The Temperature of Me and You by Brian Zepka

Author:Brian Zepka [Books, Disney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2022-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

We reach Jordan’s house. It’s lit up by white spotlights placed evenly across the grass. Jordan jumps off my pegs into his driveway. He jogs a few yards as he slows down from forward momentum. I let my bike fall onto the front lawn, then we follow the cement walkway to his front door.

“Are your aunt and uncle okay with this?”

“Yeah.” He laughs. “You don’t have friends over to your house? What do you think is going to happen?”

I swallow. I don’t know. Maybe an aggressive make-out session that would be super awkward if his aunt and uncle walked in on us.

“Nothing.” I giggle. “Did you text them so they’re not confused when some stranger walks in their home?”

“Yeah, Dyl. You’re such a worrier.”

Not a worrier—a questioner. But more importantly, he just called me Dyl for the first time. A ping hits my chest. My knees go a little weak as we approach the door.

Relationship: LEVEL UP.

He opens the door, and the house is different than I remember. Or maybe I’m just actually able to look around this time and take it all in because I’m not running from my one-time kidnapper.

The foyer smells like cleaning products, and there’s a round table a few feet in front of the doorway with a green vase full of colorful flowers. The staircase has a wrought-iron banister and curves up to the second floor. We walk around the table and past the staircase toward the kitchen.

Along the hallway, there are three portraits of three pretty girls, who I assume are his cousins. They all have dark brown hair and hold an identical white rose to their shoulders.

I’m expecting to see his aunt and uncle when we enter the kitchen, but the room is empty. It’s mostly dark except for the dim glow from two lights, one over the sink and one above the stove. The stove light shines on a glass tray full of something that looks like lasagna. There’s a spatula sticking out of it.

“Is anybody home?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Jordan says. “They’re probably upstairs.”

“Am I ever going to see your aunt’s and uncle’s faces? They’re always just lurking in the shadows.”

He laughs. “I guess they tend to do that, don’t they?”

He walks over to the dish on the stove, squishes his finger into a piece, and then sucks the red sauce from the tip of his finger.

“Mmm,” he moans. “Do you want any of this?” he asks, licking his lips.

“What is it?”

“Eggplant lasagna. It’s so good.”

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Okay, let’s go to the basement.” He nods to a door behind me. He picks up the lasagna from the stove and carries it to the basement door. “I’m going to bring this down. Do you care?”

“Not at all.”

I open the door for him, and we walk down the basement steps. The temperature drops, like, twenty degrees when we get downstairs. The basement is finished, just like at Kirsten’s house. There’s a pool table behind the couch and a dartboard in the far corner. There’s a long shelf along the back wall that holds more than one hundred tiny golden trophies.

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