Adrian gives him a pointed look I can’t interpret. “He doesn’t really have people over much.”
I take stock of what I know about McNair’s personal life. He must live near Westview, but I’m not sure where. Evidently, he has a sister, but until Adrian said that, I would have guessed he was an only child like me because he’s never mentioned siblings. Not the most forthcoming about his personal life. What could be so, well, personal, that he wouldn’t share it with his friends?
Even confronted with this emergency, it’s impossible to picture McNair in any role except capital-R Rival.
“But he’s still playing, right?” I ask.
“Oh yeah.” Sean flicks black hair out of his eyes. It’s doing this swoopy thing I’ve always found cute. McNair’s hair could never achieve that kind of effortless swoop. “He said he wouldn’t miss this.”
That helps me relax. The emergency can’t have been that serious. I won’t let it distract me from my new goal, the one that fills me with a familiar rush of confidence.
I’m going to destroy McNair one last time.
Maybe then I’ll feel like myself again.
HOWL: Official Game Rules
Property of the junior class of Westview High School
TOP SECRET
DO NOT SHARE.
DO NOT DUPLICATE.
DO NOT LEAVE UNATTENDED ON THE COMPUTER WHILE YOU GET A CHEESY PRETZEL FROM THE STUDENT STORE EVEN THOUGH YOU’RE “PRETTY SURE” YOU SAVED IT. (THAT MEANS YOU, JEFF.)
HOWL is a citywide scavenger hunt with a twist: you’re being hunted by your classmates.
OBJECTIVES
Find and photograph 15 scavenger-hunt clues located around the city.
Send to the junior class for verification.
Don’t die.
At the beginning of the game, you will be given the name of your first target. You can only eliminate your target by removing their blue armband. Once you eliminate your target, you will assume their target.
Anyone using real weapons will be immediately disqualified and reported to the police.
Once you’ve found all 15 clues, you must be the first person back at the Westview gym to win.
GRAND PRIZE: $5,000
GOOD LUCK… YOU’LL NEED IT.
11:52 a.m.
BY THE TIME we reach the football field, nearly the entire senior class is here. Kirby and Mara drift toward their dance friends for selfies and yearbook swaps. It’s finally starting to warm up, so I slip off my cardigan and fold it into my backpack. I feel much better now that I have a plan. Destroy McNair. Regain confidence. Meet Delilah and hope she loves me.
Just as his friends assured me, McNair’s here, standing by the bleachers and rummaging through his backpack. The sun on his fiery hair is nothing short of an ocular hazard. If I look directly at it, it’ll probably fry my corneas. Total eclipse of McNair. I hold a hand to my forehead and wrench my gaze downward. He’s changed into a black T-shirt with a Latin phrase scribbled across it, and his dark jeans have a hole in one knee. Below them: scuffed Adidas, the laces chewed and frayed at the ends. I wonder if he has a dog. For once, he looks like a teenage boy, not a tax attorney or middle school assistant principal.
The T-shirt is the real mystery. Usually he wears sweaters or button-downs, the occasional grandpa cardigan with elbow patches. For all I know, this is his summer uniform; we’re only ever around each other the nine gloomy months school is in session. Freckles up and down his pale arms disappear into his sleeves, and I think he has biceps. In sophomore-year gym class, he was a scrawny little thing, twig arms poking out of the boxy Westview gym shirt that fit exactly no one. This T-shirt, though—it definitely fits him.
“Are you okay, Artoo?”
I blink. He’s turned to face me, eyebrows lifted, a half-smile on his lips.
“What?”
“You look all squinty,” he says.
I’m not sure what he’s insinuating, but I wasn’t staring at him. He just happened to be in my line of vision, looking different from how he usually does. It was natural for my gaze to linger.
Standing up straighter, I gesture to his T-shirt and jeans. “Casual clothes? Did the robot that controls your body get overheated in the suit?”
“Nah, we’ve mastered temperature regulation. It’s just not worth it to have a robot without that ability these days.”
“And here I was looking forward to watching you run around Seattle in twelve cubic feet of polyester.” It’s a relief to spar like this after the yearbook debacle.
He crosses his arms over his chest, as though self-conscious about how much of him is on display. It makes his upper arms appear even more muscular. God, does he lift weights? How else would he achieve that kind of definition?
“Don’t insult me,” he says. “That suit is a cotton-wool blend.”
We’ve inched close enough for me to read the Latin on his chest: QUIDQUID LATINE DICTUM, ALTUM VIDETUR. He’s probably dying for someone to ask him what it means. I plan to google it later.
He zips his backpack and swings it over one shoulder. There’s a pin on it, a shiny enamel basket of corgis and the words FREE PUPPIES! I have no idea what this means either, only that I’m 98 percent sure he isn’t running an underground dog-breeding operation.
“Is everything…?” I wave my hand to indicate the word “okay,” unsure if finishing the sentence would indicate some kind of closeness we’ve never had.
“Curvy?” he asks. He taps his chin. “Twisted? My charades skills are a little rusty. How many syllables does it have?”
“No, I—I ran into your friends at lunch. They said you had an emergency?”
The tips of his ears turn scarlet. “Oh. No. I mean, yes, but everything’s okay now.”
“Good,” I say quickly, because if his friends don’t know much about his personal life, I know even less. I’ve always imagined he does homework in his suits, eats dinner in his suits, sleeps in his suits. Then wakes up and does it all again. This T-shirt and the revelation about his arms have poked holes in my McTheories. “That it wasn’t serious, I mean. I’m glad you can still play. Then I don’t have to feel bad when I beat you.”
“Even though you won’t deign to sign my yearbook?” He says this with a lift of his brows, like he knows exactly how shitty I feel about it.
Now it’s my turn to blush. If my bangs were longer, I could hide behind them. “I wasn’t—I mean—”
He holds up a hand to indicate it’s fine, though his remark makes me uneasy. “I’m going to find the rest of the Quad.”
McNair and his friends call themselves the Quadrilateral, abbreviated as the Quad, and yes, it is the nerdiest thing I’ve ever heard. But it does make what they said about his personal life even stranger. Almost like the Quad is more of a triangle with an extra appendage hanging off it. They’re splitting up next year too, Neil to NYU, Adrian to one of the UCs, Cyrus to Western, and Sean to the UW.
Kirby and Mara wander back to me. Mara is frowning down at her phone. “It’s 12:02. Are we sure we’re in the right place?”
“Unlikely that all three hundred of us got it wrong,” Kirby says.