“So why not Acedia?” Angeline said, without the sarcastic edge she would have a couple of weeks ago. “Though merging platforms would kind of throw a wrench into the whole Battle of the Exes thing.”
“Yeah, about that . . .” He sat up straight, his back muscles tensing beneath his thin cotton shirt. “Maybe I was following Tad so the guys didn’t think my balls were in your purse. But instead—”
“They were in Tad’s.”
“Which the current dress code wouldn’t let him carry, by the way.”
She smiled. While she’d been staring at the slope of his nose and the freckle on his earlobe and the side of his hair that needed a fresh buzz, he’d been fixated on the sink across from them. Now, he turned his head, and his eyes flickered between hers and her lips. She wanted him to kiss her as much as she didn’t. He leaned in, and she stood.
“I should go, before someone comes home.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” Leo said with the tone of someone who’d just been rejected, which wasn’t what she’d meant to do. So much had happened between them, she just didn’t want to try to resolve it beside a toilet when they could be interrupted any second.
Is that really why?
She stepped out of the tub, and Leo eyed her claddagh ring. “I’ll talk to Sammy, I promise. But do you think . . . could you maybe not tell anyone? If the school or . . . anyone . . . learned it was him, he’d get in trouble, and he’s just a kid. He’s got everything before him.”
“So do we.”
“Do we? Or have we ruined it?”
“Not yet.” He sighed with the same relief she felt. “I won’t say anything, but he has to stop.”
Keeping the secret wasn’t just for Leo or Sammy. She wouldn’t risk Maxine getting into trouble for hacking into a student’s email—even a student publishing that. But it meant she’d have to keep the truth from Cat. With how much Cat hated The Shrieking Violet and her annoying adherence to right and wrong, Cat might push to tell Ms. Lute to make sure it didn’t happen again. So long as the paper disappeared, Cat would get what she wanted. She’d be happy.
While Angeline carefully dried her feet, Leo went to get her a pair of shoes.
She reached the living room first, where Leo’s mom eyeballed her from the giant poster propped beside the stone fireplace, that same single photo of the family on Los Roques Beach, where they’d vacationed with both sets of Leo’s grandparents two summers ago. Smaller yard signs rested in the corner, flyers on the coffee table, an extra TV on a stand where the rocking chair used to be. Though his mom had a campaign office, naturally things would wind up here too, which meant Leo couldn’t escape it despite the deal he’d made with her.
A deal he’d break if he dropped out.
“She never wears these.” Leo held up a pair of black canvas sneakers. “You can keep them, so you don’t have to come by and return them.”
“I’ll return them.” She relished the softness of the socks he gave her despite how weird it was to wear his mother’s shoes, which were exactly her size. “On one condition. You don’t drop out. I want to win, but not by default.”
He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “That really what you want?”
She nodded. “Besides, it’ll be hard enough on Sammy when you confront him about The Shrieking Violet. Let’s not make it worse by you dropping out of the race too.”
Silence held them together until the sound of a car interrupted. It stopped just past the house, so that only the back quarter was visible, along with its VOTE TORRES bumper sticker.
Angeline’s heart thudded. “Did your mom get a new car?”
“No. It must be someone from the campaign dropping off Sammy. He went straight from school.”
With a shout of “Much obliged, as always!” Sammy appeared from the passenger side.
“Uh, maybe I’ll go out the back.” Angeline picked up the shoes that might have forever ruined her for loafers. “Better if he doesn’t think I pressured you into this.”
“You didn’t, you know.”
“I know.” She let Leo’s hand graze hers as she moved past him, heading toward the back door, thinking of Sammy. He was a good kid. Which meant Angeline had become the type of person to make a good kid like Sammy do what he did.
27
When Cat Clicks and Baits
7 DAYS TO THE ELECTION
The five o’clock alarm trilled in Cat’s ears. She tugged out her headphones and quietly extracted herself from bed. She grabbed her backpack with her computer already inside and snuck out without waking Angeline.
Thanks to the floodlight in the adjacent parking lot, the apartment was bright enough that she didn’t need to turn on any lights. She settled herself at the dining room table, opened her link to The Red and Blue’s server, and clicked on the file named “Grady’s Secret Interviews.” Nellie Bly would have been so disappointed. No more enlisting Grady in undercover operations without some serious training.
She’d sent him to conduct interviews with Leo’s teammates and friends under the guise of a deep candidate profile. Meanwhile, she’d been reviewing every Shrieking Violet story and social media post. She needed to uncover at least one piece of evidence to back up Maxine’s finding. That way, when she reported the story, no one would be able to deny that Leo had created The Shrieking Violet to take his rival down. So far, she had nothing.
She’d been hoping Grady had better luck, but standard blowhard “Leo’s the best, man” quotes filled her screen.
“There’s got to be something,” Cat muttered. She tucked her legs underneath her on the dining room chair, the beige microfiber flattened from use smooth against her bare skin.
She jammed the down arrow on her keyboard, skimming until she came across a quote from Andreas Costa.
“Leo’s a big fan of cupcakes,” Costa winked.
Cat resisted the urge to correct Grady’s notes since one couldn’t “wink” actual words. But Costa had winked. Why wink at Leo liking or not liking cupcakes?
Cupcakes? Really?
She was about to hit the down arrow when she remembered something: Leo didn’t have a sweet tooth.
Which meant . . . was Costa not talking about the frosted kind?
The final spirit day at the end of the previous year began like always: lights out, music low, cheerleaders positioned in the center of the gym. Up went the volume and on came the lights to signal the start of their routine. Yet the lights had been replaced with black bulbs that revealed the word “cupcake” written in invisible ink across the back of the cheerleaders’ uniforms.