“We’re all, well . . . curious about the chick he’s been hanging with instead of us.”

“Could you stop referring to me as a chick?” I inched away from him, ready to spring up for a different seat.

He tugged my coat sleeve, urging me back.

“C’mon, stay. Here, I’ll take this,” he said, taking the remaining jingle-bell necklace from me. His fingertips grazed my palm, a move I felt down to my toes.

“Really, just trying to get to know you.”

“Whatever,” I said, digging my hands into my pockets.

“Now who’s dissing who?”

“I’m not dissing you, Luke.”

“Whateverrrrr.”

I wondered if he was being sincere or not. If he was Grayson’s friend, he must have been okay on some level, right? And if I put up with him, maybe he’d prove to be a wealth of information. There were some definite blanks about Grayson that he could fill in.

“So you, Andy, and Gray all went to Saint Gabe’s together?”

“Yep. We used to be tight. Kind of partners in crime,” he said, shifting in the seat. “Has he ever mentioned Brinker Hadley or Mike Pearson?”

The names sounded vaguely familiar.

“Brinker Hadley? A Separate Peace, right?”

His eyes changed, softened the tiniest bit. “You’ve read that?”

There was an edge of disbelief in his voice, which bugged me.

“Yes, last year. It’s one of my favorite books.”

He ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?” Ava stood above us in the aisle.

“There she is,” Luke said.

“So now you’re wearing a bell?” she asked, gesturing toward his chest.

Luke picked it up and shook it. “Wren asked me nicely.”

I took Ava’s arrival as my cue to get another seat. She mouthed, Thanks, as I walked up the aisle. There was something about the gesture that reminded me of St. Vincent de Paul Ava. Maybe it wouldn’t be impossible to be friends again. I thumped down into the first available seat, next to a girl who pressed against the window when she saw me. Freshman. The morning was going to crawl by. A text to Grayson was in order.

No sooner had I typed in the message than Mrs. Fiore ripped my iPhone from my hands. I gasped, reaching for it as she shoved it into her shoulder bag.

“I was only going to use it on the bus.”

“You won’t miss it for two hours. These seniors look forward to this visit all season. We need to give them our full attention,” she continued, now loud enough for all to hear. “Does anyone want to join Ms. Caswell in relinquishing their phone?”

“Oh, snap,” someone sounding suspiciously like Luke said from the back. I slunk down in my seat. Ten minutes later we arrived at St. Lucy’s.

The rec room was decked out and ready for our arrival. Multicolored Christmas lights hung around the perimeter, and the focal point was a six-foot artificial tree that had so much tinsel on it, it almost looked like it was made of silver. The room was dry and hot, with a faint medicinal odor. We dumped our coats in a walk-in closet off the kitchen and went out to mingle, offering coffee and tea to the residents while Michael Bublé crooned on a Christmas CD in the background.

I chatted up residents with holiday small talk—the recent snow, favorite Christmas songs, whether or not their grandchildren were going to visit, which at times melted my heart. So many of them seemed forgotten. I noticed one woman in a wheelchair, sort of off by herself at the end of the long table where Ava was teaching some of the residents how to make pom-pom wreaths, and walked over to see if I could get her anything.

“Tea,” she said softly. Her hair was the color of straw, all drawn up in a messy bun, and her face was plump, cheeks drooping into soft jowls that shook when she spoke.

I returned with a Styrofoam cup of tea, steam swirling above it as I set it down on the table in front of her. “Here you go,” I said, smiling.

She glared at me and swiped the cup sideways off the table. I hopped out of the way just in time, barely missing the scalding fountain of tea that would have sprayed across my jeans.

“Don’t want no tea,” she sputtered, frightening the residents closest to her. “Who the hell are you?”

Sweat trickled down the back of my neck as the woman stared at me with curious gray eyes that appeared slightly unfocused, like it wasn’t really me she was seeing. I touched my necklace, holding the love charm between my thumb and forefinger, a habit that had become instinctive in the last few days. A hand on my shoulder brought me back to the present.

“Everything all right?” Luke asked.

I moved the charms across the chain a few times before letting them drop. His eyes danced across my chest, taking in the necklace, then back to my face.

“Yeah, thanks,” I said. Mrs. Fiore and a heavyset female attendant dealt with the situation. I cleaned up the mess. The attendant spoke to the woman in the wheelchair in a less comforting tone than I would have imagined to be appropriate.

“Rosie, that wasn’t very nice. This young lady is here to help us,” she said, motioning at me.

Rosie cried, bringing both hands up to hide her face. I felt terrible. Mrs. Fiore patted Rosie’s back, then came over to me. The attendant whisked her out of the room.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s okay, it happens sometimes,” Mrs. Fiore said. “Why don’t you join the party?”

I hung around Ava’s craft table, but it only further depressed me. At one time these adorable old people, as Ava called them, were our age, with their futures ahead of them. I thought of my own grandpa, how he’d fought in the Korean War, all those old black-and-white photos of him and Grandma, how dramatic everything looked, how dressed up they got for something as simple as a picnic at the lake. I couldn’t imagine them here, making pom-pom Christmas wreaths and never getting any visitors. Wasn’t there something more we could do?

One of the St. Gabe’s guys played “Jingle Bell Rock” on the piano, which got the residents clapping along. Across the room Luke chatted with a red-haired woman in a reindeer sweater. He tossed back his head and grinned, enthralling the woman. If I couldn’t see she was in her nineties, I might have imagined he was hitting on her. For that matter, he still might have been. He took the bell from around his neck and placed it around hers. She beamed up at him from her seat. Maybe he did have some hidden depths. He certainly dealt with people better than I did.

“It’s cake time,” Ava announced, striding up to me while wielding her clipboard and crossing off something else on her to-do list.

“I’ll cut,” I answered, jumping at the chance to feel useful.

The kitchen was cooler than the rec room, and quiet. My Camelot skills came in handy, and I attacked the cake like a surgeon, cutting thin slices while another girl scooped vanilla ice cream onto them. The volunteers lined up to carry out cake to the residents. There was a small slab of cake left that I pushed to the side, waiting for Mrs. Fiore’s orders on whether to save it or trash it. I picked up the metal server and ran it under warm water, working the icing off with my fingers.

Luke sidled up to me and placed the extra cake he was holding on the counter.

“Hiding out?” he asked, facing me.

“That obvious? I sort of suck at volunteer work, don’t I?”

“Nah, I think it takes substantial talent to make an old lady toss her tea across the table. Frankly I was impressed.”

“Funny,” I said, genuinely cracking a smile. “And you looked like you were about to get lucky with that redhead.”

His eyes lit up as he smiled, completely transforming his face. He was unnervingly scorching when he wasn’t pouty and brooding. “You should have heard what she said to me.”

“Giving her that bell was sweet. You made her day,” I said, scraping some stubborn icing off the other side of the cake server and shaking off the flustered feeling that sprung up when he looked at me that way.

“It has to suck, you know? I mean, if I’m ever stuck in a place where the highlight of my day is a sing-along and some red-velvet cake, well, fuck, just put a pillow over my head and put me out of my misery.”

I laughed, a loud pop of a laugh that surprised me. “You’re awful.”

“Although this cake,” he said, pinching off a piece from the leftover cake and popping it into his mouth, “is pretty damn good.”

“Looks yummy,” I said.

“Here,” he said, grabbing another bit and holding it against my mouth. “Try it.”

The icing touched my upper lip. My hands were still under running water, and I had no choice but to open my mouth or the piece would have tumbled down the front of my sweater. Luke’s thumb grazed my bottom lip. The air in the room became dense, hot, as his eyes held mine.

“Good, huh?”

I broke his gaze, mumbled mm-hmm as the cake melted in my mouth. My fingers were pruney from the water. I turned off the faucet and shook my hands dry. Luke handed me a paper towel.

“That’s an unusual necklace,” he said.

“Um, thanks,” I replied, focusing on drying the cake server and putting it away.

“Do you mind?” he asked, reaching toward my neck. Before I could say anything, Luke had the charms in his hand, gently tugging me toward him. I had no choice but to follow, afraid the necklace would break otherwise. His face was calm with concentration as he studied it.

“Love,” he said, directly to me. “Grayson gave this to you?”

“Perceptive,” I replied, to which he arched an eyebrow. “Now could you let go?”

He held on to it a second longer, then let the charms fall to my collarbone. I went back to cleaning up, hoping he’d take the snub as a sign to leave.

“I was with him when he got that.”

“Right,” I said. The likelihood of Grayson and Luke going jewelry shopping together was absurd.

“Seeing Grayson later?”

“Yes. He’s picking me up from school.”

“Could you tell him I need to speak to Mike Pearson?”

“If you’re his best friend, why don’t you just call him?” I asked, walking past him and throwing the cake plate into the garbage can. When I turned around, I was nose to nose with the Polo insignia on Luke’s red sweater.

“Because it would mean more coming from you.”

My curiosity was piqued, and against my better judgment, which would have been to just freakin’ walk away, I asked, “Does this have anything to do with the favor he did for you?”

Luke’s face contorted in confusion; he tilted his head to the side. “Favor. For me?”

Even though I’d tried to give Grayson the benefit of the doubt, I still had the feeling he was holding something back. As much as I hated bringing it up with Luke, I forged ahead, hoping to get some more information.

“You know, the girl at the mall?”

He looked past me, blinking a few times before his full lips curled in understanding.

“Allegra? The hot chick about yay high,” he said, putting his hand up to his chest to show her height, then cupping both his hands to mime boobs. “Rack like that? So you know about her?”

My legs felt like liquid as all my worst fears danced in my head. I stared down at my feet and bit the inside of my cheek.

“Come on, you believe Grayson was doing me a favor? You’re smarter than that.”

“Leave me alone.” I shoved past him.

“Wren, chill. I’m not surprised Grayson wouldn’t talk to you about hooking up with that girl. Hell, I’m jealous for you.”

“Don’t be,” I snapped, frantically looking for something to do, but the kitchen was clean. The last thing I wanted to do was go back and pretend to be in a holiday mood, but that was better than staying with Luke. He stepped closer, putting his hands on either side of the counter, cornering me before I had the chance to move away.

“Hey,” he said, softer, his head hung low, his mouth by my ear. “I wasn’t trying to upset you.”

“Sure you were,” I said, shifting to glare at him.

“This is between me and Grayson. You just happen to be in the way.”

“Let me fix that.”

“Wren, wait,” he whispered, blocking my exit.

His face was so close, I could make out the different shades of brown and green in his eyes. He broke our gaze, glancing down at my mouth. The tip of his nose brushed against my cheek as his lips touched mine. The kiss was soft, and it caught me off guard. Instinctively I closed my eyes as my mouth melted against the warmth of his, but then I pushed him away, trembling with anger. Our lips parted with a soft smacking noise. The swinging doors opened with a groan, causing us both to jump.