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gave that big talk on Hamlet." She paused. "He did make it almost interesting, for a play about Denmark."
     
    "Getting back to the problem ..."
     
    "Where is Lukey, anyway?" Mindy abandoned calculus entirely, hopping on my bed to look out the open window. She pulled the curtains aside. "Looo-cious," she cooed. "Come out and play . . . Mindy wants to see you ..."
     
    "Please don't summon him," I requested, meaning it.
     
    "Just a little peek at those sexy black eyes ..." Mindy leaned way out the window. "Hey, somebody's coming. There's a truck on your road."
     
    "Who is it?" I asked, not really caring. It was probably one of Dad's yoga students, early for class. I heard the sound of tires on gravel, then an engine cutting off.
     
    My best friend spun around, dropping the curtain. "Jake. It's Jake's blue truck. He pulled in next to the horse barn."
     
    Jake?
     
    I tried to act nonchalant. "Oh, that's just our hay delivery. We buy from Jake's farm. He'll unload it and be gone in a few minutes."
     
    "Oh." Mindy processed this, then whirled back around, stuck her head out the window, and hollered, "Hey, Jake! We're coming down!"
     
    No, she did not just do that. "Mindy! I'm wearing a T-shirt with a hole in it. I don't have any makeup on!"
     
    "You look gorgeous." She overrode my protests, tugging me by the arm. "Besides, I told him we were coming."
     
    Reluctantly I let her drag me downstairs and outside. "I am so going to kill you."
     
    Mindy ignored me. "He's shirtless," she whispered, hauling me across the yard toward Jake's truck. He was standing in the back, tossing bales to the ground. "Look at those muscles!"
     
    I wrung her arm. "Mindy, shut up!"
     
    "Ow!" She wrested free, frowning at me.
     
    "What are you guys up to?" Jake smiled, pausing in his work. He pulled a red bandanna from the pocket of his worn jeans and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His bicep bowed and a complete six-pack of abs flexed, glistening slickly in the setting sun.
     
    "We're just studying calculus," I said, shifting my arm to hide the hole in my T-shirt. The hole that was positioned right over my stomach, which still bulged from my summer of diner pie.
     
    "You want to come in for a drink when you're done?" Mindy offered like it was her house.
     
    "Yeah, sure," Jake agreed with a grin. "Just let me finish unloading before the sun sets."
     
    Mindy yanked on my wrist, signaling that we should go inside to wait. "We'll change your shirt," she muttered in my ear.
     
    "See you in a few minutes," I told Jake, sneaking one final look at his pecs. Not bad.
     
    But as I turned to head for the house, I caught a glimpse of a Romanian foreign exchange student leaning against the side of the garage, arms crossed over his chest.
     
    Maybe it was a trick of the slanting, fading light, which cast harsh shadows on his angular face, but he did not look pleased.
     
     
    Chapter 9
     
    "TOMORROW YOU ARE on your own, no matter what Mom says about helping you adjust," I warned Lucius, who was trailing me through the lunch line, dismissing every offering. "You know the system by now."
     
    "Oh, yes," he said, pushing his tray along with one finger like it was toxic. "Line people up like cattle in a chute, present them with food fit for livestock, and force them to consume it hunched over, shoulder to shoulder, at troughlike tables."
     
    "Just get something," I groaned, taking a sandwich for myself. "These sloppy joes aren't bad."
     
    Lucius stayed my hand, and his fingers on my wrist were strong. And so cool. "Jessica ... is that meat? But your parents' prohibition . . ."
     
    "What Mom and Dad don't know about school won't hurt them," I warned, shaking off his hand and shoving my tray along. I rubbed my wrist, warming it. "So don't say anything."
     
    "How insubordinate and seditious of you." Lucius smiled, appreciation in his voice. "I wholly approve."
     
    "Really, I don't care about your approval." "Of course not." Lucius skipped the