“She said, “Do you see how I’m wearing this apron? It means I’m working. For a living.”The unconcerned expression didn’t flag. He said, “I’ll take care of it.”She echoed, “Take care of it?”“Yeah. How much do you make in an hour? I’ll take care of it. And I’ll talk to your manager.”For a moment, Blue was actually lost for words. She had never believed people who claimed to be speechless, but she was. She opened her mouth, and at first, all that came out was air. Then something like the beginning of a laugh. Then finally, she managed to sputter, “I am not a prostitute.”The Aglionby boy appeared puzzled for a long moment, and then realization dawned. “Oh, that was not how I meant it. That is not what I said.”“That is what you said! You think you can just pay me to talk to your friend? Clearly you pay most of your female companions by the hour and don’t know how it works with the real world, but . . . but . . .” Blue remembered that she was working to a point, but now what that point was. Indignation had eliminated all higher functions and all that remained was the desire to slap him. The boy opened his mouth to protest, and her thought came back to her all in a rush. “Most girls, when they’re interested in a guy, will sit with them for free.”To his credit, the Aglionby boy didn’t speak right away. Instead, he thought for a moment and then he said, without heat, “You said you were working for living. I thought it’d be rude to not take that into account. I’m sorry you’re insulted. I see where you’re coming from, but I feel it’s a little unair that you’re not doing the same for me.”“I feel you’re being condescending,” Blue said.In the background, she caught a glimpse of Soldier Boy making a plane of his hand. It was crashing and weaving toward the table surface while Smudgy Boy gulped laughter down. The elegant boy held his palm over his face in exaggerated horror, fingers spread just enough that she could see him wince.“Dear God,” remarked Cell Phone boy. “I don’t know what else to say.”“Sorry,” she recommended.“I said that already.”Blue considered. “Then ‘bye.’”He made a little gesture at his chest that she thought was supposed to mean he was curtsying or bowing or something sarcastically gentleman-like.”

“Don't take this the wrong way," Blue replied. Her cheeks felt a little warm, but she was well into this conversation and she couldn't back down now. "Because I know you're going to think I feel bad about it, and I don't." "All right." "Because I'm not pretty. Not in the way Aglionby boys seem to lie." "I go to Aglionby," Adam said. Adam did not seem to go to Aglinoby like other boys went to Aglionby. "I think you're pretty," he said.”

“So I take it you and Gansey get along, then?” Maura’s expression was annoyingly knowing.“Mom.”“Orla told me about his muscle car,” Maura continued. Her voice was still angry and artificially bright. The fact that Blue was well aware that she’d earned it made the sting of it even worse. “You aren’t planning on kissing him, are you?”“Mom, that will never happen,” Blue assured her. “You did meet him, didn’t you?”“I wasn’t sure if driving an old, loud Camaro was the male equivalent of shredding your T-shirts and gluing cardboard trees to your bedroom walls.”“Trust me,” Blue said. “Gansey and I are nothing like each other. And they aren’t cardboard. They’re repurposed canvas.”“The environment breathes a sigh of relief.” Maura attempted another sip of her drink; wrinkling her nose, she shot a glare at Persephone. Persephone looked martyred. After a pause, Maura noted, in a slightly softer voice, “I’m not entirely happy about you’re getting in a car without air bags.”“Our car doesn’t have air bags,” Blue pointed out.Maura picked a long strand of Persephone’s hair from the rim of her glass. “Yes, but you always take your bike.”Blue stood up. She suspected that the green fuzz of the sofa was now adhered to the back of her leggings. “Can I go now? Am I in trouble?”“You are in trouble. I told you to stay away from him and you didn’t,” Maura said. “I just haven’t decided what to do about it yet. My feelings are hurt. I’ve consulted with several people who tell me that I’m within my rights to feel hurt. Do teenagers still get grounded? Did that only happen in the eighties?”“I’ll be very angry if you ground me,” Blue said, still wobbly from her mother’s unfamiliar displeasure. “I’ll probably rebel and climb out my window with a bedsheet rope.”Her mother rubbed a hand over her face. Her anger had completely burned itself out. “You’re well into it, aren’t you? That didn’t take long.”“If you don’t tell me not to see them, I don’t have to disobey you,” Blue suggested.“This is what you get, Maura, for using your DNA to make a baby,” Calla said.Maura sighed. “Blue, I know you’re not an idiot. It’s just, sometimes smart people do dumb things.”Calla growled, “Don’t be one of them.”“Persephone?” asked Maura.In her small voice, Persephone said, “I have nothing left to add.” After a moment of consideration, she added, however, “If you are going to punch someone, don’t put your thumb inside your fist. It would be a shame to break it.”“Okay,” Blue said hurriedly. “I’m out.”“You could at least say sorry,” Maura said. “Pretend like I have some power over you.”

“When she opened her eyes, she was both in her body and watching it, nowhere near the cavity of the tree. The Blue that was before her stood inches from a boy in an Aglionby sweater. There was a slight stoop to his posture, and his shoulders were spattered darkly with rain. It was his fingers that Blue felt on her face. He touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. Tears coursed down the other Blue's face. Though some strange magic, Blue could feel them on her face as well. She could feel, too, sick, rising misery she'd felt in the churchyard, the grief that felt bigger than her. The other Blue's tears seemed endless. One drop slid after another, each following an identical path down her cheeks.The boy in the Aglionby sweater leaned his forehead against Blue's. She felt the pressure of his skin against hers, and suddenly she could smell mint. It'll be okay. Gansey told the other Blue. She could tell that he was afraid. It'll be okay.Impossibly, Blue realized that this other Blue was crying because she loved Gansey. And that the reason Gansey touched her like that, his fingers so careful with her, was because he knew that her kiss could kill him. She could feel how badly the other Blue wanted to kiss him, even as she dreaded it. Though she couldn't understand why, her real, present day memories in the tree cavity were clouded with other false memories of their lips nearly touching, a life this other Blue had already lived.Okay, I'm ready- Gansey's voice caught, just a little. Blue, kiss me.”

“Of course, she could still walk away. She won't, he thought. She has to feel it, too. He said, " I've always liked the name Jane." Blue's eyes widened. "Ja--what? Oh! No, no, You can't go around naming people other things because you don't like their real name. "I like Blue just fine,"Gansey said. He didn't believe she was really offended; her face didn't look like it had at Nino's when they'd first met, and her ears were turning pink. He thought possibly, he was getting a little better at not offending her, although he couldn't seem to stop teasing her. "Some of my favorite shirts are blue. However, I also like Jane." "I'm not answering to that.”

“She watched his throat move, and then, he reached out and touched her face. "You sure are pretty," he said. "It's the stone," she replied immediately. Her skin felt warm; his fingertip touched just the very edge of her mouth. "It's flattering." Adam gently pulled the stone out of her hand and a set it on the floorboards between them. Through his ingers he threaded one of the flyaway hairs by her cheek. "My mother used to say, 'Don't throw compliments away, so long as they're free." HIs face was very earnest. "That one wasn't mean tho cost you anything, Blue." Blue plucked at the hem on her dress, but she didn't look away from him. "I don't know what to say when you say things like that." "You can tell me if you want me to keep saying them." She was torn by the desire to encourage him and the fear of where it would lead. "I like when you say things like that." Adam asked, "But what?" "I didn't say but." "You meant to. I heard it.”

“I realized something tonight when you were in the arena doing your thing.”She took another deep breath of the roses’ scent. “What was it?”“I love you, Elle.”Her eyes flared wide to search his and her heart stopped.“Do you love me?”“Yes, I love you, Chase.”Simple, sure, an indisputable fact she couldn’t’ve held on her tongue if she’d wanted to. But was she ready to love somebody who loved her back?Was she?“You had me since Spin Master,” he said, with that grin she loved. “But I didn’t know it ‘til tonight.”“Oh, well, then, I get it,” she said, smiling back. “You only loved me ‘cause I saved your life.”“I want you to save it again.”He stood up to pull something out of the front pocket of his starched jeans. He reached for her hand.“I’m asking you to marry me, Elle. Will you?”Tears blurred her vision. They caught in her throat. Oh, God, how could she ever be a wife again? But how could she ever leave Chase?She tried to buy herself a little time to think. “You said you don’t trust women.”“Only you. I trust you. I trusted you with my life the first time I ever saw you.”That made her grin. And then she felt very solemn. He was looking right into her soul, holding her hand in his big calloused one. She clung to it.“You’re in a league of your own, Elle. Not just was a bull-fighter, but in every way.”She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know what to think. She knew she loved him, but this was scary.“You’re not the marrying kind, Chase. You’ve told me that a dozen times.”“I changed my mind.”“I’ve been married, Chase. It didn’t last. I left him.”He lifted one big shoulder.“What will last is that I love you,” he said. “That’ll never change. I’ll follow you all over the country if I have to, just to get a glimpse of you. Just to hear you laugh. You can work as many rodeos as you want. You can do anything you want and even if I’m not there, wherever I am, I’ll be loving you. Until I die.”“You’re looking at me as if it’s a done deal,” she said, smiling.His grin broadened. “It is. I can convince you. I know I’m good.”She laughed.“You might as well save us some time. You know I got no quit in me.”“Yes, I do know that.”“So what do you say?”“The main problem is that you’re not the man who’ll do everything I say. I told you that’s what I have to have before I’ll marry again.”“How d’you know I’m not him? I’ve been pretty pliable here lately, wouldn’t you say?”“You are so full of it, Chase Lomax.”“You’re the one who told me I have to get a life after rodeo. Well, that’s exactly what I’m tryin’ to do, right here.”