The following Wednesday, I go six houses down and ask for Jamie, and his mom looks at me and smiles, then shouts over her shoulder and makes a face when he comes bounding into the hall. When he sees me, he blushes, and his mom’s smile gets wider.

I pull Jamie outside, close the door, and say, “I need your help.”

“Sure,” he says, not asking why or what or when.

I hide the grin pushing hard against my lips and say, “I need you to follow someone.”

“Okay.”

And then I smile anyway, because he’s sweet and loyal, and I realize I love that about him.

“It’s a girl… I need to know where she lives. But it means skipping school.”

I remember Jamie’s hand on my arm when he pulled me back from the alley and when he chased Becca and Taryn and their boyfriends away, although I’d told him to leave.

Jamie nods, and I wonder if he would literally do anything I asked. But it’s more than that, because I think if he asked, I would do the same for him.

“When?”

“Friday.”

Mrs. Bradley will go bananas if I skip another day for no reason, so I need to be smart about it.

“I’ll meet you at the Harmony-side bus stop at 8:30,” I say.

As I’m about to leave, his mom steps into the street and says, “Jessica. Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Mom!” Jamie stares at her until she laughs.

“I’m just being polite,” she says.

“Well, I wish you wouldn’t.”

He looks embarrassed, and I should leave, but something else happens.

“Sure.”

It comes out by accident, and when Jamie makes a face, I shrug, think of the microwave meal waiting for me while Dad’s at work, and say, “What? I’m hungry.”

Chapter 112

His dad is sitting in the living room, and when Jamie introduces me, he says, “It’s an honor to have a celebrity in our home.”

I can’t tell if he’s being sarcastic or weird, but the way Jamie rolls his eyes, it’s probably the latter.

I flash back to the moment I first saw him, peeking through the curtains the night I met his son. He seems friendlier than the face I saw that night suggested. But he looks at me with an intensity I’m not used to, like someone who was never told it’s rude to stare.

He keeps straightening his glasses and squinting as if he’s studying me. A couple of times, I fake a smile, and he nods but carries on staring, his fingers drumming the T-shirt that barely covers his belly.