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Then, like thirteen years had never happened, neither one of them could stop smiling.
“Guess what?” Wil stepped into the spot next to Katie at the buffet and picked up two dessert plates, conscious of the fact that standing next to Katie Price at her parents’ holiday party and pretending like thirteen years had never happened was the best feeling she’d had inside her body in a really long time.
Katie put down the serving spoon in the big tureen that held German potato salad and turned to face Wil. They were nearly the same height.
She was right there, and Wil was right here.
Wil watched as Katie looked her up and down. It was a surprise. The look was not guarded, it was appraising, and slow enough that Wil had to remind herself to hold still and take it. God knew that plenty of people looked at Katie.
Katie set her platter down. “What?” she asked. “Tell me.”
Well, that was hot. Wil looked more closely at Katie. She was so interesting to look at with her wide-spaced eyes and her full mouth. She was breathing a little fast, her lips slightly parted. Wil couldn’t remember what she’d thought she was going to say before, because she couldn’t think past this moment, right now, standing with Katie, conscious all at once of how much she’d fuckingmissedher.
But she had to say something, so she said the first thing she thought of when she thought of senior year Wil-and-Katie, what they’d talked about obsessively, cracking each other up in the frontseat of the Bronco until Wil’s cheeks were bright red and Katie had to wrap both arms around her stomach against the ache of it.
“I saw Andrew Cook at Java! Java! with Brunette on Monday. Before you think I’ve been stalking him since we were in high school, let me say this is thefirsttime I’ve seen him since then. He was whispering in Brunette’s ear.”
“You’re serious.”
“As an AP exam.”
First semester of their senior year, Wil and Katie had both found themselves in Mr. Andrew Cook’s U.S. Government class. Mr. Cook was young and relatively new to teaching, but he already had a reputation around East High as a teacher who sliced students down with negging, passive-aggressive bullshit, and unfair grading.
Katie had been a bit scared, because she needed the A to get some part of her scholarship package approved for her school in North Carolina.
Wil had been pissed because she just hated bullies like Mr. Cook.
Katie lifted an eyebrow and gave Wil a look that was wide-eyed and almost incorruptible, except that the arching eyebrow made it a little dirty. “Did his mouth touch her ear when he whispered, or was it polite, we’re-in-a-theater whispering to anyone?”
The low and conspiratorial way Katie spoke made Wil’s middle finally relax, her chest and neck go warm, and her personal space disappear. Like it always had. “Lips to lobe, Katie. And she turned and smiled at him after.”
Katie wrinkled her nose. No one had liked Mr. Cook, but Katie least of all. “Okay. Go on.”
It only took the first day of class to establish that Mr. Cook was a bully. He’d pretended not to know about accommodationsfor Jen Diver’s IEP when everyone in senior year knew exactly what Jen needed in class and also loved Jen. Mr. Cook actually sent her out of the classroom instead of teaching her.
That had led to Wil calling him out for ADA violations and Mr. Cook implying that Wil didn’t have brains because tits and blond hair leached them from the cranial region of a woman’s body. He hadn’t said the last part, but he’d said something similar enough that the class had started to make noise, and Wil was ready to shit-kick her 4.0 to the curb.
That’s when Katie had stepped in, affecting a persona that Wil could only describe as “oldest girl in the one-room Wisconsin prairie schoolhouse attempts to affiance the country teacher.” To everyone’s shock, it worked. Katie’s bottomless, generous, approving attention mellowed Mr. Cook right out. From then on, in that class, he did whatever Katie implied would make her happy. Or make her willing to be his bride? It was a bit confusing. But Katie had saved that class for everyone. It was one of her best roles, really, and only fifteen people ever saw the performance.
Outside of Mr. Cook’s class, Katie, that last semester of their senior year, had her first light schedule since she started tap in the first grade, so they’d partnered on a project.
They hadn’t been able to see it through to the end, though.
Wil had almost forgotten all about it until she saw Mr. Cook canoodling with Brunette at the coffee shop, and it brought the memories of their senior-year deep dive into Mr. Cook’s personal life back in vivid detail.
“So I took in the vibe,” Wil said. “This was not a platonic vibe.”
Katie nodded. “You must have googled, right?”
“Absolutely I did. He’s still in the school directory, but they shut down the details now. You can’t see anything but a name andwhat subject he teaches. If you want to send an email, they won’t even give you the address. You have to fill out a form. So, naturally, I dug around, and I found a Facebook for his wife.”
“When you say you found his wife’s Facebook, you mean Official Wife?” Katie hadn’t taken her eyes off Wil. It was starting to make Wil’s heart race in a way that was pleasantly familiar, but also confusing, because what was this? Flirting?
Werethey flirting right now?
Wil wasn’t used to being confused by flirting. For the past year, she’d talked two strangers a week into kissing her on camera. Flirting was pretty familiar ground.
Katie was pretty familiar ground, too, but Wil hadn’t really thought about the way she used to talk to Katie about Mr. Cook asflirting.