I smiled and left.

Josh hadn’t said where to meet him, so I started down the sidewalk toward his house. A thin layer of snow covered the ground, sparkling in the sunshine and making everything seem clean and picturesque, renewed.

I was almost to Josh’s house, when I ran into Samantha. I didn’t usually see her outside, but she was walking my direction wearing a parka that framed her face so perfectly she looked like a model for a ski magazine.

I wondered if Josh always walked his dog at this time and if Samantha had coincided her stroll to run into him.

When she got close, she smiled in that evil cheerleader sort of way. I could tell she already knew about Elise and me getting hauled down to the police station last night. I met her gaze without flinching anyway. “Hi, Samantha.”

She stopped instead of walking past me. “Hi, Cassidy. How’s your weekend going?”

“Oh, average.” I made a mental note to call all my friends when I got home. I wanted them to hear the story from me before they heard it on the sour grape vine. “How about you?”

“Well, I’m keeping out of trouble.”

“Great.” That about summed up everything I had to say to Samantha.

I caught sight of Josh then. Goliath was straining on his leash, pulling him toward us. “Heal,” Josh said, but it didn’t do any good.

Apparently Samantha and I looked interesting, or perhaps smelled tasty.

“Hi,” Josh said when he reached us.

“Hi,” Samantha and I said at the same time. We glanced at one another then back at Josh. He nodded at Samantha, but motioned for me to follow him. “Come on, Cassidy, let’s go talk.”

I refrained from smiling triumphantly at Samantha and went with him.

When we were out of earshot, I asked, “How’s Elise?”

“Trying to shake her hangover.”

“Your parents picked her up?”

“Yeah. She’s grounded for a month. My parents also decided they need more quality time with her so they’ve promoted my younger brother to head babysitter and she’s going to pick up some shifts at the store.”

“That’s quality time?”

“It will be for a while.” He shrugged. “They’re making it a priority to spend time with her. That’s the important thing.”

He titled his head, studying me. “Did you get in a lot of trouble?”

“A lot would be an accurate description.”

“How long are you grounded for?”

“At first it was for forever, but then my parents reduced the charges to a stern lecture.”

Josh pulled Goliath away from a piece of trash in the street. “When I talked to Elise this morning, I told her you’d be in it deep with your parents. Do you know what she said? She said it was my fault. Mine. If I hadn’t broken your heart, she wouldn’t have had to play matchmaker at the party. She won’t accept the least bit of responsibility for her part in it.” Goliath tried to investigate some shrubbery near a house, and Josh pulled him back onto the sidewalk. No wonder Josh had nice biceps. He didn’t need to lift weights. He wrestled a mammoth dog every day.

“I’ve thought about what you said last night,” Josh continued. “We do always come to Elise’s rescue. I’ve done it for years. So have my parents. Our whole family life spins around her. Now she’s got you into it too. But what are we supposed to do—just sit back and let her screw up her life?”

I put my hands in my coat pockets. “I don’t know. I guess we take each situation as it comes.

He nodded, then sighed. “Well, I for one am sorry you got into trouble last night.”

“It’s not your fault.” I smiled and added, “Well, except that you broke my heart.”

His blue eyes fixed on mine. “What did you tell Elise to make her think you were so upset about our breakup?”

“Nothing. Maybe she thinks you’re so wonderful anyone would be heartbroken.”

“She called me Mega Pork. You must have said something.”

“I told you what I said to her: You didn’t want to date a sophomore. It’s true after all—you told me that yourself.”

“Yeah, but that was . . . but I . . .” He gave Goliath another correcting tug. “That makes me a pig?”

“A mega pork, evidently.”

“We’re still going to the Tolo,” he said. “Don’t think you’ll get out of it just because you’re heartbroken.” His eyes narrowed. “And what did Elise mean by matchmaking, anyway? What matchmaking went on last night at that party?”

“None. Unless you count the time she told a guy if I didn’t have someone sweep me off my feet, I’d end up shaving my head and soliciting money at airports.”

“And you accuse me of being unromantic about dating.”

“Maybe I should come up with some logical plans.”

Josh gave me a smile that could not only melt ice, but turn the water into steam besides. I wondered if he did it on purpose. Did he know what his smile was capable of? Then I wondered why I had ever thought he was less than a fifteen.

Chapter 16

All day Monday I fielded comments from friends and acquaintances about doing time and my brush with the criminal element. I repeated the story so many times I was sick of hearing about it. My friends, however, thought it was intensely amusing and took every opportunity to tease me. The ribbings got old, but at least everyone believed that I had been a sober innocent bystander. That’s why everyone thought it was so funny.

I didn’t see Elise much. She had apologized in the car on the way to school, but I couldn’t help wondering if Josh made her do it. She didn’t seem sincere. Right after her apology, she leaned around her seat. “But I bet you met some interesting people, didn’t you?”

“Oh, tons. Most of them wore blue uniforms.”

“What about Brandon?”

“What about him?”

“Did you like him?” Elise looked pointedly at Josh as she asked this.

“Elise, I don’t know anything about Brandon except that he drinks light beer and sings baritone.”

“Oh,” she said, drawing out the word. “Did he serenade you? How romantic. Tell me all about it.”

“Yes,” Josh said sweetly. “Tell us all about it.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” And then to change the subject I asked, “So what’s going on with Chad? Have you talked to him since he fled the crime scene?”

Elise’s voice turned caustic. “Yes, I talked to the King of Slime. I called him up and told him I never wanted to see his lousy, repulsive, cowardly face again. I still can’t believe he ran off without warning us that we were about to be incarcerated. I mean, how much trouble would it have been to yell, ‘Police’? But no. He left us there like sitting, underage, past-curfew ducks. And all that after he—” She seemed to remember Josh was sitting close by. “Well, you know.”

“I don’t know,” Josh said. “What else did he do?”

“All right, if you insist on knowing, he hit on Cassidy. Right in front of me. The creep.”

Until that moment I thought she was talking about the drugs. “He did worse things than flirt.”

“Oh yeah,” Elise said, “and he was doing drugs too. What a loser. I should have listened to you, Josh. You knew all along he was a jerk.”

Josh let out a grunt. “Remember those words next time I tell you something. I should have listened to you, Josh. I think you should say that several times a day.”

“Well, maybe I would have listened to you this time, but Cassidy gave Chad a ringing endorsement—how was I to know?”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “How did this become my fault? When did my judgment enter into your romantic affairs?”

“I know, I know,” Elise said. “You couldn’t have realized what a trash heap he was. I forgive you for misleading me.”

I sent her a raised-eyebrow look. “I’ll try to pick out a better boyfriend for you next time.”

“Get someone tall, dark, and handsome—but throw in a dash of Bob for upstandingness.” She tilted her head considering her own words. “Actually, Bob is tall and dark already. He’s also kinda cute in a geeky, smart-guy sort of way.” She looked up at the ceiling. “Sort of a pre-Bill Gates . . .”