Page 82 of My Star-Crossed Summer

I let out a deep sigh as Ethan jogs back over to where Derrick is waiting for him by the gate.

“See you next year, maybe!” Derrick hollers at me, and Ethan gives me a solemn wave.

They amble down the ramp toward the plane with the last of the passengers, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding for what seems like five full minutes. I take a few ibuprofen to ease the pain that’s bloomed in my shoulder, then wait to watch their plane taxi down the runway.

I’m congratulating myself on surviving this gauntlet as I’m walking back to my car, sipping a fresh coffee so deep and rich that it almost makes up for that spill with the pug. I pull my phone from my pocket to check my messages, and then curse so loudly that a gray-haired lady in the parking deck frowns and wags her finger at me.

In my hand is a phone with Captain America on the lock screen. The phone of teenage boy.

“Sorry,” I tell the lady, and shetsksme as she walks toward the elevator.

I howl at the injustice of it all, but that doesn’t erase the fact that the phone in my hand is not mine but belongs to Derrick. I replay the moment of our collision at the gate again and again because I was certain I’d checked this phone before I shoved it into my pocket. Certain I’d checked the time or at least made sure it was mine, because my phone and its case are identical to Derrick’s.

The same green case with the grippy silicone texture. We even joked about it that first week, when Derrick had been trying to find a signal and dropped it on the pavement right in front of me.My mom got me this case because she said it was indestructible even for me, he’d said.I’ve dropped it a million times.

But as I lay sprawled on the hard airport floor, I assumed the phone closest to my knee was mine. In a hurry to get the boys onboard, I didn’t double-check.

And now I’m stuck with a tween’s phone that’s chock full of silly games and is incapable of speed-dialing Sophie, or loading my email, or responding to Victoria’s texts that I’d told myself I’d answer as soon as the kids were all strapped into their seats and headed home.

Meanwhile, my phone is shoved into the pocket of Derrick’s jacket, probably already sticky from a candy wrapper and lord knows what else, cruising at thirty thousand feet on its way to Atlanta.

When I get backto the Institute, Sophie says, “Noah, I’ve been calling you nonstop. What’s going on?” She frowns, clearly annoyed.

“Sorry,” I say, and then tell her the short version of how I came to have Derrick’s phone. I hold it out to her as proof, as if I could make this stuff up. “I’m going to call his parents and see if they’ll overnight mine to me if I do the same.”

She pushes her braids over her shoulder. “I was starting to worry you’d been in an accident.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her again. “It’s locked with a passcode.”

She smirks, taking the phone from my hand. Before I can even ask what she’s doing, she taps the screen a few times and says, “Boom.”

“You got in?”

She taps and swipes a few more times. “My little brother’s just as predictable. Now I’m disarming the lock screen so you can keep using it.”

“I won’t need to?—”

“Yes, you will,” she interrupts. “Because your sister called here four times trying to get in touch with you and needs you to call her ASAP.” Handing me the phone, she says, “She’s okay, not hurt or anything. But she said it’s DEFCON-1, and she’s calling in her big favor.”

I let out a heavy sigh. Hannah’s kept that big favor in her pocket for years.

“Listen,” she says. “All the car pick-ups are done. Victoria’s still at the hospital with Priya and Layla. So I’ll take the second group to the airport, and you can head out early to help Hannah.”

“You don’t have to do that, Soph.”

“I know,” she says. “But your sister needs you. I can handle the kiddos, and I’m already done packing up the office. No problem.”

“You really are the best,” I tell her.

She gives me a friendly shrug. “You’d do the same for me.”

I callHannah from the landline in the office, and she picks up on the first ring. Her voice is high pitched, and she’s talking so fast I can barely understand her. She never, ever sounds this hurried. She’s always calm and calculating, planning ten steps ahead.

“Hannah,” I interrupt. “Slow down. Are you okay?”

A breath whooshes out of her.

“I’m safe,” she says. “I’m not hurt. But I need you to come help me move out of my apartment. I want to empty this place and be out by the time Jason gets back tonight.”

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