I did my best to push my bleak thoughts out of my head, trying to match Ashley’s signature upbeat tone as we walked to the 6 train stop on Lexington, right outside of Hunter College. It was just a block and a half away from my aunt’s place on Sixty-eighth Street between Park and Madison. As I chewed my raw strawberry Pop-Tart, she chirped about a Battle of the Bands that was being put on by Magel High School, Vincent Academy’s “sister” school over on Sixth-fifth Street. All schools were invited—but neither Brendan nor I had been to any sort of school function since the ill-fated winter formal.
I had just brushed the crumbs from my hands when we arrived at the stop and heard the uptown train coming. We ran to the turnstiles, swiping our MetroCards as quickly as possible before racing down the musty-smelling stairs onto the platform.
Ashley and I had barely squeezed onto the jam-packed train—earning a dirty look from a businessman she accidentally whacked with her overstuffed backpack—before the doors slammed an inch from my shoulder.
“So, anyway, Em. This Battle of the Bands thing. I guess you’re not going, huh?” Ashley sulked, sticking out her bottom lip as she stuffed her MetroCard into the front pocket of her denim jacket, stumbling a little as the train started. “Me, Catharine and Vanessa are all going. There’s going to be a lot of cute guys there. Guys from other schools.” You’d think that guys from other schools rode minotaurs around the city, the way Ashley regarded them. Although given the supernatural turn my life had taken, it was quite possible they did.
“I never get to escape from the Vince A biosphere and meet a guy who isn’t from that damn place.” Ashley stuck her glossy lower lip out in a pout.
“Ash, why are you forcing it?” I asked gently, bracing myself by steadying my palm against the subway doors. “Don’t be in such a rush to get a boyfriend.” My little cousin had a tendency to dive into everything headfirst. Last year, she’d had a crush on Anthony—until he showed his true nature, spreading rumors that they’d slept together. (Thankfully Brendan had jumped in to dispel that nasty lie.) Her experience with Anthony initially made Ashley a little more cautious around guys, but since her growth spurt, she’d bounced back—and up and down—relishing the male attention.
“You got a boyfriend right away,” she pointed out, scrunching up her face in mock annoyance. “You still have the same boyfriend.”
“You weren’t the only one shocked by that.” I mimicked her tone, stepping closer to her as the train stopped at Seventy-seventh Street to make way for people exiting the train. Ashley pressed closer to me, swinging around to face the doors and accidentally whacked the businessman with her bag again.
“Ash, take your bag off,” I whispered, stifling a giggle. “You’re taking out all the commuters.” She rolled her eyes and slid the bag down between her feet, holding the strap tightly.
“You know, Em, you had a boyfriend when you were a freshman at Keansburg High, too,” Ashley reminded me after the train doors slammed shut and the subway started barreling through the tunnel again. Crap. She had me there.
“Yeah but he wasn’t a boyfriend-boyfriend. Matt and I knew each other since we were kids,” I explained about my sweet, if dippy, freshman-year boyfriend. “That was less a real relationship and more friends that made out every now and then.”
“I wouldn’t mind that.” Ashley grinned, leaning against the subway doors with a dreamy look on her face. Uh-oh.
“Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”
“There’s nothing to rush into—not at Vince A, at least. Brendan’s the only good one. The guys at this school are so annoying,” she whined, coiling one of her red ringlets around her finger. “I mean, I guess there are a few cool ones, but it’s a lost cause. It’s embarrassing,” she added softly, “because they all know about the Anthony thing, and all those stupid rumors he spread about me. It would be nice to meet someone who hadn’t heard anything about me.”
I immediately felt guilty for dismissing my cousin’s interests outside Vince A as an overzealous case of the boy crazies. More than anyone, I understood what it was like to be talked about. “I completely understand,” I replied. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
“It’s fine, you’re probably right anyway.” She was quiet for a minute then gave me a sideways glance. “You know, you never told me what Brendan said when you asked if he had any hot cousins or friends for me.”
“It’s a dead end, Ash.” I chuckled as I remembered what he said. “I’m paraphrasing here, but the quote was something like, ‘All my friends are a bunch of pirates.’”
“Pirates?”
“Yeah. He said all his friends aren’t worth your time, they’re too shady.”
“Even the basketball team? And how would he know what’s worth my time?” she challenged, raising an eyebrow and adopting a haughty look. “I could be shady!”
Smiling at her indulgently, I shook my head. “Ashley, you’re perpetually sunny, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.” She folded her arms, pouting until the train came to a stop at Eighty-sixth Street. “Pirates. Why can’t you let me be the judge of that?”
I just raised an eyebrow at her—she’d refused to believe my insistence about Anthony’s true character at first—and Ashley relented.
“Fine.” She sulked, and was silent as we joined the crowd of people headed up the stairs to the sidewalk. After we arrived on the sidewalk—and made a quick stop in a deli so I could buy a sandwich to take on the class trip—Ashley turned to me with a glint in her eye.
“Since I clearly have no taste in guys, you two should come with us to the Battle of the Bands tomorrow night, and you can pick out a guy for me.” Ashley gave me a wide, toothy smile and nodded her head eagerly.
“Sorry, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to you that I’m going to be a no-show,” I said, and she frowned at me, fussing with the jeweled clip in her flame-colored curls.
“That’s a pretty clip,” I said, hoping to change the subject from my and Brendan’s avoidance of school functions. Ashley pulled it out of her tangle of curls and gently pushed it in my hands, nearly tripping over her own feet as she walked down the sidewalk.
“Here, you can wear it today,” she huffed as she pulled a black elastic off her wrist and pulled her hair into a messy bun. “My hair’s all frizzy and the clip won’t sit right.”
“Thanks!” I fastened it in the back of my head, putting my hair in a loose updo.
“You look good with your hair up. It’s kind of regal,” she observed, before her lips twisted in a smirk. “You can rip it down and wave your hair around in front of Brendan like a hot librarian or something.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “You watch too much porny late-night TV.”
Ashley ignored my dig. “So what are you guys going to do this weekend, then, since you two are, like, all overdramatic with the ‘Oh, no! No public appearances!’ thing.” Ashley turned her head away from me, throwing her hand across her face overdramatically.
It was my turn to ignore her dig. “No big plans, really. We’re just going to hang out. We’ve spent practically no time together lately. But Brendan’s mom left to meet his dad this morning and we have his house to ourselves.” Brendan had sworn he would cook for me; I had sworn to not snoop around for the cartons of takeout he probably planned on passing off as a home-cooked meal.
“His dad travels a lot, doesn’t he?” Ashley asked, stepping over a large puddle pooling by the crosswalk as we hurried against the light on Park Avenue, and got stuck waiting on the center island in the middle of the two-way road. I explained