“You don’t have to dance if you don’t want to,” Lucas said. “You can just chill and watch the competition. We can hang out between sets.”

“And I can hang out during,” Wes said, pointing at me. Then he winked before backing away. “Just think about it.”

“Yeah, no pressure,” said Lucas.

“But if you do come,” added Wes, “we can be gorgeously uncoordinated and sedentary together.”

I smiled—a little nervously. Was Wes flirting with me? Or just messing with me?

“Dude. You serious right now?” Lucas asked Wes, making me do a double take between the two. Because that seemed the sort of thing one guy friend might ask another if he felt his buddy was encroaching on his territory.

“I dunno,” said Wes as he pantomimed lifting a Dracula-style cape over his nose and mouth before arching one sculpted brow. “Am I?”

With that, Wes skulked back into the gym as, overhead, the bell sounded.

“Ignore him,” said Lucas. “He wears the same socks, like, every day. I’m pretty sure he sleeps upside down in his closet, too—but, yeah, totally think about coming out on Saturday. If you’re not busy, that is. There’ll be a live band. I could even show you a couple more moves. I mean . . . if you wanted.”

“I see you’re not writing me off as a lost cause.”

“Well, you know,” he said. “Thought the least I could do was return the favor.”

I grinned and shook my head at him, blushing as the dividing doors on the floor above opened, releasing a group of chattering underclassmen.

“Wait, though,” I prompted, hoping the moment hadn’t flown. “What were you going to ask me?”

“Oh,” Lucas said as students filed past us, a few of them offering curious glances our way. “I wanted to see if you’d . . . let me walk you to class.”

An obvious lie. I’d already learned Lucas touched his glasses when he fibbed. But just because his bravery had fled didn’t mean he wouldn’t find it again later.

“Won’t you be late?”

“Just let me grab my stuff.”

Without waiting for an official answer, Lucas popped his hat on and bolted back down the stairs and into the gym, where he’d left Charlotte. Who, if I wanted to save myself from falling for a guy I couldn’t have, I was going to have to find a way to ask about. Stat.

TWENTY

Zedok

Before the week was out, I told myself, the family would be gone.

Wrath would return to his basement, the mysterious new mask would dissolve into the ether, and I would return to my work. I would think no more about the Armands. In a year or so, Stephanie would have become as distant to my thoughts as the summer was to my world.

I glanced around the vacant, time-eaten parlor as though it might hold assurance for me.

On this side—the Armands’ side—no oriental carpet softened my step. Paper peeled like dead skin from the walls. A filmy layer of grime, fuzzy with fragrant sawdust, coated all.