He nods his head toward Trevor. Obviously I had been caught staring. “This last year has been hard on him. With his shoulder and everything. Then you show up and … I haven’t seen him smile and laugh so much in a long time.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I smile. I’m glad Trevor enjoys himself around me, because I enjoy being around him too.
Rowan lines up his next hit, and I ask, “So all these injured players you’ve been telling Trevor about, did they all get injured while playing the same school—Lincoln High?”
“Yes. That’s why it’s so suspicious. Am I the only one who finds that suspicious?” he asks the ceiling.
“No. It’s definitely odd.” That confirms it for me—some football players at my old school are purposefully thinning the competition. But who? Is it the whole team or just a few rotten players? It’s one thing to use powers to do better at something, like Laila had said, but to me it’s completely different to get ahead by hurting someone else.
A few more people show up during our game. Rowan does end up crushing me, but at least he doesn’t try to give me a conciliatory hug.
“Do you know where the bathroom is?” I ask Rowan.
“Yes.” He points. “It’s down the hall, third door on the right.”
“Thanks.”
On my way back from the bathroom, the sound of someone humming the theme song to Star Wars comes out of a slightly open door on my right. I peek in and see Trevor’s little brother, Brody, sitting on his bed looking at a book. The door creaks a little when I bump against it, and Brody stops humming and looks up.
“Hi, again,” I say. “What are you reading?”
“Star Wars comics.” He holds up the book.
“Awesome. That’s Episode One, right? Have you gotten to the part where Anakin enters the race yet?”
His eyebrows shoot up. “I just passed that.”
“Can I look and see what else you have?” I point to a bookcase in the corner.
“Sure.”
The bookcase is a disorganized array of graphic novels. Some are stacked sideways, others with their bindings toward the back. The sideways ones are one thing, but bare pages to the front make my teeth hurt. I turn several around. There are a few books I’ve had my eye on so I take them out and study the covers. “Are these any good?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t read those. You should ask Trevor. They’re his.”
I pause halfway through flipping a page. “Oh, is this Trevor’s room?”
“Yeah, I come in here to read his comics.”
I look around and realize it’s nothing like an eight-year-old’s room. There’s a large bed with dark bedding against one wall, a desk topped with stacks of paper against another, and several pairs of big shoes spilling out of a messy closet—the boy needs some serious organizational intervention. I put back the books in my hands, resisting the strong urge to organize them. On the wall above his bed is a large eye painted in shades of black and red. The pupil has the scene of a city in it. “That’s cool.”
“It’s the cover of the comic book he’s drawing.” He points to the desk, and I walk over. Next to his desk a garbage can overflows with crumpled paper. Above it, pages are pinned up on the wall. They’re obviously pictures he’s drawn of the characters from his comic book.
“He’s really good,” I say, my finger running along the edge of one of the pages. I reach down and grab a paper out of his trash. It’s a redheaded girl in a cape, jumping between two buildings. I have no idea why he threw it away. If he thinks this is garbage, Trevor must be really hard on himself. “Do you think he’d let me read his comic?” I ask Brody.
He laughs. “He doesn’t let anyone read it.”
“Not even you?”
“He lets me see the pictures.”
“Addison?” Trevor says, from the doorway behind me.
I whirl around like I’ve just been caught snooping, holding his trash … which I have. “Sorry, I …” Pocketing the paper, I swallow down my embarrassment. Trevor scans his room, probably deciding how embarrassed he should be.
I point to his bookcase and quickly say, “You told me you didn’t like books.”
He smiles. “Those don’t really count.”
“Those totally count. I have Ninja Wars and Elementals myself.” I nod my head toward his desk. “And it looks like you succeed at drawing a lot more than you think you do.”
“Sometimes I get lucky.”
“You must not understand the definition of luck.”
He meets my eyes then, and I think he’s about to say something when Rowan’s loud voice yells down the hall, “Trevor!”
“Oh, I forgot. Rowan has some sort of presentation for all of us.” He gives me a yes-I-constantly-humor-Rowan look.
I don’t want to leave this room and rejoin the party. I could spend the rest of the night parked in front of Trevor’s bookcase (or his trash, for that matter), discussing the novels on his shelf. He must sense that too, or maybe it’s my longing gaze at the books, because he says, “You can come back later. My bookcase is all yours.”
I walk toward the door. “I’ve just decided those are my favorite five words in the world.”
He laughs, and as I pass him he grabs hold of the corner of the paper that’s sticking out of my pocket, freeing it.