“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Wren said, “you’re a first-class geek.”
* * *
When they got to Jandro’s frat house, Levi got out again to help Wren. He only sometimes helped Cath in and out anymore. Usually she was already there before he got a chance. When Wren got out of the truck, Cath reluctantly slid away from the driver’s seat and buckled her seat belt.
Levi started the truck and shifted gears without looking at her. He hadn’t really looked at her since they’d left her room.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yeah. Just hungry. Are you hungry?” He still didn’t look at her.
“Is this about Nick?” she asked. She realized that she was waiting for it to be about Nick.
“No,” Levi said. “Should it be? You seemed like you didn’t want to talk about him.”
“I don’t,” Cath said.
“Okay. Are you hungry?”
“No. Are you jealous?”
“No.” He shook his head, like he was shaking something off; then he turned to her and smiled. “Do you want me to be?” He raised an eyebrow. “I can throw a big tantrum if you like that sort of thing.”
“I don’t think so,” Cath said. “Thanks, though.”
“Good. I’m too hungry to rage. Do you mind if we stop somewhere?”
“No,” she said. “Or I could make you something if you want. Eggs.”
Levi beamed at her. “God, yes. Can I watch?”
Cath smiled. “You’re ridiculous.”
* * *
Levi wanted an omelette. He got the eggs and cheese out of the refrigerator, and Cath found a pan and butter. (This kitchen almost didn’t remind Cath of the missing blond girl anymore. That girl had no staying power.)
Cath had just cracked three eggs when Levi tugged on her ponytail. “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Why doesn’t your sister like me?”
“Everyone likes you,” Cath said, whisking the eggs with a fork.
“Then how come you only hang out with her when I’m not around?”
Cath glanced back at him. He was leaning against the sink.
“Cheese,” she said, nodding at his hands. “Grate.” When he just kept looking at her, Cath said, “Maybe I like having you all to myself.”
“Maybe…,” he said, raking one hand into his hair. “Maybe I embarrass you.”
She poured the eggs into the pan and reached for the cheese grater herself. “What am I embarrassed by? Your rangy good looks or your irresistible personality?”
“Alejandro is a Regents Scholar,” Levi said softly behind her. “And his family owns half the Sand Hills.”
“Wait … what?” Cath set everything down and turned back to him. “You really think I’m embarrassed by you?”
Levi smiled gently and shrugged. “I’m not angry, sweetheart.”
“No, you’re crazy. I didn’t even know those things about Jandro, and anyway, who cares?” Cath reached up to his chest and clenched her fists in his black sweatshirt. “God. Levi. Look at you … you’re…” She didn’t have words for what Levi was. He was a cave painting. He was The Red Balloon. She lifted her heels and pulled him forward until his face was so close, she could look at only one of his eyes at a time. “You’re magic,” she said.
Levi’s eyes smiled almost shut. She kissed the corner of his mouth, and he moved his face to catch her lips.
When Cath heard the eggs start to snap, she pulled away—but Levi took hold of her waist.
“Why, then?” he asked. “Doesn’t Wren like me? Do I cramp your style? I can tell you don’t want me around when she’s there.”
Cath pushed against his chest, away, and went back to the stove, quickly grating the cheese over the eggs. “It has nothing to with you.”
Levi tried to move into her line of sight, leaning against the counter next to the stove. “How do you figure?”
“It’s just … nothing, it’s weird,” she said. “It’d be different if you’d grown up with us, or if you’d met us both at the same time—”
“What would be different?”
Cath shrugged and scraped at the omelette with a wooden spatula. “Then I would know that you had enough information to choose me.”
Levi leaned over the stove, trying again to catch her eye.
“Get back,” Cath said, “you’re going to burn yourself.”
He backed up, but only few inches. “Of course I chose you.”
“But you didn’t know Wren.”
“Cath…”
She wished there was more to do with omelettes than watch them. “I know you think she’s pretty—”
“You know that because I think you’re pretty.”
“You said she was hot.”
“When?”
“When you met her.” Levi looked confused for a second, one eyebrow arched beautifully. “You called her Superman,” Cath said.
“Cather,” he said, remembering, “I was trying to get your attention. I was trying to say that you were hot without actually saying it.”
“Well, it sucked.”
“I’m sorry.” He reached out for her waist again. She kept looking down at the eggs.
“I know that you like me,” she said.
“You know that I love you.”
Cath kept staring at the pan. “But she’s a lot like me. Some of our best friends couldn’t even tell us apart. And then, when they could, it would be because Wren was the better one. Because she talked more or smiled more—or just flat-out looked better.”
“I can tell you apart just fine.”
“Long hair. Glasses.”
“Cath … come on, look at me.” He pulled at her belt loops, and she flipped the omelette before she let herself turn toward him. “I can tell you apart,” he said.
“We sound the same. We kind of talk the same. We have all the same gestures.”
“True,” he said, nodding, holding her chin up, “but it’s almost like that makes your differences more dramatic.”
“What do you mean?”
“It means, sometimes your sister will say something, and it will sort of shock me to hear her saying it with your voice.”
Cath looked up to his eyes, unsure. They were big and earnest. “Like what?”
“I can’t think of anything specific,” he said. “It’s like … she smiles more than you. But she’s harder somehow. Closed up.”
“I’m the one who never leaves my room.”
“I’m not explaining this right.… I like Wren,” he said, “what I know of her. But she’s more … forceful than you.”
“Confident.”
“Partly. Maybe. More like—she takes what she wants from a situation.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“No, I know,” Levi said. “But it’s not you. You don’t push through every moment. You pay attention. You take everything in. I like that about you—I like that better.”
Cath closed her eyes and felt tears catch on her cheeks.
“I like your glasses,” he said. “I like your Simon Snow T-shirts. I like that you don’t smile at everyone, because then, when you smile at me.… Cather.” He kissed her mouth. “Look at me.”
She did.
“I choose you over everyone.”
Cath took a painful breath and reached up with one hand to touch his chin. “I love you,” she said. “Levi.”
Levi’s face broke open just before he kissed her.
He pulled away again a few seconds later.…
“Say it again.”
* * *
She had to make him another omelette.
“Do you know what the most disappointing thing is about being a magician?”
Penelope shook her head and rolled her eyes, a combination she’d gotten terribly good at over the years. “Don’t be silly, Simon. There’s nothing disappointing about magic.”
“There is,” he argued, only partly just to tease her. “I always figured we’d learn a way to fly by now.”
“Oh, pish,” Penelope said. “Anyone can fly. Anyone with a friend.”
She held her ringed hand out to him and grinned—“Up, up and away!”
Simon felt the steps drift away from him and laughed his way through a slow somersault. When he was upright again, he leveled his wand at Penelope.