“Yeah, I’m—” I clear my throat. “I’m okay.”

“Are you…?” Frank starts quietly. It sounds like his voice has hardly ever been used. His eyes are still wide, his gut-churning fear still ruling every cell in my body, but there’s a tiny burn of curiosity cutting through it.

“Never mind.” He shakes his head like he’s clearing the cobwebs.

“I think I’m gonna sit down for a second,” I say, moving away from the blast zone of Frank’s feelings. It doesn’t help.

“Yeah, of course,” Chloe says, and I try to grab on to her worry, with no success. She’s not Adam.

“You just sit there and get your breath back,” she continues, like nothing is out of the ordinary, “and I’ll tell you about what Frank and I are working on!”

She’s started to move around the studio again, like a butterfly flitting around flowers, and Frank and I eye each other warily from across the room. His feelings are still a confusing swirl inside of me but I don’t feel like I’m in danger. Instead, I feel like I am the danger.

46

ADAM

“You can say no, but—”

“Oh god, is there another football party?” I groan dramatically. We’re sitting on Caleb’s bedroom floor as always and I’m painting his nails with polish we stole from his sister who, incidentally, completely terrifies me with her no-nonsense intensity. I’d never admit that to Caleb, but of course he already knows.

“No, no party,” he laughs. A few weeks ago he dragged me along to a team gathering and, while not as terrible as I feared (thankfully both Bryce-and Henry-less), it was definitely not my first choice for how to spend an evening. One upside to Caleb’s ability is that he can’t stand group situations either, so we bailed early.

“It’s just a stupid scrimmage thing,” Caleb says, his breath puffing over my forehead as I lean over to paint his right hand with precision. “JV and varsity playing on teams for spirit week.”

“Oh yeah, you guys do that every year, right?” I vaguely remember weeks where every hallway and every athlete were draped in the school colors and full of school pride. Obviously, I’ve never participated myself.

“Yeah,” he says, “once in the fall and once in the spring. I’m always on the Red Team.”

I look up to see a big grin on his face and can’t help smiling in return.

“Is that the good team?” I tease.

“It is because I’m on it.” He smirks and I lean forward to kiss the smug look off his face.

“So … will you come?” Caleb asks again a few minutes later.