin.”
He nods once, taking up most of the space in my car and in my heart.
“Every Slytherin needs a friend from Gryffindor,” I tell him.
“If you say so.”
“C’mon. It’s the truth. You know it.”
“I don’t need you,” he says.
“Yes you do. You need someone to call your bullshit.”
“Is that right?” He smiles reluctantly. That dimple.
“It’s right. You need a friend who understands that even though you claim to be from Slytherin, you’re not as scary as you seem.”
“Do I seem scary?” He looks pleased.
“That part was an exaggeration.”
His face falls, and I giggle. He’s easy to goad.
“You’re going to love my house.” We’re on the road that takes us up into the hills now. “There’s a waterfall behind it. And your room? It’s in the basement. Your clothes are about nine sizes too small, but the space down there is pretty sweet. A lot of privacy.”
He nods, and I can feel his nervousness.
“Don’t worry. I don’t think my parents will care that you’re my age instead of Em’s. They probably think it’s meant to be.”
He screws his face up. “Really?”
“Yes, Mr. Skeptical. They believe in things like serendipity and fate.”
He frowns. “I don’t.”
“Well—you will.”
The pensive, brooding guy from school goes quiet as we walk through the house. I can tell he must be nervous, because he barely says a word as Mom, Emmaline, and I lead him through our foyer/formal dining room, into the kitchen, back into the family area, and then up the gorgeous, mahogany staircase that leads from the foyer to the second floor, where we show him the workout room and my dad’s library.
Em’s and my bedrooms, on the third floor, aren’t part of his tour. After he sees everything else, we take him to the basement, where he laughs at his room, bespells my sister with a Harry Potter wand, and flops down on one twin bed like he’s been living in our basement forever.