Bo is looking out over the dark fields. Washed in moonlight, the fierceness has vanished from her face. Her dark eyes look wistful.

“It’s nice out here,” I say to her.

The cool breeze feels lovely after the heat of the dance floor.

“I saw you dancing,” Bo says.

“Do you like to dance?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “I don’t like crowds.” Then, with a half-smile, she admits, “But I don’t really like being alone, either. So I guess that’s why I’m standing out on the porch like an idiot.”

I laugh softly. I understand that feeling—sometimes I go to a club or a party, and the minute I get there I’m annoyed by the noise and smoke. But then as soon as I get home again I feel a kind of blank emptiness.

“I wish I could enjoy things as easily as everyone else seems to,” I say.

Bo glances over at me, her dark eyes glinting beneath her thick lashes. “Sometimes I think they’re just pretending to have fun. And other times I think it really is that simple for the rest of the world. They’re a bunch of clocks that run right, and I’m just missing a gear somewhere . . . ”

The end of her sentence is drowned out by a retro-style motorcycle roaring into the lot. It’s one of those old-school bikes that looks like it should be ridden by a mail carrier in WW2. Maybe it was—this particular bike is missing so much paint that it’s impossible to tell the original color, and the noisy engine spits out a plume of black smoke.

The rider is slim, dressed in torn jeans and a battered jacket that looks as old as the bike. When he pulls off his helmet, he shakes out a mane of black hair that falls below his shoulders. He’s got high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and dark eyes even fiercer than Bo’s.

I see Bo tense up at the sight of him. She looks like she might run inside The Wagon Wheel, but then changes her mind and stays put.

“I thought you said you weren’t coming,” the rider says, setting his helmet down on the bike seat and striding toward Bo.

“I changed my mind,” Bo says, tossing her head.

“I could have picked you up.”

“I don’t need a ride from you.”

The boy walks right up to Bo, so they’re almost nose to nose. She stands her ground, refusing to step back, arms folded in front of her chest.

The air between them crackles with tension. Even though their sentences are innocuous enough, each word carries an undercurrent of challenge and resentment.

“Who’s this?” the boy says, without actually looking at me. His eyes are fixed on Bo’s, furious and unblinking.

“Riona, this is Duke,” Bo says, introducing us in a monotone.

“Nice to meet you,” I say. Duke totally ignores me, but I don’t care, because I’m fascinated by the tension between these two. I don’t want politeness, I want to know what the hell is going on.