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I’m glad I have someone I can count on when my life is in danger.”
    “Always,” I say. “Just let me know when you are in danger. But I should warn you, you may need to leave a message since being an incredibly sexy superhero is a very tedious and time-consuming gig, with the hot girls chasing after me and all, so you never know when I’ll be free.” I take a sip of my water, suppressing a smile, listening as the music overhead changes from a symphony of some sort to an opera song. “What are you ordering?” I ask after a while.
    “Breadsticks,” she says immediately.
    I raise my eyebrow. “ Just breadsticks?”
    “Of course. You aren’t the only badass here, West Ryder. And breadsticks are the greatest invention known to man.”
    “Even more than chocolate Oreo cake?” I whistle to myself. This is new territory. Cat loves chocolate Oreo cake.
    “Hmm. Maybe. Either way, you’re now officially on-the-hook to get me both for my birthday next month.”
    “I would expect no less.”
    “Good.”
    “Good?”
    “ Good ,” she reaffirms, nodding.
    The waitress returns about a minute later, takes our orders, grabs the menus, and walks over to the next booth. When she’s gone, I turn back to Cat. “I feel like we need to use your breadsticks to look Italian again. Did you bring the hats?”
    She reaches into her bag and holds up two white chef hats. “Of course. You doubt me?”
    I feign a gasp. “ Never !”
    She smiles. “ I’m glad. Now all we need is a fake Italian mustache and accent and we’ll be golden.”
    “YES! And then we can stand at the door saying, ‘ze pasta es deliciosa’ with our fingers cupped together when customers come in .”
    Cat takes a sip with her water and wipes her lips with her hands. “West,” she says, “you’re still terrible at this whole ‘don’t enforce stereotypes!’ thing.”
    I raise my eyebrow. “I’m Italian myself, so I have an excuse. Obviously.”
    “ Obviously .”
    Our food comes a few minutes later, and we eat in silence for a long while. I listen to the conversation of the people behind us—a long rant about something political that I don’t really follow—and eat way too much of my spaghetti and meatballs. In my defense, the food tastes like it was brought directly down to me from the heavens.
    After a while, I sense Cat’s gaze on me. I look up at her, but she jerks away as soon as our gaze locks like she’s been slapped.
    “What?” I say.
    Her mouth is full of breadstick as she responds, “Nothing.”
    “ It’s not nothing,” I say, leaning over to her and putting my hand to her forehead to check her temperature. “Why do you look so weird?”
    Color creeps across her cheeks, and she pushes my hand away. I stare at her, frowning some more. This is weird. Really weird.
    “Nothing,” she says too sharply. “ No - thing .”
    “Okay,” I say. I don’t believe her, but I don’t press it, either.
    We don’t talk much after that, just finish eating, get the check, and converse briefly about my nightly vigils as a superhero and all of the hot girls I attract.
    After a while, Cat asks me what I’m doing tomorr ow—she says she wants me to come over and study—and I’m almost tempted to tell her all about Harper and how I finally get to meet her, but instead I just shrug and say, “I’m busy.”
    I swear she doesn’t believe me.

 
    Chapter 5
     
    School the next day goes by painfully slowly. First Calculus, then Physics, then History—it’s like they’re trying to kill me. I can’t concentrate at all during class, either. All I can think about is Harper Harper Harper and how OMG I’M MEETING HER AFTER SCHOOL and AAHHHH YESSS I NEED THIS and that’s pretty much it. It’s not like this is abnormal, though, because the classes here don’t interest me much anyway—well, except for English. I’m the complete, shameless English nerd. My mom used to make fun of me for constantly correcting her grammar and even pulling