“Too embarrassing. Don’t you have access to school records or something?”

“If I had access to something like that, don’t you think I would have used it by now? No, you have to use a source. Your source is St. Clair.”

“It’s not you?”

“Bye, Lola.”

“Wait! If my parents call, tell them I’m in the bathroom. We’re eating pizza and watching Pushing Daisies.”

“I hate you.”

“I love you.”

She hangs up.

“All right,” an English accent says to me. “(A) You’re not in the toilets, (B) You’re not eating pizza, and (C) Whom do you love?”

I jump up and throw my arms around him. “I don’t believe it!”

St. Clair hugs me back before prying me off. “What are you doing at my dormitory?”

“I chose the right one?You live here? Which building?” I look around wildly as if it were about to light up.

“I don’t know. Should I trust a lying girl wearing a yellow raincoat on a sunny day?”

I smile. “Why are you always in the right place at the right time?”

“It’s a particular talent of mine.” He shrugs. “Are you looking for Cricket?”

“Will you show me where he lives?”

“Does he know you’re coming?” he asks.

I don’t answer.

“Ah,” he says.

“Do you think he’ll mind?”

St. Clair shakes his head. “You’re right. I sincerely doubt it. Come along, then.” He leads me across the courtyard to a brown-shingled building in the back. We climb a set of stairs, and he unlocks another door, which puts us inside the building’s second floor, in an ugly, battered hallway. He struts ahead of me, but his scuffed boots make heavy clomping noises on the carpet. Cricket doesn’t make any noise when he moves.

Does Max make noise?

“Here’s my room.” St. Clair nods to a cheap-looking wooden door, and I laugh when I see the worn drawing taped to it. It’s him wearing a Napoleon hat. “And here . . .” We walk down four more doors. “. . . is Monsieur Bell’s room.” There’s also something taped to his door. It’s an illustrated miniposter of a woman thrusting a battle-ax toward the heavens and straddling a white tiger. Naked.

St. Clair grins.

“Are you . . . sure this is his room?”

“Oh, I’m quite sure.”

I stare at the naked tiger lady. She’s skinny and blond and doesn’t look anything like me. Not that it matters. Not that I should care for the opinion of someone who’d hang that on his door. But still. “And now I have a train to catch,” St. Clair says. “Best of luck.” He darts out the building.

If he’s screwing with me, I’ll kill him.

I take a deep breath. And then another.

And then I knock.

chapter twenty

“Lola?” Cricket looks astonished. “What are you doing here?”

“I—” Now that I’m standing before his door, my excuses sound ludicrous. Hey, I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d drop by to hang out. Oh! And I wanted to get back that embarrassing binder, which I only lent to you because you were nice enough to offer to make something that would enable me to attend a dance with another guy. “I came to see if you had any ideas for the panniers. I’m . . . in a bit of a time crunch.”

Time crunch? I have never used the phrase time crunch before.

Cricket is still in shock.

“I mean, I came to see you, too. Of course.”

“Well. You found me. Hi.”

“Everything okay?” A girl pops out her head behind him. She’s taller than me, and she’s slender. And she has golden hair in natural waves and a glowing tan that says surfer girl rather than fake-and-bake.

And she looks totally pissed to see me here.

She places a hand possessively on his arm. His sleeve is pushed up so her bare skin is touching his. My stomach plummets. “S-sorry. It was rude of me to show up like this. I’ll see you later, okay?” And then I’m speed-walking down the hall.

“LOLA!”

I stop. I slowly turn around.

He looks bewildered. “Where are you going?”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was in the neighborhood, um, shopping and . . . and of course you’re busy.” Stop freaking out. He can date or make out with or—oh God—sleep with whomever he wants.

“Is it raining?” The girl frowns at my raincoat and rain boots.

“Oh. No. They matched my dress.” I unsnap the coat to expose a pretty dress in the same shade of yellow. Cricket startles like he’s just noticed the girl’s hand. He slides from her grasp and into the hall.

“This is my friend Jessica. We were working on our physics homework. Jess, this is Lola. The one . . . the one I told you about.”

Jessica does not look pleased by this information.

HE TOLD HER ABOUT ME.

“So you came to work on the dress?” he asks.

“It’s not a big deal.” I move toward him. “We can do it later.”

“No! You’re here. You’re never here.” He glances at Jessica. “We’ll finish tomorrow, okay?”

“Right.” She fires me a death glare before storming away.

Cricket doesn’t notice. He opens his door wide. “Come in. How did you find me?”

“St. Cla—OH.”

“What? What is it?”

Two beds. Beside one, a constellation chart, a periodic table, and a desk crowded with papers and wires and small metal objects. Beside the other, more naked fantasy women, a gigantic television, and several gaming consoles.

“You have a roommate.”

“Yeah.” He sounds confused.

“The, um, picture on your door surprised me.”

“NO. No. I prefer my women with . . . fewer carnivorous beasts and less weaponry.” He pauses and smiles. “Naked is okay. What she needs are a golden retriever and a telescope. Maybe then it would do it for me.”

I laugh.

“A squirrel and a laboratory beaker?”

“A bunny rabbit and a flip chart,” I say.

“Only if the flip chart has mathematical equations on it.”

I fake-swoon onto his bed. “Too much, too much!” He’s laughing, but it fades as he watches me toss and turn. He looks pained. I sit up on my elbows. “What’s the matter?”

“You’re in my room,” he says quietly. “You weren’t in my room five minutes ago and now you are.”

I pull myself up the rest of the way, suddenly conscious of both the bed and its lingering scent of bar soap and sweet mechanical oil. I glance at a space close to his head but not quite at it. “I shouldn’t have barged in on you like this. I’m sorry.”

“No. I’m glad you’re here.”

I find the courage to meet his eyes, but he’s not looking at me anymore. He reaches for something on his desk. It’s overflowing with towers of graphing paper and partially completed projects, but there’s one area that’s been cleared of everything. Everything except for my binder. “I did some sketches this weekend in Pennsylvania—”

“Oh, yeah.” I looked up Skate America, and it was held in Reading this year. I ask the polite question. “How did Calliope do?”

“Good, good. First.”

“She broke her second-place streak?”

He looks up. “What? Oh. No. She always gets first in these early seasonal competitions. Not to take anything away from her,” he adds distractedly. Since he’s not bothered by the mention, I gather that he doesn’t know we spoke. Best to keep it that way. “Okay,” he says. “Here’s what I was working on.”

Cricket sits beside me on his bed. He’s in scientist inventor professional mode, so he’s forgotten his self-imposed distance rule. He pulls out a few illustrations that he’d tucked inside, and he’s rambling about materials and circumferences and other things I’m not thinking about, because all I see is how carefully he’s cradling my binder in his lap.

Like it’s fragile. Like it’s important.

“So what do you think?”

“It looks wonderful,” I say. “Thank you.”

“It’ll be big. I mean, you wanted big, right? Will you have enough fabric?”

Oops. I should have been paying closer attention. I study the dimensions. He hands me a calculator so I can punch in my numbers, and I’m surprised at how perfect it is. “Yeah. Wow, I’ll even have the right amount of spare fabric, just in case.”

“I’ll collect the materials tomorrow so I can start it this weekend at my parents’ house. I’ll need . . .” His cheeks turn pink.

I smile. “My measurements?”

“Not all of them.” Now red.

I write down what he needs. “I’m not one of those girls. I don’t mind.”

“You shouldn’t. You’re perfect, you look beautiful.”

The words are out. He’s been so careful.

“I shouldn’t have said that.” Cricket sets aside my binder and jolts up. He moves as far away from me as possible without stepping on his roommate’s side. “I’m sorry.” He rubs the back of his head and stares out his window.

“It’s okay. Thank you.”

We’re quiet. It’s grown dark outside.

“You know.” I snap and unsnap my raincoat. “We spend a lot of time apologizing to each other. Maybe we should stop. Maybe we need to try harder to be friends. It’s okay for friends to say things like that without it getting weird.”

Cricket turns back around and looks at me. “Or to show up unannounced.”

“Though if you gave me your number, I wouldn’t have to.”

He smiles, and I pull out my cell and toss it to him. He tosses his to me. We enter our digits into each other’s phone. The act feels official. Cricket throws mine back and says, “I’m listed under ‘Naked Tiger Woman.’”

I laugh. “Are you serious? Because I entered myself as ‘Naked Tiger Lady.’”

“Really?”

I laugh harder. “No. I’m Lola.”

“The one and only.”