Page 83 of The Black Table
“So you got around, huh?” I ask. I need to find my epee. Look around us for wherever I dropped it.
“Are you asking me if I was some kind of manwhore?” Lanz laughs again, softer this time, and stands, hands uneasily on his hips. “Because trust me, I was not.”
“But you got head,” I say. “From girls.”
The blunt words surprise me as much as him. But I’ve said them now.
No taking it back.
Lanz shifts his weight. Scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah. Sure. I mean, a few times. High school.”
“Oh yeah?” I still don’t look at him. Where the hell is my goddamn weapon? “How was it?”
“Come on, Cal.” Lanz sighs softly. “Don’t?—”
“No,” I say, forcing my voice into lightness, casualness. I turnto look at him, pasting what’s meant to be a grin on my face. “Just curious.”
I wait a second. Two.
Then I ask.
“Was it better?”
I stand. Wait. And Lanz frowns, a real frown.
“Not…it…neither,” he says. Sighs. “It wasn’t better, it wasn’t worse. Just…different.”
“Different how?” I push on. Unable to let go.
Because now I’m wondering. Now I can’t stop wondering.
About Lanz and girls.
About girls.
About deep green eyes looking up at me instead of blue ones.
“I don’t know, Cal!” Lanz throws up his hands. “Justdifferent.Okay? And it doesn’t matter now anyway. You wanna find out so bad, quit the team and go find a girlfriend.” He blows out a hard breath. “I’m…taking a shower.”
He stalks off, and I stay behind, motionless except for my thumb rubbing over the rings on my first two fingers.
TWENTY-ONE
GWENNA
I half-expectKingston to say something in Latin class.
Hell, I fully expect it. The situation is too unusual, tooweirdfor himnotto say something.
And yet…he doesn’t.
Not to me or about me or even in my vicinity, despite the fact that we are once again sitting next to each other, the only two people no one else wants to be nearby, albeit for wildly different reasons. The fact that I’m in real clothes again—a deep purple crewneck sweater and a black corduroy skirt that had the tags demurely sliced in half to omit the price—doesn’t make it any more comfortable to be near him, either.
Especially with no recognition from him.
Instead, I get a solid forty-five minutes of lecture on variations in orthography across England, Ireland, and France, the lights dim so Dr. Emrys can slide transparencies onto an overhead projector, blow up quill-scratched letters and phrases onto the pull-down screen and explain in detail what they mean.
“And this one?”
