The Reece Malcolm List (21 page)

My phone beeps again, but this time it’s not Elijah. It’s my mother.
Just checking that you’re behaving. xo

I grin and text back.
Of course. Tell Brad thanks for dinner.

Did you have fun with the boy?
xo

I feel like my answer is way more complicated than
yes
or
no
. But also, I guess I did. And even though there are kind of a lot of crappy things going on—like how everything is clearly not the way it used to be with Justine, and how maybe Travis and I won’t be friends anymore, and how
probably
maybe
I don’t know
possibly Lissa wants Elijah back—I’m kind of okay for the moment.

Sai walks up to me Monday morning while I’m still at my locker. He looks really good in a just-rolled-out-of-bed way, but I try not to notice that.

“Hey,” he greets me with a grin. “Good weekend?”

I shrug. “It was okay. How was yours?”

“Not bad. So I was wondering, you busy after Nation rehearsal tonight? We could get started on our scene.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, no, I’m not busy. I can check with my mother and find out. Probably it’ll be okay, though.”

“Awesome,” he says. “Let me know later.”

Travis walks by as Sai walks away, and I try to make eye contact. Travis very obviously looks away and keeps walking. I slam my locker shut and head over to the Music Hall where
of course
the first person I see is Mira. Apparently today is just going to keep getting more annoying.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asks me. “You look extra dour.”

“Don’t,” I say.

“I’m not doing anything,” she says. “Seriously, what’s up?”

Fine. I will continue treating Mira like she no longer hates me, even if nothing actually happened for her to change her opinion. “It’s just Travis.”

“Ugh, I know. He’s been completely snotty to me, too. Don’t take it personally.”

“Did this happen with the spring show?” I ask.

“I signed up as the accompanist last spring,” she says. “I realized recently I’d rather be in the show. So Travis was the only one of us to actually be in
Spring Awakening
, so even though it was only the chorus, it was different. Sophomores don’t really ever get roles.”

“Back at any of my old schools, Travis probably could have gotten the lead as a freshman,” I say.

“Yeah, New City’s great, but then I think about how if I went somewhere else I might actually end up with more opportunities.” She shrugs, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “But I guess I’d rather deal with real competition now than think all of this is easy until I go to college.”

“Right? Me, too, totally.”

Lissa rounds the corner, and her expression goes blank when she sees the two of us standing there.

“Hey,” Mira says. “Why is everyone acting weird today?”

You can tell she expects us to laugh, but
obviously
we do not.

“Can we talk?” Lissa asks, and it’s obvious Mira thinks this is directed at her. But I nod and take a few steps farther away from the Women’s Choir room. Mira gives us a look I can’t interpret at all before heading into the classroom.

“Hi,” Lissa says. “So I’m really sorry about Friday night.”

It flies out of her in a big jumble, just like words betray me sometimes, and even after everything, I feel this weird kinship with Lissa, who days before I would have dismissed as way too cool for me. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” she says with a groan. “What’s
wrong
with me? I was completely over whatever we had, but the second he’s with you I turn into some girl on a reality show. And—because crying at freaking Molly Malone’s isn’t bad enough—I had to tell him.”

“What did he say?” I ask, even though it isn’t technically any of my business. I can’t believe how open Lissa is, how she could just say all of this to me.

“Not much.” She shrugs. “I think he was too surprised to know what to say.”

“Right,” I say.

“Also, he
likes
you, Devan. I’m old news.”

I laugh at that, even if I don’t know how much of it I can believe.

“I’m really sorry we ditched you,” she says. “I’m such a bitch.”

“You’re not.”

“
I am.
I ditched you and tried to hook up with your boyfriend.”

Boyfriend
. Wow, I’m not prepared for that word.

“Anyway, we should get to class,” she says. “I’m glad you got home okay.”

We walk silently into the choir room. I feel how it’s different between us now than it was on Friday night before everything unfolded. It’s not like I actually think Lissa is a bitch—just that she can be so honest with me right away feels foreign from how Justine had never freaking come out and said that she needed to, I don’t know, prioritize The Tenor now. When her best friend’s life had totally fallen apart.

Ugh, I don’t want to spend today thinking about Justine or her tenor or Friday night. Time to take out my sheet music and let that clear my head.

By lunchtime things are officially weird. Travis is being quiet—well, quiet for Travis, which means speaking only to Lissa and Elijah. Lissa is avoiding eye contact and conversation with Elijah, and that means Mira is soaking up all her extra attention. Also Mira is clearly happy to pretend Travis isn’t snubbing her, and clearly unaware that something totally awkward went down on Friday night.

I seriously want to hide. But instead I am next to Elijah, wondering if he’s technically my boyfriend now, and if Lissa will keep telling him she wants him back, and if things here can ever just be
normal
. I don’t need everything to be perfect, but sitting here it’s hard to ignore how freaking weird everything has gotten.

“What are you doing after school?” Elijah asks me. “No, wait. Monday is Nation. Can I pick you up after so we can hang out?”

“I, um, might have to work on this acting thing.”

I’m not doing anything wrong by working on a class project with Sai, but I still feel the need to hide information. Is that bad?

“Something for Acting One?” Travis asks like I’m a little kid. Now I wish he’d go back to fully ignoring me. “You’re lucky you have a good voice. They don’t like casting people in leading roles who aren’t at least in Acting Two.”

“Well, she has a kickass voice,” Elijah says. “And she already got the part. So your point’s pretty moot.”

Everyone ends up laughing at Elijah because
moot
seems like such an odd thing to say, but I squeeze his hand under the table and smile at him. Because he’s great. Because no matter what happened on Friday, and even though I hope I get better at defending myself, someone here who is new to me cares enough to say something.

And thinks I’m kickass.

“I wanted to tell you something,” Elijah says as we’re walking to class from lunch. “I know I keep asking to hang out and you keep having Nation and your show—”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that—”

“No, listen, I want to make sure you know that I get it. Trust me, wish I could get my band together for more practices.”

“Why are you so great?” I ask, and he actually
blushes
. Oh my God, it’s so cute I can hardly handle it. I kiss him there, right in the middle of the hallway, without checking that Sai or Lissa or anyone else is around. I don’t care. I’m full of feelings I never expected to have for a boy I didn’t even know last month.

And I could lie, but I won’t. After Nation, when Sai and I let ourselves into the spare rehearsal studio (we’re allowed to sign up for it, so it doesn’t exactly replicate letting myself into the choir room with Justine), I’m suddenly full of feelings again. With Elijah I feel safe and special, which is seriously more than I thought I could feel for a boy. With Sai I don’t even know how to name what I feel, but my head buzzes with it. It feels like a betrayal of Elijah but I’m not sure if it actually is. I would kill to suddenly have boy experience to draw from.

“Your phone’s beeping.” Sai sits down on the floor with the script for
Proof
. I wonder if he picked a scene for us already, and I wonder if it’s the one where Hal is kind of drunk and kisses Catherine. Is it possible to want and not want that, badly, all at the same time? “Probably Cross, needs help at the makeup counter.”

“Why would he need help?” I ask. “Elijah knows what he’s doing.”

“He’s gonna branch out,” Sai says. “Needs more glitter, probably.”

“Shut up,” I say, getting my phone out of my purse. The text is indeed from Elijah, so I act like I’m on my own working on my acting project before I go home for homework and dinner. All of it’s true, just leaving out the one tiny detail sitting next to me. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m becoming a good liar or anything.

“Kennedy still acting weird to you?” Sai asks, and I shrug.

“Yeah, unfortunately. You, too?”

“Me, too. Honestly, bet the guy’s just confused because he thought his audition went so well.”

It’s nice Sai wants to believe something good about Travis.

“Yeah,” I say, “I heard it was
an epic triumph
.”

Sai cracks up. I love making
him
people laugh. “Man, he must have said that ten times after.”

“I wish I was more like that,” I find myself admitting. “That part, I mean, not the jerk part later.”

“The mildly delusional part?”

“No, just . . . ” I consider my words carefully, but for some reason it feels safe to say it. “Less scared, I guess. I knew I did well with mine, but I’d never go around calling it
an epic triumph
.”

“Yeah, well, you’re also not an asshole, Dev,” he says. “Not that Kennedy is.”

“Not about
that
, at least.”

He grins at me. “It’s a fine line. I’m glad you’re on this side of it.”

“Me, too.” I page through my script. “Should we get to work?”

“Sure,” he says. “You doing okay with everything?”

“What’s everything?” I ask. “School and the show?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Being in L.A. working out for you?”

“Sure,” I say quickly. “What about you?”

Hopefully since he asked me it’s fine to ask him.

“School’s good,” he says. “Excited about the show. My dad’s still . . . ”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

He reaches out and tucks this stray lock of hair behind my ear. His fingertips trace little lines on my cheek. It’s weird—there is no denying that. I think about what it would be like to pounce on him and let go of everything I’m holding inside in this moment—there is no denying that, either.

“Your hair was in your face,” he says like all friends take care of that duty for each other. “Okay, I had one idea for the scene, but I’m open if you do, too.”

I’ve kind of lost the ability to speak but I do manage to nod. And I do manage not to pounce. If I were to pounce on anyone it should be Elijah, but I can’t imagine that at all, and it’s easier if I keep myself too busy the rest of the night to dwell on that any longer.

Chapter Sixteen

Things I know about Reece Malcolm:

32. She’d probably handle boy stuff better than me. (She has Brad, after all.)

There’s no rehearsal on Friday night, which leaves me completely free to hang out with Elijah. I guess it’s kind of an official date. Considering how there are a billion things that are great about Elijah, and only one I don’t love—how who knows if he’d like me at all if Lissa would have figured out she still liked him a couple weeks sooner—I know I should be tingly-heart-pounding-thrilled in anticipation. But I’m pretty much like I always am, just with less lip gloss because I expect there will be some serious kissing.

Elijah’s mom is, again, out, so we go to his house. We have this list of plans as he’s driving us there from my house: order something for dinner, watch this weird horror movie he claims is more unintentionally funny than scary, listen to the cast recordings of
Hedwig and the Angry Inch
and
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
because I’m determined to make him like at least one musical, if not two. But as soon as we get inside I stumble over something and fall into Elijah, and it’s like the excuse we need.

We kiss for a long time standing there, barely inside the front door. We’re both wearing jackets and, between the heat of the room and
the heat of the room
, I’m way too warm. Still, I’m worried if I take mine off it’ll look like I’m starting to remove clothing. I like Elijah lots but I am not ready to remove clothing around him. (I mean, more clothing than a jacket.) Kissing is great—more than great, bordering on amazing—but I know I’m not ready for anything more than kissing right now. Despite how at this very moment I can’t imagine not being wrapped up in Elijah’s arms.

And that means I’m
almost
completely
not thinking about Sai at all.