I smile. nothing I wouldn’t say myself!! dw

Ace reappears holding a book. I squint, trying to make out the title.

It’s a book about different types of monkeys...

Monkeys?

Maybe the Clydes made a pact to confuse me with their reading choices.

Unable to help myself, I write it down. A boy who looks like moonlight and reads strange books about monkeys. There’s a poem hidden somewhere in that sentence.

“Did you know some monkeys don’t have tails?” Ace asks as if he can feel my gaze on him. My own lips start to betray me and turn up in amusement. “How weird is that? It can’t be a monkey without a tail, right?”

I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to stop whatever the hell it is my lips are trying to do. “Apparently it can.”

Ace looks up and grins. I shift uncomfortably, because my stomach feels like it’s twisting into knots. He has dimples? Jesus Christ. Ya Allah. All of the above.

Either way, this is bad. I want no part of it. If I look at his face for another minute, I might give in to Nandini and Cora’s delusions, and then where would we be?

“You get it, Ahmed,” Ace says, clearly pleased. He closes the book about monkeys—I’m still confused—and gives me his full attention. I can still see a hint of a dimple in his left cheek, and it makes me want to scream.

And yet, even though this entire conversation is ridiculous, the longer it goes on, the better I feel. The cloud that’s been hanging over my head all day begins to evaporate.

“I think you’re distracting me to keep from studying,” I say after a moment. “Let’s get to work, Ace.”

“Boring,” Ace mutters, but not a second later, he sits down across from me. When he grins this time, I actually feel normal. Maybe I can build an immunity to his smile. There’s hope for me yet.

I get through about twenty minutes of the session I outlined before he interrupts. “Let’s go.”

“What?” I look down at my notes, trying to figure out his train of thought. “Go where?”

“Pietra’s Sweet Tooth,” he says, reaching for the leather jacket he hung on the back of his chair. He gestures for me to stand.

I give him a dubious look. “Why would we go there again? We have to study, Ace.”

“I’m more productive there,” he says.

On one hand, it’s kind of true. On another hand, it wastes precious time. On a third hand I don’t even have, the library is my favorite place to be. Pietra’s Sweet Tooth is lovely, but this place feels like a warm hug.

“We’re studying for school. We should study in school.”