Oh my God.
A hand was pressing down on my chest.
I asked, unsure if I wanted to hear the answer, “Who’s interviewing him?”
The gleam in her eye slightly dissipated at my question, and she moved back a step. “Um…the senior reporter is doing most of it, but so are we—Susan and me. I shouldn’t have said anything, though. Crap. Don’t say anything to Jake. I know Susan still talks to him. She says she’s keeping tabs on him for Tara. Promise you won’t say anything? Please, Jo.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Of course not.”
Kian was coming back. He was going to meet my friend. I couldn’t get that out of my head.
“Thanks, Jo.” Erica rolled her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said anything, but I was excited. I am excited. I mean, this guy is everywhere. Journalists all over are clamoring for an interview with him, and he’s coming to our school to do one. Susan thinks it’s a weird angle for him to get into Hillcrest.”
“To get into Hillcrest…” I couldn’t have heard that right.
We resumed going through the market as Erica nodded, gripping her bag tighter. “Well, he’s out, you know? I mean, it makes sense. He’ll want to go somewhere for college. Everyone needs a degree, and his name attracts mayhem now. It can’t be easy, being him. Anywhere he goes, reporters show up, protesters start lining the streets, and who else knows what?” She shrugged and then stopped to pay for some corn on the cob. “The interview’s going to attract a lot of attention to our school. I think that’s why he’s doing it, showing the university what his name could do so that they’ll let him in.”
“I…”
He hadn’t been back since that night, since Snark had said he was going to go see Kian’s parents. I considered that the door was closed since it had been a month with no word from him. But, now, knowing he’d be coming back, a whole slew of sensations were bombarding my system. And I didn’t want to focus on any of them.
“All the hard questions are going to be asked, that’s for sure. Like where’s Jordan Emory, for one. The girl’s been missing for three years. How can someone like that, with eyes like that girl has, stay hiding? You know?” She bought a bag of kale, then saw my one bag of strawberries. “Is that all you’re getting?”
“What?” I couldn’t hear her. There was a pounding in my eardrums.
She indicated my bag. “I thought we were stocking up for the week. That won’t hold you.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
Erica chuckled, shaking her head, and moved to the next booth. “You’re being weird. Why are you being weird?”
“No reason.”
Kian would talk to Erica and Susan, and then he would leave again. But, my God, if he actually came to school here…
I felt sick to my stomach. Glancing around the little park, at the food market, I realized that all of this would go away. I’d have to go away. The media attention would be absurd.
Or would it? Did I dare hope…
I grabbed Erica’s arm. “You have to find out if he’s really coming here or not.”
She glanced at me, startled. “What?”
“Find out if he’s coming here to stay.” I was insistent.
Maybe it would be next year. Maybe I would have a whole year for the media buzz to fade away. But, no. I was fooling myself. If he came here, somehow, I would be discovered.
“Okay, but we were planning on doing that anyway.” She cocked her head at an odd angle. “You’re not one of those stalker types, are you? Granted, we know he’s got ’em. He’s gorgeous and deadly, and he saved that girl. I know those types of girls, the stalker ones, are a big reason why we want to interview him. We want that attention, but please tell me you are not one of those girls.”
“Oh.” I flushed. “No. I’m the furthest thing from that.”
“Good.” Her shoulders relaxed again, and we headed away from the market and went back to the sidewalk. “I think you would’ve had to compete with Susan for him, if that were the case.”
Walking side by side with Erica, I glanced at her. “Susan?”
Erica gestured to her own eye. “Every time we have meetings about the interview, because there’s a lot to work out, she gets this gleam in her eye. I wouldn’t be surprised if she cornered him or something. I’m sure the guy’s used to girls throwing themselves at him. But with Susan, who knows? She could drug him just to make sure she would have her way with him.”
“She wouldn’t pull something on him at the interview, would she?”
Suddenly, Erica stopped. Her arm was thrown out, and I walked into it from the abrupt motion.
“What—” The question died in my throat.
Erica was thinking. Her eyebrows were fixed together, and her lips were pinched as she was chewing on the inside of her cheek. That was the brainstorming I-had-a-sudden-light-bulb-thought look on her face, and I sat and waited. Sometimes, her ideas were genius. Other times, they were not.
She muttered, “Oh. My. God.”
I would’ve normally said, What? But I didn’t. It wouldn’t have mattered. Erica was in her own world. If Wanker had been there with us, he and I would’ve shared a look.
I waited again.
Her fingers turned to grab ahold of my sleeve. “You’re right, Jo. You’re totally right. She’s going to make a move. In the meeting last night, she said that there should be a dinner with the college higher-ups and his team.”