Now it was almost eleven, which was past bedtime, but we knew that Miss Pepperman was patrolling that night and she would have never punished Jasper or any member of his drama club. Almost everyone had left by now—Sammy, to my surprise, being one of the first to go.

I wasn’t sure why I had stayed. Probably for the same reason I had stayed the first time: Jasper had asked. Apparently that was all it took, which was a fact I preferred not to think about too much.

Now we were kneeling on the stage with cans of paint scattered around. I wasn’t sure if it was the stage lights humming above us that made my neck feel warm or the fact that Jasper was sitting right next to me, working on the same piece.

We were both silent for the most part; the only time I spoke was to mutter a quiet sorry when I accidentally knocked my elbow against his. The painting itself wasn’t very difficult—all we had to do was color in the tree that one of the girls had drawn on the cardboard earlier.

“You don’t talk very much, do you?” Jasper asked.

The warmth spread from my neck to my ears. Not the stage lights then. “I don’t know.”

Jasper chuckled and leaned forward to clean his brush in the cup of water in front of us. I tried to focus on the way the paint tinted the water blue as he swirled the brush, a tornado trapped inside a glass, not on the fact that his arm brushed against mine in the process, making my insides feel similar; a tornado trapped inside a boy.

“Good job with the lights today, by the way. You’re getting better every time.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Silence again. I dipped my brush into the paint and continued working on the leaves.

“Do you maybe want to hang out after this?”

My brush slipped on the cardboard, leaving behind a jagged green line that gave away my shock. Gave away everything, maybe. I couldn’t tell by looking at his face, his eyes trained on the traitorous smear of paint before they fixed on me again.

“Like, alone?”

Jasper nodded.

“What about Sammy?” I asked, keeping my voice low so that the others couldn’t overhear. “Won’t he mind?”

“I suppose he would. If we were still together.”

My brain idled for a moment until, finally, his words sank in.

“Oh.”

“It was more of a friends-with-benefits situation, anyway,”

Jasper said. “After the thing at the Welcome Back Party the friend part kind of got lost, so neither of us was into the benefits anymore.”

I hated the way my heart fluttered at that, stupidly hopeful as if that changed anything. Forcing my voice to stay level, I said,

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said. With one hand, he rubbed at his cheek, the motion leaving behind a streak of green paint. “Rehearsals are going to be a bit awkward for a while, but I’m sure it’ll be fine in a week or two.”