Page 124 of The ABCs of You & Me

I flop back against the couch with a dramatic groan. “It’s so good.”

“I knew it would be. Your chemistry is too powerful for it not to be extra-explosive in the bedroom.” She takes a bite of pizza, and I know what she’s about to say before she even opens her mouth. “Maybe buy some backup lamps.”

The week after a long weekend is always the longest in history. Every hour drags by, or maybe that’s how it feels waiting to find out what Foster has in store for Z.

“You’re in a good mood today.” I laugh as Pete practically skips out of his classroom. I take a peek through the door hoping to catch a glimpse of Foster, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

“Mr. Walsh is helping Debra Donahue in Mr. Johnson’s class.”

“Oh, that’s nice of him. I wasn’t looking for him, though,” I say as casually as possible.

“Miss Hore?”

“Yes, Pete?”

“I think we both know you were.” The little shit grins up at me and winks, except Pete cannot wink so it’s more of a regular blink with a very exaggerated head nod.

“Okay, fine, I was. You caught me.”

He grins, nodding. “That’s because I’m perceptive.”

“How is training going?” I ask as he flops onto the bean bag across from me.

“We didn’t train yesterday.”

“Oh?” Strange, Foster was later than usual getting back because he said he was going to train with Pete. Alarm bells ring in the back of my mind. Why would he say that if that’s not what he was doing?

“I have a giant blister,” Pete says, leaning down to untie his shoe. “It’s really gross.”

“You can keep your shoe on. I know what gross blisters look like,” I insist.

“Are you sure you don’t want to see it? Mr. Walsh said it’s a reward for how hard I’m working. It’s a blister to be proud of.”

“I bet it is. So Mr. Walsh saw your blister last night then?”

“Mm-hmm,” he confirms. “He said we couldn’t train, but that maybe I could help him with a project instead.” I’m about to ask what the project is, but he holds out his hand to stop me. “I can’t tell you, I pinky-promised.”

Well then, Foster didn’t lie about where he was going and in fact was up to something that’s probably going to make my heart melt right out of my body.

“I won’t ask. That’s between you and Mr. Walsh.”

“It’s good, the project.” He leans forward. “Really good.” He does his Pete wink again, and I laugh.

“Okay, I believe you. Now tell me how things are going at school. Did you do well on your last spelling test?”

“I got perfect. And,” he says quickly, making me jolt, “I got the bonus word right.”

“That’s amazing, Pete. What was the bonus word?”

“Cornucopia.”

“Oh wow, that’s a good one.”

He nods, his face scrunching. “I don’t know what a cornucopia is though.”

“What do you think it is?” After Foster’s foray into nut milk with him, I’m curious to see what his mind does with this.

He shrugs. “A world made of corn? Like Zootopia but with corn.”

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