If you’re sticking with standard cussing, you’re not thinking hard enough.”

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it,” I said.

“All right.” She patted my shoulder, heading out of the kitchen.

“Seeing how we don’t have much time left, I’ll wake up the rest of the crew.”

• • •

Two hours later my housemates and I were fully caffeinated and wrestling my stuff into boxes.

“I’ll give you my first child,” Mike said, hefting my stack of Walking Dead.

“No deal.” I roll another sweater into a ball and sank it into a suitcase. “Put them in the trunk and back away slowly.”

“Pimplepus!” Ally jumped out of the way before a stack of books crashed to the floor where she’d been standing.

Sam, my other housemate, who’d been not so much packing as offering instructions to everyone else while he sat on the bed picking out tunes on his acoustic, glanced in her direction.

“Top heavy,” Sam said.

“Excuse me?” Ally glared at him.

Sam grinned at her. “The bookshelves, babe.”

Mike wrapped his arms around Ally. “Hey, don’t insult my lady friend. I might be forced to defend her honor.”

Sam pretended to cower.

“I think I’m better off without that brand of defense.” Ally shoved him off.

Mike laughed and began gathering up books. “Dude, these are seriously warped. Why don’t you get some nice books?”

for a moment I wished I could stop time and stay in this place with these people. I’d spent a week arguing with Bosque over my moving into this house for the summer. He’d been unconvinced that living with real people as opposed to a mostly empty school dorm would be in my best interest. I couldn’t help feeling like I was being yanked away from my friends as payback for winning that last battle.

Mike had made a tower of yellowing paperbacks. “If I put all these outside our house on the curb, I don’t think I could get five bucks for them.”

“Leave him alone,” Ally said, offering me an apologetic smile.

“Look at this one.” Mike held up a tattered copy of Arthur C.

Clarke’s Imperial Earth.

“face it, Mike,” I said. “You have no taste. I’m ready to defend the value of flea market books and the utter genius that is cover art from the seventies.”

“Yeah?” Mike said, handing the book to Ally and picking up another one. The cover had fallen off, leaving the title page naked, so I could see it was Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. “Nice cover art here.”

I shrugged. “Read it too many times. And dropped it in a lake once.”

“Maybe if you read books too many times, I wouldn’t have to help you cheat your way through all your lit classes,” Ally said, sticking her tongue out at Mike.

“Don’t I remember you being my girlfriend?” Mike pulled her in for a kiss. “Aren’t you supposed to be nice to me?”

“Not in my contract,” Ally said, but she kissed him back, smiling.

Still wearing the half-dazed grin he couldn’t fight off whenever Ally kissed him, Mike tried to frown at the shelves of Penguin Classics still waiting to be put in boxes.

“Seriously, man. Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Seneca. You haven’t read all this philosophy. You aren’t that boring.”

“Yes, I have,” I said. “And philosophy isn’t boring. If you ever cracked one of those books open, you’d know that.”

“I prefer learning via proxy,” he said, putting his arm around Ally.

She sighed. “I’ve created a monster.”

“An ignorant monster.” I jumped out of the way when Mike tried to sucker punch me.

The screen door banged open and closed, and a moment later Kate stood in my bedroom door, breathless.

“I’m here! Tell me it’s not true!”

She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt layered beneath the hoodie I’d loaned her at the bonfire we’d had last weekend. I knew the smile I shot her way was muted by regret. I’d been toying with the idea of asking Kate out. She was cute, smart, and funny. Now the best I could do was an “I’ll miss you” hook-up, which would only leave me feeling like an ass.

My uncle really is a nutclubber.

“We’re packing boxes for the fun of it,” Sam said, striking a minor chord.

“You haven’t helped pack a thing,” Ally said. “But yeah, he’s leaving us.”

“Why?” Kate kind of threw herself at me. I was kinda expecting a hug, so I caught her. She smelled like strawberries, and I started to rethink the merits of that good-bye hook-up. Then I remembered that I don’t want to be That Guy . . . most of the time.

“The usual,” I said, enjoying the way she tucked her head under-neath my chin. “My uncle’s work is moving, so am I.”

“If you’re in boarding schools anyway, why do you have to go anywhere?” Mike asked.

My teeth clenched and I let Kate go. “I don’t know, but I’ve learned that arguing about it doesn’t do any good. I just have to move when he tells me to.”

“Sucks,” Sam said.

“Write me a song about it,” I said, not wanting to mope.

Sam grinned. “Maybe I will.”

“But no more Elliott Smith stuff,” Mike said. “Just ’cause he died doesn’t mean we’re all waiting for his replacement.”

“I’m not trying to be Elliott Smith.” Sam glared at him.

“Uh-huh,” Mike said. “Your ‘Saturday Market’ sounded just like

‘Rose Parade.’”

8

“No, it didn’t.” Sam threw a pleading gaze at Ally.

“Sorry,” she said.

“Damn it.” Sam shoved his guitar aside.

“Language,” she said.

Sam picked up his guitar again and repeated the angry move-ment. “Mangleguts!” he said, managing to keep a straight face.

Ally smiled and nodded. “Good boy.”

“I’m going to miss this,” I said, and then wished I hadn’t. Everybody got quiet. Kate sighed.

Ever the mother hen, Ally strode up to me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “Miss, schmiss. You’re not getting away from us.”