Page 7 (1/2)

She took a breath, re that the car was Rhoda’s status syda was screwed, no question about it But what did Eureka do now?

Thirty minutes until the meet Still ten miles from school If she didn’t show up, Coach would think Eureka was blowing her off

"I need your insurance infor the line Dad had drilled into her ot her license

"Insurance?" The boy shook his head and shrugged

She kicked a tire on his truck It was old, probably froht it was cool if it hadn’t just crushed her car Its hood had sprung open, but the truck wasn’t even scratched

"Unbelievable" She glared at the guy "Your car’s not wrecked at all"

"Whaddya expect? It’s a Chevy," the boy said in an affected bayou accent, quoting a truly annoying cohout Eureka’s childhood It was another thing people said that h, studied her face Eureka knew she turned red when she was angry Brooks called it the Bayou Blaze

"What do I expect?" She approached the boy "I expect to be able to get in a car without having my life threatened I expect the people on the road around me to have some rudimentary sense of traffic laws I expect the dude who rear-ends ht the storm too close, she realized By now their bodies were inches apart and she had to tilt her neck back, which hurt, to look him in those blue eyes He was a half a foot taller than Eureka, and she was a tall five eight

"But I guess I expected too much Your dumb ass doesn’t even have insurance"

They were still standing really close for no reason other than Eureka had thought the boy would retreat He didn’t His breath tickled her forehead He tilted his head to the side, watching her closely, studying her harder than she studied for tests He blinked a few times, and then, very slowly, he smiled

As the s fluttered inside Eureka Against her will, she yearned to s at her like they were old friends, the way she and Brooks ht snicker if one of them hit the other’s car But Eureka and this kid were total strangers And yet, by the ties of Eureka’s lips had twitched upward, too

"What are you s at?" She h, which astonished her, then et it Don’t talk My step to kill me"

"It wasn’t your fault" The boy beamed like he’d just won the Nobel Prize for Rednecks "You didn’t ask for this"

"Nobody does," she n I hit you Your monster will understand"