|photo by Marcus Herzber from Pexels|

The florescent light directly above us is humming. Every few seconds it gets an alarming surge of brightness. It was pretty creepy when we first came down here because it was just us and a woman who kept glancing our way with wide, wild eyes. But now the platform is packed full of people and the train isn't coming and it's loud and there's this smell, like the worst B.O. ever. And yeah, I totally get why Mom and Aunt Emily refuse to ride the subway.

"The official tour starts when we get on the train," Conner says in a Conner-trying-too-hard-to-sound-like-Conner tone. I don't think either one of us will be able to shake the discomfort of Paige's last text by then.

"Are you hungry?" he asks.

"No." Food is the last thing on my mind.

When the train finally arrives, Conner presses his hand against my lower back. It's there in a functional capacity—a little fortification to help me navigate the onslaught of the disembarking—but that's not how my body interprets it.

There are no seats, no available pole for me to hold onto. Conner makes space for us in the crowd, grabs the metal bar that runs parallel to the ceiling, just out of my reach, and offers me his arm.

I've come up with a few possible endings to Paige's private message. The one I find the most disturbing—because I should want it to be true—is: "This would be a good opportunity to tell Thea we hooked up." Fortunately, it's also the most unlikely. Unless I'm not as good at reading people as I think I am. Which is possible.

The train picks up speed, sways, and I clutch Conner's arm with both hands. The wheels screech against the rails, the lights flicker and he pries my fingers off his bicep so he can wrap his arm around my waist, tight and protective. The warmth of his arm, the proximity of his body, and the faint scent of the spiced soap that's had occasion to taunt me over the last week...

Mother. Of. Shit.

The heat doesn't start in my cheeks but it ends up there. Because I feel like everyone around us knows. 

I hide my face against his chest—not the brightest move under the circumstances, but the prying eyes are really creeping me out. "She said I should use this opportunity to ask you to the prom," Conner says. "That was the message I didn't share."

Because it hurt him deeply, judging by his tone.

"It's not that I don't want to take you," he says. "And I'd kill to be the guy who escorts you to the Allemande. It's just...it pisses me off that Paige suggested it, you know? The whole reason I told her you were Dorothy—the reason I kissed her..."

He takes a deep breath and I take it with him.

"One minute she acts like she'll come unhinged if I hook up with you," he says, his voice lower. Calmer. "The next she tells me to ask you out. What does she want from me?"

I open my mouth, ready to quote Chase: Paige doesn't know how she feels—about Conner or anyone else. But I guess that would just be stating the obvious.

We pass another train, a flash of silver and light, and for a moment my ears are stuffed with cotton. The person behind me shifts, pushing me even closer to Conner and I close my eyes to shut out a man with seriously bushy eyebrows, who has decided to focus on my cleavage.

This is a really strange place for a confession.

"I'm sorry," Conner says. "I don't expect you to have the answer."

"Did you kiss her again?"

"No."

There's a lift in my chest, a hot air balloon ride. And I think of Dorothy floating away from Oz and my Scarecrow telling me he hopes the story won't end that way.

He takes another breath, taking my head along for the ride. "I'm sorry I kissed Chase," I say.

"It was that bad, huh?"

I tilt my head back to catch a glimpse of the smile I hear in his voice. "I mean I feel guilty about it," I clarify. "I've never kissed a guy to make someone jealous."

"Did it work?"

"Glenn isn't sending me mixed messages. He wants me to move on."

"What do you want, Thea?"

"I want to leave Paige and Glenn on this train, and spend the rest of the day just..."

"Yeah," he agrees and he kisses the top of my head.

* * *

Conner proclaims our arrival at the Whitehall Ferry Terminal as the official start of the tour. I board the ferry with a gaping jaw and he laughs when I confess that I've never been on a boat this big. Or this orange.

"I can't believe your aunt has deprived you of the Staten Island Ferry," he says, turning me to face the retractable metal gate that keeps passengers from plunging into the harbor. "It's the best view of the city."

It is a great view, a post card: skyscrapers dressed in soft afternoon light stand tall against a clear sky of pale blue. "Not to mention Liberty," he says, pointing out Ellis Island, as if I could miss the enormous statue.

"You love it here, don't you?"

"I do." He moves closer, so the front of his body just touches the back of mine.

"Do you think you could?" Conner asks. "Learn to love it here, I mean. Or at the very least, like it enough to want to stay."

"I don't know," I say, but I have my doubts. Small doses are okay but this city overwhelms me.

"Have you ever lived anywhere else?" I ask.

"I lived in Phoenix before I was born."

It takes me a second to work out that he's telling me his mother was pregnant when they moved here.

"I've never thought about living anywhere else," he says. "But I have thought about not living in Florida. My grandparents moved there five years ago."

I smile because I wasn't impressed with Florida either. Not that I've seen much beyond the borders of Disney World. I open my mouth, ready to ask another question, but all thought disintegrates when Conner shifts closer, his firm chest pressing against my back.

"But, you know what they say about guys made out of straw," he says.

The warmth of his breath on my neck has me buzzing with anticipation. "I don't, actually."

"We're flexible."

I close my eyes, conjuring the smile I hear in his words, because I don't want to move. "How does your flexibility relate to this conversation?"

"I'm open to possibilities."

His tone is suddenly so serious that I have to turn. I need to see his face.

Yep. Dead serious.

"What does that even mean?" I ask.

"It means I've been thinking about where I'm going to go college. I've been waiting for a sign. You know, a nudge from the universe?"

Conner's oceany eyes have a glint of...something. If I had to guess, I'd say he's already seen his sign. But I don't dare ask what it looks like. "So, you've been waiting for a universal nudge to tell you where you're going to college?" I ask—with far more sarcasm than he deserves.

"Sure. I don't know many people our age who have their life planned down to the millisecond," he says, smiling. "It's good, though. I'm kind of hoping some of your ambition will rub off on me."

"Are you telling me you don't have any idea what you want to do with your life?"

"I have ideas but so far nothing feels right." He shrugs. "I have time. My mom didn't decide to become a teacher until my brother was in first grade. She got pissed at his teacher, decided she could do a better job and went back to school. Mrs. Meyers was Mom's universal nudge."

"Or...she saw a need and made a decision to fill it."

"Isn't that what I said?" Conner asks.

His eyes are glinty again but this time, his corresponding smile is lopsided. He's messing with me.

"What about writing?" I ask.

Both the glint and the smile fade. Because I've broken my own rule. If it weren't for Paige, who we're not supposed to think about, I wouldn't know Conner liked to write.

"Writing a few silly stories doesn't make me a writer," he says.

"But you could be. You could get a degree in what, fiction?"

"Creative writing, but that's not going happen. I'm not in a position to be impractical about my education. That's a direct quote, by the way."

"From who?"

"My father."

Why do parents always say this kind of crap? I get it. They're old, they have a lifetime of experience, but they don't know everything.

Conner brushes a finger over my forehead—over my wrinkles of irritation, I realize. "I agree with him, Thea. I can express myself with a word processing program. That doesn't make me Stephen King."

"You don't have to be."

"No, I just have to figure out who Conner Barlow is. Who I want to be. You know, besides a cliché."

I don't know how to respond to that—and I'm pretty sure Conner doesn't want an elaboration on opinion of universal nudges—so I turn back to the postcard view of Manhattan.

* * *

We take the subway to Greenwich Village. Conner leads me through an arched opening in a brick wall that lands us in a quaint, and seemingly private, courtyard. It feels like we're trespassing to me. But before I can object, he opens someone's door—without even knocking—and pulls me inside.

Oh, it's a pub, dark and old, with a stone fireplace and wooden booths. Nearly every inch of wall space is covered in framed, black and white photographs of people who have been dead for centuries.

"It's the Leaky Cauldron," I say and Conner laughs.

"Don't let Chester hear you say that," he warns, pointing to the balding man behind the bar.

We find a place to sit and order cheeseburgers served on English muffins. All conversation stops until the food is gone.

"That's the best burger I've ever tasted," I tell Conner. I say it again to our waitress when she comes to refill our drinks. "My dad would love it here: the atmosphere, the burger. How did you find this place? There isn't even a sign on the door."

"There's one on the front of the building. I brought you in the back way. I bussed tables and washed dishes here all summer. Now, my dad only lets me work on Saturdays. He thinks I'm saving money for college."

"You're not?"

He shrugs. "Chase wants me to go to England with him this summer."

"What does Conner want?"

"That's the easy question," he says. "Conner wants to go to England. The hard question is, should Conner blow his entire savings on the trip? Chase's dad says, 'Life experience is just as valuable as a college education.' My dad says, 'We invested in a fancy private school so you would have a chance of getting into a decent university. The rest is up to you, son.'"

"So you'll apply for a scholarship?"

"Academic is out of the question, but swimming... If we make it to State again this year, we'll see."

"State what?"

"The State Championship swim meet," he says with half a smile. "Coach will make sure a few recruiters see our times. If they're worth seeing."

That was the picture I found on the Internet. Conner and Chase at the New York State Championships. "So, we equals you and Chase?" I ask.

"Yeah, but Tinsley won't be accepting a scholarship—unless it comes from Oxford."

"The Oxford in London?"

"That's the one."

The waitress comes with the bill and Conner's hands her the cash while I'm digging through my wallet. "My tour, my treat," he says, when I finally produce a twenty.

I accept his kindness, as graciously as my mother would expect me to, but I can't help thinking that he's spending his college tuition on me.

"You ready?" he asks. I nod and we leave the restaurant the way we came in.

We turn onto Bleecker Street and Conner points to a cafe. "Dessert?" he asks.

"No, thank you." I put my hand on my stomach. "I'm stuffed."

"It was impressive—the way you inhaled that burger. I'm adding that to my list."

I stop. Conner's momentum takes him a few feet ahead of me but he recovers quickly, closing the space between us—a little too close for comfort. Maybe.

"What kind of list?" I ask.

He smiles, but it's hesitant or conflicted or something not quite Conner, and says, "It's a list of things I think about when I can't sleep." Then he reaches for my hand and threads his fingers through mine. Slowly, like he's studying the process—like there's something to be learned from the way our hands fit together.

I learn that hand holding can be an unbelievably erotic experience.

Conner's revelation makes him shake his head. His eyes are wide when they return to mine. "This goes on the list of things that keep me up at night."