“Yes, I’m still a virgin. No, I don’t plan on giving it up at prom. No, I’m not a lesbian. That should do it.” I was blocking her escape. It took her three half steps in three directions to realize it.

I grinned with my arms crossed over my chest. “Are you done?”

Her eyes were laser sharp. Cool and bright didn’t mean she didn’t have the confused biting glare down. “Aren’t you? Why are you talking to me?”

“I can’t talk to you?”

“You never have before.” There were crinkles in the middle of her eyebrows from her skeptical look.

I hadn’t before, but after hearing her sing, I couldn’t stop looking at her and waiting to hear even more.

“Maybe I wanted to try something new.”

She squeezed the bridge of her nose. “Who put you up to this?” Her foot tapped like she was dealing with an overgrown child. I mean, sometimes I was, so I couldn’t really blame her. And any attention was better than just a head nod or worse, her gaze whipping right past me.

“Why does there have to be an ulterior motive for me to talk to you?”

“Because no one talks to me.”

“That can’t be true.”

She let out a long-suffering sigh that must have tested the edges of her lung capacity. “Fine, there’s a small subset of people in this school who speak to me on a regular basis and you’re not one of them.” Her voice was higher than when she sang. Not as raspy and bold, but no less powerful. My cheeks hurt from trying to keep my smile under wraps.

Maybe I’d like to be. “Have you ever thought it might be a side effect of your glowing personality? With the way you respond to a simple hello, I’m surprised no one else is climbing the walls to get to know you.”

Her jaw dropped. “And football fever has gone to your brain if you assume everyone would be tripping all over themselves to talk to you.”

“You did literally trip. Three minutes ago, remember? I caught you and kept you from face planting.”

She clenched her fists in front of her and squeezed her eyes shut like she could wish me away. One eye popped open. “Dammit, I was hoping this was a hallucination.” She backed up, banging into the bike rack. “Listen.” Her fingers ruffled her hair, not in a preening way, but leeching pure frustration. “I’ve got some stuff to do and whatever this is,” she gestured between me and her with her fingers, “is outside of my bandwidth, so I’m going to go.” Finger guns over her shoulder accompanied her climb over the bike rack to get away from me.

“You continue with the conversation like I’m still standing here.”

And then she was gone. Disappeared through the bright yellow doors to the school leaving me stunned at the turn in our conversation.

“You stealing a bike or something?” Knox rocked up beside me and slammed my backpack into my chest.