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sweet to make a million dollars off a math problem.”
    â€œ
Just leave it
.”
    No, he wasn’t always the friendliest dude. He got moody like this, and sometimes he’d just kick Smiles right out of his apartment. Ben had mentioned once that he was a borderline Asperger’s case—which as far as Smiles understood meant you were, like, actually medically diagnosed as a nerd—and he chalked up most of his strange behavior to the mental disease thing. Smiles knew that Ben didn’t mean to be harsh; he was just too wrapped up in his brainy projects. Feisty and wise: He wasn’t a cat, he was like a modern-day Yoda.
    â€œDon’t get all pissy.” Smiles carried the flier over to the desk and swiveled the notebook toward him. “Are you working on it now?”
    Ben tugged the notebook back. He sighed again, much heavier this time, staring at a blank spot on the desk while he spoke. “If I promise to gamble with you,” he said, “will you let me work?”
    Smiles threw up his hands. “Say no more. Work away. Tomorrow we ride!”
    Smiles went across to his apartment, happy as he’d been all day.

13
    AT EIGHT O’CLOCK on the nose, Melanie appeared at his door holding a huge plastic container filled with water. Something dark was coiled at the bottom. Smiles recognized it immediately.
    â€œOh my God, Mel.”
    It was the best birthday gift he had ever gotten.
    Five minutes later, the dragon eel slipped into Smiles’s 120-gallon tank, which had been sitting vacant since Virgil the barracuda bit it two weeks ago. The dragon eel had these fearsome little horns, and black and orange stripes across its body that a tattoo artist couldn’t have drawn any better. The thing was a genuine beast, more than a foot long. It squirmed and settled around some fake coral.
    â€œHe’ll be shy for a while,” Smiles said, “until he gets used to it.”
    Melanie watched, her green eyes transfixed. Smiles understood—sometimes he just stared at his fish for hours before he realized a whole afternoon had passed. But now, he couldn’t help staring at Melanie.
    She didn’t have freckles anymore, but you could still see the tomboy. In a month she would have a tan from cross-country practice. Her face was all elegant lines—sharp cheekbones, defined lips, the long curve of her eyebrows. Melanie was smokin’ and she didn’t even know it.
    â€œOh, look,” she whispered. The eel stirred along the bottom, churning the fluorescent pebbles like flakes in a snow globe.
    Smiles watched her watching the eel, and his chest caved a little. They were leaning in so close he could smell her. Clean sheets and spring mornings. Maybe it was just her shampoo. Who cared—the familiar scent lit up his brain receptors like the Fourth of July.
    They made eye contact, and all of a sudden he was just doing it: dipping his head and drawing toward her. Kissing her. Tender but intense, soft but electric.
    After a while, Melanie broke it off. “Umm, wow . . . Look . . . I don’t know—”
    â€œOh . . . no, I’m sorry . . . I just . . .”
    Melanie had made it clear that they weren’t together at the moment, and it looked like she was hitting about 9.5 on the freak-o-meter right now.
    â€œWell, guess I did all right with the present,” Melanie said perkily, trying to laugh it away.
    Then, “Don’t worry about it, it’s okay.”
    And then, after a long minute of staring at the eel together, “What was that text about anyway?”
    His text. About the letter.
    Smiles wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about it anymore. Maybe Mr. Hunt was right—the letter was toast, and it might be best to give up on it.
    â€œOh, I don’t know.” It was already inching its way out of his mind, carting itself off to the trash heap of failed ventures he’d tossed