Page 37 of The Art of Us

Wait. Was he saying tell me about it as in “yeah, me too,” or as in he wanted her to elaborate? “Too much to put in a text,” she wrote.

“I’ll be right over.”

Ireland blinked at her phone. He’d be right over? As in he was coming to Mara’s house to see her?

But then, it wasn’t only Mara’s house anymore. It was hers too. “Hey, Jade?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Am I allowed to have friends over while we hang out together?”

“’Course.”

“Even if it’s a boy?”

Jade giggled. “As long as you’re not slobbering all over each other.”

Fair enough. Ireland texted back. “Okay. Come over.”

Chapter Twelve

Kal

Kal was at Mara’s house and ringing the doorbell faster than Superman could change clothes in a phone booth.

Ireland answered and smiled when she saw him. Progress. Last night, he worried she wouldn’t talk to him again.

She opened the door wider to let him in. As he passed her, he gave in to the impulse to reach out and pull her into a quick hug. She stiffened as if surprised, and he worried he was blundering his way into the whole thing, but she softened against him and hugged him back.

“So ... I live at Mara’s now,” she said against his shoulder.

He pulled away, regretting that he needed to. “So I see.”

She took him into the kitchen and cut off a slice of bread from the fresh-baked loaf sitting on the cutting board. She set it on a plate, cut off two more slices, and put those on their own plates.

“I don’t know how Mr. Wasden found out my dad wasn’t taking care of me,” she said. “I have my suspicions of who told, and I’m so mad about it, I can’t even think well enough to plot out my revenge.”

Kal froze. Shewasmad. He figured as much, but he didn’t love to have the information verified. “Who—” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Who do you think told him?”

Ireland frowned, her lips twisting to the side in a way that made a little crease in her cheek that was super adorable. He looked away to try to shake off the desire to kiss that little crease. The moment when she told him she knew he’d betrayed hersecret without talking to her was not the moment he should be thinking about kissing her.

And Kalhadbetrayed her secret. He’d spent all night going over it in his mind, trying to see it the way she would see it. Not that he was sorry she wasn’t living on her own because that had been all sorts of not awesome. She hadn’t been safe. He’d seen the hungry way Rowan had watched her when she’d left school the other day. The guy had practically salivated on his own shoes. If anyone knew Ireland was on her own in what was basically a rudimentary lean-to, she would be vulnerable to whatever malevolence they could imagine. He’d heard Rowan talk about girls with his friends. And Rowan wasn’t the only guy in their school Kal didn’t trust. Kal knew there was a lot of malevolence to be had in the world.

But Kal thought maybe he should have talked to Ireland first.

“Janice,” Ireland said, tugging Kal back into their conversation—the one where she was revealing who had betrayed her.

Kal tried to process the name—process that it wasn’thisname and figure out whose name it actually was. “Who?”

“The school janitor. I helped her a few times to do her work, and she figured out I was on my own. I can’t believe she’d do this to me. I was fine, and now ... ugh!” Ireland threw her hands in the air and then settled them on the granite countertop as if needing to hold herself up.

“Maybe she did you a favor though.”

“You think living with Mara is a favor?”

Kal looked around at the kitchen he stood in. At the fact that there was a loaf of bread on the counter to slice into, at the fact that there was a stocked fridge and pantry just a few feet away. Did Ireland not see all the ways she was lucky in this? “There are worse places to land,” he said, not sure if he was landing himself in an argument with her by pointing it out.

Ireland’s shoulders slumped and she turned and leanedagainst the counter. “I know.” She covered her eyes with the palms of her hands. “I know.” She put her hands down. “You’re right. And her kid sister’s pretty cute, so there’s that. I’ve never had a kid sister, so that part might be fun.”

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