“My laptop?” he asked, sounding distracted as he punched the buttons, and with a beep, the microwave lit up and the bowl started turning around.
“The sticker.” I looked down at it again, hoping it wasn’t something totally obvious that I was failing to get.
“Oh,” he said, just as the microwave beeped again. He pulled out the bowl of soup and brought it quickly over to the counter, dropping it rather than putting it down. “Hot,” he said, shaking out his hands. “We might need to wait a sec before giving it to Bert.” He ran his hand over the sticker quickly, a small smile appearing on his face. “It’s . . . A reader of mine makes them. He sent one to me, and I liked it, so I stuck it on. I guess I was hoping it would give me some inspiration, or something.”
I nodded, like this was normal, to hear someone my age talking about their readers. “So what is it?”
“Oh,” Clark said, and adjusted his glasses quickly. He tilted his head slightly to the side, like he was trying to figure something out. “You’re not . . . I assume you haven’t read them.”
I shook my head. “I don’t really read, you know, books.” Clark’s eyebrows flew up, and it was like he took a step back from me, even though I was pretty sure his feet didn’t actually move. “I know how to read,” I said, seeing the alarm in his expression. “I just don’t love fiction. You know, novels.”
“If you don’t love fiction novels,” Clark said, and even though I tried to fight it, I could feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth, “what do you read?” He shook his head, and it was like I could practically feel how baffled he was. “Wait, I’m sorry, but how do you not read books? Like—what do you do on planes?”
“I study,” I said with a shrug. “Or watch movies.”
Clark blinked at me. “I just . . . I’ve never met anyone who didn’t read before,” he said.
“Okay,” I said, starting to get annoyed. “I read. I have a 4.0.” He was still just staring at me, so I explained. “That’s a thing we have in high schools with more than two people. It’s called a grade point average. . . .”
“Touché,” Clark said, and though he still looked rattled, he was smiling. “Okay. So if you haven’t read my books . . . or, um, any books . . .” I rolled my eyes at that, even as I was trying not to smile. “It’s showing the main character from the first two books, Tamsin. And these are the crows of Castleroy.”
“Oh,” I said, nodding, like that had explained anything. I looked down at it for a moment, wondering what that must be like—to create something that someone liked so much, they made laptop stickers for you.
Clark dipped a finger into the soup and nodded at me as he tasted it. “It’s cool enough, I think.” Then he made a face. “And not really very good.”
“Does it need some Carolina Reapers?” I asked, surprising myself—and Clark, too, judging by the expression on his face.
“Couldn’t hurt,” he said, as I grabbed my phone and he led the way back into the laundry room.
Five minutes later I looked up at Clark over Bertie’s head. “I think it’s working,” I said in a half whisper, like the dog could understand me.
Clark met my eye and nodded, and then I looked back at the dog. When we’d put the soup in front of him, he had opened one eye and sniffed toward it, but then had closed his eyes and put his head down again, which had made me get really, really scared. Bertie always lunged for his food bowl when I brought him home. To see him ignoring food was pretty much the only indication I needed of how sick this dog was. Fear was making my stomach clench as I realized we really might need to bring him to the emergency vet. But before I could say anything, Clark, to my surprise, had stroked Bertie’s head while moving the bowl closer, so that it was right under his nose. “Hey, bud,” he said softly. “Look, it’s people food.”
There was a pause, in which I held my breath, worried that this was the turn that the poison control lady had warned us about. But then Bertie raised his head slightly, nose twitching. He sniffed at the soup for a few more seconds before starting to eat—cautiously at first, but then with more appetite, and I finally let myself breathe again.
“I think you’re right,” Clark said, as Bertie finished the bowl, nudging it around with his nose, trying to get more. “Should I heat up the rest?”
“Maybe give it a second.” Bertie looked up at me, and I reached forward to scratch his ears. “You did so good,” I said, leaning closer to him. “Good—”
But I didn’t get to finish that thought, because right then Bertie opened his mouth and threw up chicken soup—and chocolate—all over me.
• • •
“Okay,” Clark said, arriving in the doorway of the laundry room, breathing hard. “So I think you’re all set. You’re—” He pointed behind him, leaning slightly on the doorframe for support while he caught his breath. “Sorry.” He shook his head. “I was trying to hurry.”
“It’s appreciated.” I was trying my best not to inhale. Bertie, after tossing his cookies all over me, had gone back to sleep, while I’d frozen, not wanting to move, or breathe. Clark had scrambled to his feet and gotten me a towel, but it soon become clear that the towel could only do so much and that I really needed to change—and probably needed to shower, since my hair had not been spared. I’d told Clark this, and only after I’d said it did I wonder if this was weird—to ask to shower at a guy’s house. But then I figured we’d gone so far beyond anything normal tonight that I no longer cared. And more than worrying if it was weird, I needed to not be covered in dog puke. Clark had gone off to get me a change of clothes, and I’d looked at the sleeping dog, wondering just how much Maya’s overtime was going to be and if it would come close to making up for this.
“So my room’s down the hall,” he said, pointing. “Second door on the left. There’s a bathroom in there, and I put out a fresh towel and a change of clothes.”
“Oh,” I said. Somehow I’d figured that in a house this big, he’d direct me to a guest bathroom somewhere. I hadn’t thought I’d be in Clark’s room. Not that it mattered. It didn’t mean anything, after all—I was only doing this because I had to. I got up, trying very hard not to look at what had happened to one of my favorite dresses. I would see if I could work a laundry miracle tomorrow when I got home. “Great. I’ll, um, be right back.”
I walked down the hall as fast as I could, careful not to touch anything on my way. Even the wallpaper looked expensive, subtly patterned and edged in what looked like gold. I tried to casually glance into the other rooms I passed as I walked, but the doors were firmly closed, and I knew this was not the time to go snooping around.
I found Clark’s room right away—it was the only door that was open, light spilling out from it into the darker hallway—and stepped inside, pulling the door closed behind me. I knew this wasn’t really Clark’s room, just the room he was staying in for the summer, but even so, the genericness of it took me by surprise. This seemed like it was probably normally a guest room, since there were almost no personal touches—just a queen-size bed with a cream coverlet, a gray couch in the corner, and a desk tucked under an eave. I started to let my eyes roam around the room, but looked down, remembered the situation at hand, and made a beeline for the bathroom.
Ten minutes later I’d washed my hair and was confident I no longer smelled like horrible things. I wrapped myself in the towel Clark had left out for me, neatly folded, and walked out to his room. I’d balled up my dress and stuffed it into a plastic bag I’d found underneath the sink, trying not to think about the fact that I’d been worried, a few hours earlier, that it had gotten wrinkled on the drive to the restaurant.