Then he muttered, “I’ve got nothing. Good material takes time.”

“Exactly,” Noah and Quinn said together.

Their speech seemed to be winding down. Before anybody else could heckle them, I called, “Cupcakes!”

“Cupcaaaaaakes!” several people cheered.

As I slid out of my desk, Brody cracked a smile at me. “You made coming-out cupcakes?”

“Yeah. Wait till you see them.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, thanks.” There was only one container. I’d hidden it on the counter at the back of the room, underneath a huge folded poster of the periodic table.

I was halfway there before I realized that I’d just turned down an innocent excuse to interact with Brody. When it came to guys, I was a little slow on the uptake.

Brody was standing beside his desk now, stretching. I grabbed the container and brought it to him. “I mean yes,” I said, “I need your help. Could you open these on Ms. Patel’s desk?”

“Sure. What are you going to—Oh.”

I pulled a camera out of my pocket, the small one I carried when I didn’t have my expensive one, so I never missed a shot. “Say cheese,” I told him.

“Cupcakes!” He held them up.

It was another killer picture of him, I realized with dismay. Brody was a little too photogenic. I wanted my best work to go into the yearbook, but I couldn’t get away with slipping a photo of him onto every page.

I shot a few more candids of the class while I waited for him to deliver the cupcakes to the front of the room. Then I cornered Quinn and Noah against the whiteboard for the commemorative picture I really wanted. They put their heads close together and held up their cupcakes. I’d used rainbow papers, and each cake was topped with a plastic rainbow and a cutout photo of someone in the class. So Noah’s cake had his face on top, and Quinn’s had his. After we all three checked the camera display and laughed over that classic shot, I pocketed my camera and reached into the box for the Harper cake.

Brody held his cake, as if he was waiting for me to start eating. “This was why you went around the room yesterday, taking pictures of everybody.”

“Yeah.” That, and it had been another reason to take a picture of him. “I thought if I made cupcakes and put people’s faces on them, involving them in the celebration, they’d be less likely to say something ugly once we get to the lunchroom.”

“Smart,” he said. “Do we have to eat our own cupcake?”

“That was the idea, yeah.”

“Because some guy’s going to ask if he can eat your cupcake, Harper.”

I nearly choked on the icing. After swallowing, I said, “I figured Sawyer might say that. I’ve done some deep-breathing exercises, and I’m okay with it.”

“Sawyer isn’t the only person here with a dirty mind.” Brody licked his icing. I watched his mouth.

Sawyer walked over. I’d stopped at the bakery that morning and bought him a vegan muffin, since vegan cupcakes were not in my repertoire. He was stuffing the last of it into his mouth. “Quinn,” he called, “didn’t you date Harper last year?”

“Here it comes.” Quinn rolled his eyes. His thick black eyeliner made the whites of his eyes more pronounced.

“And, Noah,” Sawyer continued, “didn’t you date Harper last spring?”

“Fuck you, De Luca,” Noah said softly enough that Ms. Patel couldn’t hear by the window.

“What does that say about the guy Harper’s dating now? What’s his name, again, the one with the rad pierced eyebrow?” Sawyer snapped his fingers a couple of times close to Kennedy, who hadn’t moved from the desk by the door. “I can’t ever remember that guy’s name.”

“This is the joke you came up with?” Brody asked.

“I haven’t had time!” Sawyer protested. “And you! Be careful about this Perfect Couple That Never Was thing, Larson. Harper obviously has a way with guys.”

“Here’s what I’m going to do to you in PE,” Brody told Sawyer. “Should I say this now, or do you want me to surprise you?”

The bell rang.

Most of the class moved toward the door, their minds already off Quinn and Noah and on lunch. A couple of girls looked over their shoulders, smiling, and said a few encouraging words to Noah and Quinn, who were talking with Ms. Patel. Noah put his hand on Quinn’s back. I couldn’t hear what Noah said over the noise of everyone changing classes, but I read his lips as he asked, “Are you okay?” Quinn nodded and relaxed his shoulders, tension released.

Happy the announcement had gone well, I started to follow Brody back to my desk to pick up my stuff. Kennedy spoke over the noise. “Harper, I need to talk to you.”

Uh-oh. I hoped he wasn’t sensitive about what Sawyer had said. Heart racing, I sank down in the desk next to his. While we waited for Ms. Patel and the rest of the class to file into the hall, I did my breathing exercises and tried to center myself.

I managed to calm down quite a bit before Brody passed right in front of me, the last one out the door. My pulse raced again. He looked at me, brows knitted in concern, then at Kennedy, and back at me.

I gave him the smallest shake of my head, which I hoped Kennedy didn’t see. My message to Brody was that everything was okay, even though I didn’t believe it myself.

After he left, Kennedy got up, shut the door, and leaned against it with his arms folded, scowling at me. After all my efforts to appease him about my Superlatives photos and his yearbook designs, I was still headed for a weekend of the silent treatment.