• She was walking through the school hallway, passing our group in the corner that everyone had learnt to try to avoid. Someone—I’m not sure who—was talking about the race that I was holding on the weekend. I didn’t really care what he was saying, my eyes and mind was too busy focusing on the woman grabbing a book from the top shelf of her locker.

Guest looked like a proper nerd today. The colder weather seemed to give her an excuse to start wearing sweaters, and her radiant joy about the cold seeping back into her bones was contagious, and no matter how hard I tried to hide it.

“Sylas, buddy,” my name snaps me from my hazed state, and I see Logan grinning lopsided at me, “You’re drooling,” he points to my chin, “right there, you know?”

I don’t frown, or grimace, or even commit any act of violence that I would usually commit, but instead, I just nod, swatting his hand away from my face, “Shush.”

Just about everyone knew about my growing infatuation with Guest, all except Guest herself. Sometimes I wondered how oblivious one woman could be, especially with her unhealthy obsession with those cheesy romance books.

“Speaking of Guest,” Logan says, “Have you heard about that internet debate recently?” I raise an eyebrow, I hadn’t a clue what internet debate he was talking about, because the world had tonnes of different ones a week, but Logan has already started talking again. “It’s about your favourite topic, Sylas, but everyone recently has been talking about if the ‘book girls’—” He used air quotes, “Belong to us bikers. I want to know why.”

I speak before I can even think, “Why wouldn’t we be? I mean—” I pause, collecting the rest of the thoughts that have seemed to drip away from my mind, then clear my throat, “They’re pretty, I guess.”*