I Hid My Perfect Score novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: Easier

"How did you get in here?" I said.

"The door was open." Cade blew on his hands.

"Is it always this cold? My phone died on the walk from the hotel."

"It's twenty below. Phones die."

"Nobody told me that."

Dodie was standing on the bottom step with her arms crossed, watching him.

"Joss," she said. "Who's this?"

"Cade. He's from home."

"He's from home," Dodie repeated, and somehow made it sound like a diagnosis.

It was six o'clock, which meant dinner.

Station 3 rule: if you're in the building at dinner, you eat.

So Cade Harkin from home ate chili at the long kitchen table with eight student firefighters and a captain who didn't speak to him once.

He did his lacrosse-dinner charm.

He asked people their majors. He laughed at things that weren't jokes.

Nobody warmed up.

Emory sat at the far end and ate his chili and watched Cade the way he watched a fire through a window.

After dinner the crew did dishes in a line, the way we always did.

Cade followed me to the sink.

"You look different," he said.

"I've been carrying forty-five pounds up hills."

"No. Different." He leaned on the counter beside me. "You look like you don't care what anybody thinks."

"That's the cold. It freezes your face."

He laughed.

Then he lowered his voice, even though the whole crew was three feet away drying bowls.

"Paisley wants you home. Your mom's making a big deal of it. Whole family, both sides. She says it'll fix things."

"Paisley says, or Mom says?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Hid My Perfect Score from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.