Tightrope

Am I An Accessory to Something?

Hartley hadn't spoken to me since the roof. The moment he'd clambered down—during which he hadn't even looked at me—he'd sought out Callie, falling into step beside her as if we hadn't just spent the past hour acting like, well, friends. Good friends. We'd laughed and joked and teased, and it had felt comfortable in a way that the newfound friendship hadn't yet. It seemed that it hadn't been as revolutionary and world-altering for Hartley as it had been for me.

The pair of them had suggested a walk along the beach after our game of hide and seek, and led the escapade together, his dark head bent next to her golden one conspiratorially. With the winter sun beating down on the tops of their heads, warm despite the season, and the crashing waves as a backdrop, they looked every bit like a golden couple from a magazine. It made me want to throw a shoe at them.

Knight was strolling next to me, with Chance, Kaelin and Alex a small way behind, and Daria bringing up the rear with Cady and Jonah, seemingly encouraging some pep into the pair of them with her bouncing steps and cheery smile.

Knight looked back at Daria with disgust. "Daria actually found me first," he said mournfully.

"No, really? She wasn't fooled by the lying directly behind her trick? Bummer." Then I hit him in the side. "Now shut up."

"Why are we shutting up?" he whispered.

"Because," I hissed. "I'm eavesdropping."

Knight's voice was still lowered. "Is this because you're into Hartley and you're jealous of Callie?"

"No. Now shut it so I can listen to their conversation."

Knight smirked, but remained silent.

"I kept telling Daria to just call you and then we could follow your ringtone, but she kept saying it was cheating!" Callie was saying. "I said that it's not cheating after an hour, but she was steadfast."

Steadfast. A smart word. Okay, so Callie was good at English. Jace was officially already horny. It just worked like that with nerds.

"Here's the thing to know about Daria, right. She is fiercely moral. You couldn't get her to do anything remotely sketchy. Okay, we were out once, right? At the movies or something. We'd just finished watching our film, and I wanted to see the end of the next one playing in the other cinema. She ran out and bought us two tickets to the other movie so that we could watch the last five minutes legally."

"You're kidding," said Callie. "I love her."

More points for Callie. She loved Daria. Well, that was hardly special. I loved Daria, too.

"Oh, same," said Jace. "We've been best friends since, like, forever."

Callie leaned into his side. "Just friends?"

Jace looked down at her, and he was smiling. "Yeah, just friends. Never had anything else between us."

Callie looked coquettishly through her lashes. "Well, that's good," she said. "Because I was thinking of asking you out sometime. If that's okay with you."

Jace looked up then, his eyes falling on me, but I hid my face beneath my cap, turning immediately to Knight, who was distinctly amused. When I chanced a glance upward, Jace's eyes were on Callie again. "That's okay with me."

Callie's answering grin was radiant. "How does tomorrow night sound?"

"It sounds perfect."

I made a small sound in the base of my throat, and Knight poked me in the ribs. "Jealous?"

"No," I insisted. "I just think Callie could do much better. Like, Tommy DeRiva. Right? We should set her up with Tommy. Great kisser, stand-up guy."