“You know there’s no boys allowed in your room. And Axel, what happened to your shirt?”

Axel slid off my bed. “Ice cream accident. Sorry, Uncle James. We had to work up here because we needed the computer. Since it’s the coding project.”

“What are you talking about?” my dad asked. “I didn’t announce the coding project yet.”

I stared at him. I did think it seemed odd that he hadn’t talked about the big project in class at all today. But I figured it was because we already had our task of picking out a concept by Friday.

“Mr. Halifax announced it on Wednesday,” I said.

My dad sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “That was supposed to be on next week’s lesson plan. And I already had the teams picked out. The two of you aren’t paired up.”

Yeah, that made sense. I’d suspected as much.

“But we already came up with a concept,” Axel said. “And I bet a lot of the other students have too. Mr. Halifax said the concept was due tomorrow.”

“He said what?” My dad sighed again. “Okay. Fine. But no working on it up here again. You can bring the laptop downstairs.”

“Yes, sir,” Axel said. “I guess I’ll get going.” He walked toward the door but stopped at my desk. I thought he was going to grab his varsity jacket, but instead he reached out and touched my old glasses that were sitting there. He looked back at me over his shoulder.

My eyes locked with his. But I had no idea what he was thinking.

“Great, grab your jacket,” my dad said, apparently thinking that’s what Axel was about to do too.

“Nah, I’m good,” Axel said. “That belongs to Scarlett.”

I just stared at him, remembering the words he’d whispered the day he’d given his jacket to me. It looks better on you than it does on me.

And then he strolled out of the room all nonchalant like we hadn’t just been caught in my bed together.

My dad turned back to me. It looked like his head was about to explode. “I better not catch Axel up here again. Or you’ll be grounded for twice as long as last time.”

“I’m sorry. We really were just talking about the project.”

“And what are you wearing?”

I crossed my arms over my chest again. “Nothing.”

“It looks like nothing. Put on a robe or something. Now.”

I grabbed a hoodie and pulled it on.

It finally looked like he was able to breathe again. “I’ll let your mom know that the two of you need to go shopping for new pajamas.”

I shrugged.

He took another deep breath. “Are you sure you don’t want to switch partners? I had you paired up with Soph.”