Page 31 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

“You mean like someone who answers to the bat signal?” I asked. “I actually do know a guy like that.”

Pepper laughed. “I was thinking more along the lines of your mother, but that works, too. In fact, if it’s who I’m thinking of, he’ll work very nicely indeed.”

12

CHLOE

“You know, when you agreed to go out with me, this wasn’t the intimate evening I had in mind.”

I had no idea how Zach managed it, but he looked as much at home at our local bowling alley, Copper Bowl, as he did a hospital, the library, and the great outdoors. Instinct warned me that he did that everywhere—looked good and wholly at ease, his large form relaxing into the seat as he draped an armalmostover the shoulders of the woman he was with at the time—so I was careful not to dwell too much on the heat rising off his bared forearm.

“Yesss! Strike!” Theo came dashing up to us, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. “That makes two in a row for me. Don’t forget to write it down. Chloe, are you writing it down?”

“I’m the one keeping score,” Noodle said with a shy look up at Zach. He tapped his small stub of a pencil against the sheet in front of him. “Am I doing it right?”

Zach glanced briefly over it before nodding. “Perfect. You’re a natural scorekeeper. Remind me to take you with me next time I hit the horse races.”

“You go to horse races?” Noodle asked.

“Will you take me?” Theo asked before Zach had a chance to answer. “I’ve always wanted to be a jockey. Hiyah! Giddyup!”

“Nah. You’re too tall to be a jockey. They like ’em small and compact like Aloysius here.”

“I’m small and compact, too,” Trixie said from her seat on the other side of the lane. She batted her eyelashes in a way that made me lose all hope that we’d get out of this evening alive.

Since the moment Zach had pulled up to our house, surprised but not dismayed to find that he wouldn’t be taking just one Sampson out for the night, but all four of us, Trixie had decided she wasin love. Any man, she’d said, who could (a) accept the entire Sampson clan with little more than a blink, and (b) call Noodle by his given name and get away with it, was clearly a hero of the highest order. I was no fifteen-year-old schoolgirl with more brains than common sense, but I was inclined to agree.

However, I was also determined not to show it.

“There’s still time for you to run,” I told Zach, but not before shooting a warning glare at Trixie. She feigned having something stuck in the long wings of her fake eyelashes and therefore pretended not to see. “Although Ididwarn you that I wasn’t a cheap or easy date.”

Zach’s whole body rumbled with suppressed laughter. “I thought that meant you’d order the nachos with extra jalapeños.”

“They have nachos here?” Theo asked. He, too, turned his eyes toward Zach and batted them dangerously. “I’m awful hungry, Chloe. Can’t we get an order? To share?”

Trixie gave an audible scoff. “The only thing you know how to share is germs.”

“That’s not true. I let you use my special dandruff shampoo, don’t I?”

“I don’t have dandruff!” Trixie flushed bright red to the roots of her hair—which, yes, had a tendency to flake whenever the weather got too dry. “I like the way your shampoo smells, that’s all.”

“That’s the zinc pyrithione, and it doesn’t smell good. It smells like wet Gummy Bear.” Theo turned to Zach with triumph. “That’s because it’s killing all the head fungus. I have fungus on both my head and my feet. It’s all over me. Trixie, too, but she likes to pretend it’s just a rash.”

“I can’t believe this is happening to me,” Trixie moaned as she slunk lower in her seat. “Chloe, can’t you make him stop?”

I dug in my purse until I found a handful of change. Most of it was pennies and nickels, and even then they had some kind of unmentionable goo on them, but Theo could work that out later.

“Here,” I said, pouring the change into his hand. “Take your fungus to go play some arcade games. I’m sure it would enjoy going head-to-head with you for a few rounds ofMs. Pac-Man.”

“My fungus prefersRampage, but whatever,” Theo said.

“Make him take Noodle,” Trixie complained. “Then we can have an actual adult conversation.”

“I’m making him take all of you,” I said with another of those stern warnings. She forgot to blink that time, so she caught the full weight of it. I threw caution to the wind and my last ten dollar bill into her hand. “Get the nachos. Get the jalapeños. Have a contest to see who can eat the most in sixty seconds. I don’t care as long as you don’t come back for at least twenty minutes. You’re giving me a headache.”

Trixie groaned but grabbed Noodle’s crutches and helped him to his feet. “Come on, Noodle. I can tell when we’re not wanted.”

“And I was trying to be so subtle about it, too,” I said, laughing. She shot me a look that indicated she was planning to put her all her newfound debate skills to use later, but she was nothing if not a good sport. Besides, she knew as well as I did that Zach was only on loan to us for a short time. Any minute now, he was going to realize what he’d agreed to and go running back to his hills.