I wasn’t sure how to answer his question, seeing as how I wasn’t supposed to be claiming Mike out in public. Also, I didn’t love hearing myself called “one of Mike’s girls.” So I didn’t say anything.

Which was answer enough for him. He leaned back, resting his knobby elbows on the steps behind him.

“Figures. He likes them from the wrong side of tracks—as long as mommy and daddy don’t find out.”

His voice was deeper than I would have expected it to be, coming from such a skinny body, and it rang with authority. Like he didn’t need me to confirm nothing, because he already knew everything he needed to know about me.

This time when he looked me up and down, I could see judgment in his eyes as they tracked over my dusty brown hair, my cut up clothes, and most of all, my light brown skin.

“So which wrong side of the tracks are you from?”

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Where did you get that black eye?”

The corners of his lips tugged up. “Alright, so you don’t want to tell me where you’re from. What do you think we should talk about while you’re pretending not to be waiting for Mike to get here then?”

“We don’t have to talk,” I pointed out.

“No, we don’t,” he agreed.

That got me a whole minute of silence. But eventually it became so uncomfortable, I had ask, “Is there a reason you’re sitting out here as opposed to going inside?”

He shrugged, his thin shoulders going up and down like two knobs underneath his thin t-shirt. “Putting together some thoughts, I guess.”

“Trying to figure out how you’re going to explain that black eye?” I asked him.

A sad smiled passed over his face. “Nobody in there’s going to ask, so I don’t have anything I’ve got to explain. Especially if I lay low until it fades.”

“Laying low ain’t too bad a deal,” I said after thinking on it for a few seconds. “At least you’ve got air conditioning.”

He let out a sound between a bark and a laugh. “Yeah, I guess that’s how I should look at it. I’m not hiding. I’m staying in the air conditioning.”

My eyes wandered to the violin case at his feet. Wondering about it. Wondering about him. Even as I said, “Well, you should probably go on and see about that A/C.”

“Yeah, I probably should,” he agreed. But he didn’t move. Instead, he followed my gaze to his violin.

Leaving me to grow more and more curious in the second silence, until I just had to ask, “So you play violin?”