“Hard drive’s fried,” I heard North say. My eyes were still on the locket. “I’d toss the thing, but I’m sort of attached. Think Ivan can fix it?”
“He can fix anything.” Noelle slipped the laptop into a padded ziplock bag then began typing out a claim ticket. She knew North’s contact info from memory. “You need a loaner in the meantime?” she asked, swiveling the touchscreen for North to sign. “Oh, wait, you have, like, seven other computers.”
“Nine, actually,” North said with a grin.
It took a sec for this to register. “You own nine computers? Do you collect them or something?” I asked.
“Old computers are sort of a hobby of mine,” North said as he lifted his bag back on his shoulder. “So you’ll call me when it’s ready?” he asked Noelle.
“Yep,” she said, reaching for her Gemini.
“Good luck with your Theden app,” I told her.
“Thanks,” she said distractedly, already back to her handheld. North pulled the door open for me and I stepped outside into the alley.
“And now,” he said as he joined me on the pavement, “dinner.” He pointed at the green awning next door. GIOVANNI’S was printed in peeling white letters.
I was expecting a fast-food place, but Giovanni’s was a sit-down restaurant with a handful of white-clothed tables. Giovanni himself was in the kitchen. He greeted North with a bear hug that left a tomato sauce stain on the back of North’s T-shirt and quickly went to work on our sandwiches, which, North explained, weren’t on the menu. He used to eat at Giovanni’s when he was a kid, and Giovanni noticed that North never ate his spaghetti. He’d pick the meatballs off and put them between two pieces of garlic bread, then douse the whole thing in marinara. So one day Giovanni brought out North’s creation just the way the little boy liked it and had been making it for him ever since.
“So you grew up here?” I asked as we headed out, our sandwiches in a bag under North’s arm.
“Boston,” North replied, leading the way down the narrow alley behind Main Street. “But we used to visit here a lot to see my aunt. She owns Paradiso,” he explained. “She hardly ever comes in anymore, though.”
“And your parents . . . ?”
“My dad’s still in Boston,” he said. “Trying to pretend his only son isn’t a high school dropout. My mom died when I was three.”
Suddenly it made sense. The familiarity. He had a dead mom too. With all the technology out there to prevent accidents and cure illnesses, we momless were a rare breed. I was the only kid at Roosevelt without one, and probably the only kid at Theden, too. I wanted to tell North I was like him, but the words got lodged in my throat.
“Why’d you drop out of school?” I asked instead.
He glanced back at me. “School just wasn’t my thing.”
“So now you just make coffee?”
His eyes clouded. “I’m sorry I fall short of your standards.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said quickly, flushing. “You don’t fall short of my standards. I don’t even have standards.”
“A girl like you should have standards.” He was wearing that amused smile again. “High ones.” He’d stopped in front of the back entrance to Paradiso. There was another door right beside it, made of metal instead of glass. “That is, as long as said standards do not prevent you from having dinner with an older, just-makes-coffee-for-a-living high school dropout in his empty apartment,” North said, twisting the knob on the metal door.
The words empty apartment reverberated in my head. “Exactly how old is he?” I asked as I stepped past him, trying to sound coy and not totally freaked out by the idea. Inside the door was a flight of stairs going up. North closed the door behind us and turned both bolts.
“Seventeen,” he said, starting up the stairs. My legs felt weak beneath me as I followed him up. I’d never even been in a boy’s bedroom—except Beck’s, and Beck didn’t count.
There was a second door at the landing, with a doorbell button next to the knob and two deadbolts in the frame. North unlocked the door, using a different key on each bolt and a third one for the knob. What was with all the locks?
I didn’t need Lux to tell me I didn’t belong here. I should’ve been with my classmates, if not at Thaiphoon with Hershey and the girls, then back on campus in the dining hall, eating roasted sea bass and Swiss chard and talking about string theory or Jane Austen. But should didn’t matter much right then, because doing what I was supposed to do would mean missing out on this.
“After you,” North said, pushing the door open.
10
THE FRONT DOOR OPENED into the living room, which wasn’t actually a room but just a couch, a coffee table, and an overstuffed bookshelf sandwiched between a tiny kitchen and an even tinier sleeping area.
“So you live alone?” I asked as I followed North into the kitchen. I figured he had to, since there was only one twin-size bed.
He nodded as he unwrapped our sandwiches. “This place came with Paradiso’s lease. When I started talking about moving out here for good, my aunt offered to let me live up here for free.” He took a bite of his sub. Marinara sauce dribbled down his chin. I examined my own sandwich, wishing I had a knife and fork. “Just go for it,” North said. “There’s no un-messy way to do it. But after your first taste, you won’t care.”
He was right. The ingredients by themselves were pretty unremarkable, but somehow together they became oh-my-gosh-you-have-to-try-this delicious. I wished for a second that Lux were running so I could mark this sandwich a favorite. Then again, Giovanni’s meatball sandwich, like North’s matcha latte, wasn’t on anybody’s menu, so its flavor profile couldn’t be cross-referenced against my consumption history or added to my preference hierarchy.
“Wanna watch a movie?” North asked, his voice muffled with meatball.
I quickly dabbed at the corners of my mouth. “You have a box?”
“Not a GoBox, but a laptop with a DVD player and a bunch of DVDs.” He pointed at the bottom row of the bookshelf, which was lined with plastic cases instead of books. “Pick one.”
I walked over and scanned the titles. Rudy, Rocky, Bull Durham, Hoosiers. “These are all old sports movies,” I pointed out.
“Oh, but they’re so much more than that,” replied North. “Have you seen any of them?”
I shook my head. “Which is your favorite?” North thought for a second then grinned. “Sit,” he instructed. “I’ll put it on. I don’t want you to know anything about it going in.” He went to the shelf and grabbed a case I hadn’t gotten to yet then kept his back to me so I couldn’t see the title.
I pulled my handheld from my pocket to check the time. I had six texts from Hershey, the most recent of which she’d sent three minutes ago and was written in all caps.
@HersheyClements: WHERE ARE U?!?!
I quickly checked her location. Drake and Main. She was still at the restaurant.
“Your roommate again?” North asked.
“Uh-huh. I’m telling her I’m at the library so she’ll leave me alone.”
“Don’t lie. Not over text, anyway. Just don’t answer.”
“She won’t know I’m lying,” I told him. “I’m private right now.”
“Doesn’t matter. Your location is hidden from the outside world, but your Gemini still knows your GPS coordinates. And even if Lux isn’t running, it’s logging it.”