“Hannah always eats like a bird,” Emmett said, beaming at her as though there were nothing more marvelous than the ability to survive on a few sticks and twigs.
I rolled my eyes, instantly irritated. One of the many, many things I liked about Dex was that he never minded that I had as large an appetite as he did. This was quickly followed by the now-familiar pang of sadness that thinking of Dex always caused recently. He’d been gone for only four days, and it already felt like forever. We talked every day on Skype, but it wasn’t the same as feeling the warmth of his hand entwined with mine or breathing in the freshly-laundered-clothes smell of him. I wasn’t going to see him in person until he was home for Thanksgiving break. How was I going to make it until then?
“Miranda?” Hannah said, interrupting my sad thoughts. “Did you hear me?”
“What? No.”
“I didn’t think you were listening,” Hannah said accusingly. “I said Emmett wants to come to the movies with us. Is that okay? I know we were supposed to be having a girls’ day out.”
“Fine with me,” I said. “Emmett can be an honorary girl for the day. As long as he doesn’t mind getting pedicures with us.”
But now Hannah and Emmett weren’t listening to me. They were staring at each other with matching goopy expressions. I could have stood on the table and belted out a rendition of “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It),” complete with Beyoncé’s dance moves, and it still wouldn’t have gotten their attention.
“You’ve got a stray hair,” Emmett told Hannah, sweeping the offending lock out of her face and tucking it behind her ear for her.
Hannah giggled and tipped her head coquettishly. “Maybe I should cut my hair short so it stays out of my face. I’ve always wondered how I’d look with a really, really short style.”
“Don’t do that. I like it long,” Emmett said, gently pulling on one of her silver-blond locks.
“You don’t think I’d look pretty with short hair?” Hannah asked.
“You’d look gorgeous no matter what,” Emmett said. He took her hand and brushed his lips against her knuckles.
“Gag,” I said.
Hannah and Emmett both looked at me. They seemed startled to find me sitting at the table with them.
“Seriously,” I said, “this is nauseating. You’re going to have to stop it now before it ruins my appetite.”
“Ignore her,” Hannah told Emmett. “She misses Dex, so she’s feeling bitter about love.”
“I’m not bitter about love,” I said, stung. “I happen to be very pro-love.”
“How is Dex doing? Have you talked to him?” Emmett asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I talked to him last night. He’s fine. His roommate’s cool, and he said that everyone on the lacrosse team gets along.”
Dex had sounded really upbeat when I talked to him. I knew he’d been nervous about starting at a new school far away from home, where he didn’t know anyone. It had been too great an opportunity for him to pass up. The Brown Academy had one of the top high school lacrosse programs in the country, and a lot of the lacrosse players who went there ended up getting recruited by universities such as Princeton and Cornell. I knew it was important to him to do well at his new school, and I was glad that he was adjusting to being there. But a smaller, not-so-nice part of me had hoped that he’d be missing me too much—as much as I missed him—to settle in quite so quickly.
“Are you all ready to get back to school tomorrow?” Emmett asked.
I nodded. “Actually, I can’t wait. I’m on the staff of The Ampersand this year.” The Ampersand was Geek High’s award-winning magazine. I’d secured a coveted writer’s spot on the magazine at the end of my sophomore year. “How about you?”
“Yeah, I’m ready to get back, too. I came up with a great idea for the science fair. I’m hoping to go back to nationals this year,” Emmett said. Emmett had won the state science fair every year that he had entered. His sophomore year, he’d placed second in nationals for developing a system for purifying water in developing countries. “I’m working on a new way to power cars with solar energy,” he continued. “The technology has been out for a while, but no one’s perfected it.”
“Wow. That would be amazing,” I said, impressed.
“I just need to figure out how I’m going to construct the canopy, and how the solar cells will be set up,” Emmett said.
It was Hannah’s turn to roll her eyes. “Only Geek High students would be looking forward to school. I wish summer vacation would last forever,” she said. She checked her watch. “The movie’s going to start soon. We should probably head over to the theater.”