Zac frowns. ‘Maybe hen. You’d go “hen”, I think.’
For no real reason other than he’s fun to tease, I jerk my trainer towards his, kicking up wood chips that land over his shoe.
‘Hey,’ he grumbles, shaking them off.
‘Just let me go stag, science nerd.’ After a moment, I suggest, ‘Or we could go together.’
Zac turns still except for his throat, which rises and falls.
‘Just as friends,obviously,’ I clarify. ‘So we don’t have to turn up like two dateless dweebs.’ The guys in our year stopped teasing Zac and me for our friendship years ago, thank heavens, so that’s a non-issue.
Zac tilts his head at me, a hesitant smile inching along his lips. ‘You’re really serious?’
‘We’re gonna end up hanging out together the whole night anyway.’
‘True.’
Our gazes bind together, our cheeks flushing in unison before we burst out laughing, even though this isn’t exactly a comedy-gold moment. But it’s a bit weird, so I guess laughing is the only way to make it less so.
‘Would I get you a corsage?’ Zac teases, his brows lifting up and down.
‘And a limo.’
‘Alimo? How rich do you think I am? My dad’s an electrician.’
‘My dad says electricians are the new millionaires.’
Zac grunts a laugh. ‘I better ask Dad where he’s hiding all our millions, then.’
The conversation falls away without a clear resolution about whether we’re going to be each other’s formal dates, and I consider bringing it up again while Zac fishes his phone out of his back pocket.
‘Ooh, I got a Facebook message from Emily Weston,’ he announces.
I roll my eyes. ‘She’s gotsucha crush on you.’
I eye his phone as he taps into it, but I’m too far away to read the message. ‘She asked if we could talk at school tomorrow about something,’ Zac says.
‘Really?’ My brow scrunches. ‘That’s kind of dramatic, isn’t it?’
‘Dramatic?’ he echoes.
‘Why doesn’t she just bring up whatever it is at school tomorrow? Why the big lead-up?’
Zac doesn’t reply, too busy furiously typing with both his thumbs, and I set my gaze on the rusted-up soccer goals, a hint of annoyance pinching my throat.
I’ll bet the sixty-four dollars in my bank account right now that Emily’s planning to ask Zac to the formal. She wants to do it face to face, obviously, and Zac will say yes because he can never handle disappointing anyone.
A tiny huff slips out of me that’s much too quiet for him to notice. It’s not like I wanted to go with Zac as hisdate-date, but that doesn’t mean I love the idea of him bumping me for Emily-freaking-Weston.
CHAPTER 26
Today
When Zac and I went to school camp in the Snowy Mountains, we got lost on a trail and had such an explosive argument over how to get back—spurred on by fifteen-year-old hormones—that Zac spent the remainder of the trip pouring me bottomless cups of hot chocolate and saving my favourite seat by the fireplace, repeatedly making up for having flown off the handle even worse than I had.
This sweet, atoning behaviour returns in the week following our supermarket clash. Zac cooks me everything from French crepes to sushi rolls, records my favourite TV shows when I have to work late, and even throws in a few pranks to make me smile—one morning handing me a bowl of steaming-hot coffee and a mug stuffed with buttered toast.
It’s all helped take my mind off my looming X-ray and ultrasound, but when test-day Friday rolls around,my eyes are bugging out of my head and my hands are quivering.
