“It’s not an offer,” he said. “It’s a proposition.”

Suddenly, I had a flash of him in the car that day, drawing in his breath. Plus the staring at lunch in the green, and the weird way he’d acted at the Vista 10. Oh, God, I thought, finally getting it. Nate was right. He liked me. This was just what I needed. “You know,” I said, reaching behind him for the door, “you’re a nice kid, Gervais, but—”

“It’s about Olivia,” he said.

I stopped, mid-sentence, not sure I was hearing him right. “What?”

He coughed. Then blushed. “Olivia Davis,” he said. “You’re friends with her, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” I said slowly. “Why?”

“Because,” he said. He coughed again. “I, um, like her. Kind of.”

“You like Olivia?”

“Not like that,” he said quickly. “I just . . .”

I waited. It seemed like a long time passed.

“. . . I want to be her friend,” he finished.

This was kind of sweet, I had to admit. Also surprising. Which brought me to my next question. “Why?”

“Because,” he said as if it was simple, obvious. When it became clear this was not the case, he added, “She talks to me.”

“She talks to you,” I repeated.

He nodded. “Like, at the theater. And when she sees me in the hall at school, she always says hello. Nobody else does that. Plus, she likes the same movies I do.”

I looked down at him, standing there before me in his heavy coat and glasses. Sure, he was annoying, but it did have to be hard for him. No matter how smart you were, there was a lot you couldn’t learn from books. “Then just be friends with her,” I said. “You don’t need me for that.”

“I do, though,” he said. “I can’t just go up and talk to her. But if I was, you know, helping you with your calculus at lunch or something, then I could just hang out with you guys.”

“Gervais,” I said slowly. “I think that’s really sweet—”

“Don’t say no,” he pleaded.

“—but it’s also deceptive.”

He shook his head, adamant. “It’s not, though! I don’t like her that way. I just want to be friends.”

“Still, it would be like I’m setting her up. And friends don’t do that.”

Never in a million years would I have thought I would be offering up a primer on friendship, much less to Gervais Miller. Even less likely? That I would feel sorry for him after I did so. But as he regarded me glumly, then stepped back to the door, I did.

“All right,” he said, his voice flat. Defeated. “I understand. ”

I watched him as he turned the knob, pulling the door open. Once again, I found myself torn as to what to do, but this time, the stakes weren’t so high. Maybe I couldn’t do anything for Nate. But I could help someone.

“How about this,” I said. He turned back to me slowly. “I’ll hire you.”

“Hire me?”

“As a tutor. I pay what everyone else pays, you do what you do. If it just so happens we meet during lunch and Olivia is there, then so be it. But she is not part of the deal. Understood? ”

He nodded vigorously, his glasses bobbing slightly. “Yes.”

“All right then,” I said. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” he replied, stepping outside and starting down the stairs. Halfway there, he turned back to me. “Oh. I’m twenty dollars an hour, by the way. For the tutoring.”

Of course he was. I said, “Am I going to pass calculus?”

“It’s guaranteed,” he replied. “My method is proven.”

I nodded, and then he continued down the steps, grabbing his helmet from his scooter and pulling it on. Maybe this was a big mistake, one among many. But sometimes, we all need a little help, whether we want to admit it or not.

“Come in, come in,” Jamie said as yet another group came bustling in, their chatter rising up to the high ceiling of the foyer. “Welcome! Drinks are in the back, and there’s tons of food. Here, let me take your coat. . . .”

I leaned back against the doorjamb of the laundry room, where I’d been hiding out with Roscoe ever since Jamie and Cora’s post-Christmas, pre-New Year holiday open house began. Officially, it was my job to keep the ice bucket full and make sure the music was audible, but other than doing this on a most perfunctory level, I wasn’t exactly mingling.

Now, though, as Jamie, with his arms full of coats, glanced around him, I knew I should show myself and offer to help him stow them upstairs. Instead, I slid down into a sitting position, my back to the dryer, nudging the door shut with my foot. Roscoe, who’d been exiled here for his own mental well-being, immediately hopped up from his bed and came over to join me.

It had been two days since Christmas, and I hadn’t seen or talked to Nate. Once, this would have seemed impossible, considering our very proximity—not to mention how often we crossed paths, intentionally or otherwise. Maybe it was just that school was out, we weren’t riding together, and we were both busy with our respective jobs, where things hadn’t slowed down, even after Christmas. But even so, I had the distinct feeling he was avoiding me.

This was surprising, but even more shocking was the fact that it was bothering me so much. After all, this was what I’d wanted once—more space between us, less connection. Now that I had it, though, I felt more worried about him than ever.