"I really wasn't," Hannah says.

The six of them circle around the table and feast together. Clay and Luke end up with powdered sugar on their mouths and chins and Wally loses his coffee cup to the mercy of the group, all of whom drink from it without asking. Wally catches Hannah's eye and rolls his eyes up into his head, pretending to be annoyed, but Hannah can tell he's not bothered in the slightest.

"Y'all hear about Cooper?" Clay asks. "He sent his deposit in to Alabama."

"He's going to Alabama?" Luke says. "Are you kidding me?"

"He said LSU losing the championship pushed him over the edge. Said he'd rather root for the Tide for the next four years. a.s.shole."

"I always thought that kid was an idiot," Joanie says.

"Okay, to be fair, both his parents went there," Wally says.

"Yeah, but he grew up here," Clay says. "Anyway, the h.e.l.l with him. I'm glad I don't have to spend another four years dealing with his s.h.i.t. He always challenged just about every decision I made as captain."

"G.o.d forbid," Hannah says, smirking.

Clay crumples up his napkin and tosses it at her. "You know what I mean."

"I'm just kidding. You know I don't like Cooper anyway. Not since that time I saw him lock Marty in a storage closet the first time Marty got drunk."

"Or when he kicked that dog at our community service site," Baker says, her voice bitter.

"Tell me this, Han," Clay says. "Have you decided on LSU yet?"

"I told you, I'm waiting to hear back from the other schools I applied to."

"It won't matter," Clay says, sprawling back in his chair. "When it comes down to it, you'll want to go to LSU with Baker and me."

"Can we not have this conversation right now?"

"Don't pressure her," Baker says.

"I'm not pressuring," Clay grins. "Just predicting."

Hannah opens her mouth to retort, but just then, the lounge door opens. The six of them, taken by surprise with their fingers still covered in powdered sugar, swing their heads around to the front of the room. Michele Duquesne stands in the doorway, one hand on the metal door handle and the other hanging limply at her side. "Oh," she says, her eyes narrowing as she spots the beignets on the table. "Am I interrupting?"

Clay, his mouth hanging open in uncertainty, rakes his eyes over the group before he shifts in his chair to face Michele. "Not at all," he says. "We were just having a delayed celebration. You know, for the big win last week."

"Are you all on una.s.signed?" Michele asks.

"Yep," Clay says, pulling his lips together.

She frowns at him. "You don't have to lie to me, Clay."

"Are you on una.s.signed?" Hannah asks.

Michele stares at Hannah as if trying to decide whether Hannah is worth her words. "I am, actually," she says after a moment. "But I think it's better to spend my una.s.signed period helping in the front office, rather than leaving campus illegally." She flits her eyes away from the group and continues, in a lofty voice, "Father Simon asked me to come pick up the rosary bags. We have prayer group after school today. Maybe you all should come."

"Mm, maybe not," Hannah says.

Michele glares at her before flashing her eyes in Baker's direction. "I thought you said you had una.s.signed during fourth block."

Baker tightens her mouth and looks into the corner of the room.

"Isn't that what you said?" Michele presses. "So you could take care of student council stuff at the end of the day?"

Baker raises her eyes. "Yes. That was the plan."

Michele hikes her eyebrows as she crosses the room to fetch the rosary bag. "Probably should set a better example for the student body," she says under her breath.

Baker tenses. Clay pokes his tongue into his cheek and says, "Come on, Michele. We're just taking a five-minute break."

"I have to get back to the front office," Michele says, clearing her throat. "But y'all have yourselves a lovely time. And Clay-you're welcome to come back to prayer group whenever you're ready."

Clay pulls his lips together again and nods. Luke, who sits with his back to the door, mimes throwing up on the table.

"See you later," Michele says. "Oh-but Joanie? I'm not trying to be mean, but the lounge is exclusively for seniors. If we start letting selective juniors in, then all the other undercla.s.smen will think they're ent.i.tled to use the lounge, too, and it kind of defeats the purpose, don't you think?"

Joanie's face flushes red as crawfish. "Yep," she says, her voice p.r.i.c.kly.

"Thanks," Michele smiles. Then she shuts the door behind her and leaves.

Joanie slumps down in her chair. "That dumb b.i.t.c.h."

"Don't listen to her," Luke says.

"Everyone knows you're basically a senior anyway," Wally says.

"She's not trying to be a b.i.t.c.h," Clay says. "She's just kind of a rule girl."

Hannah trades looks with the other four. Clay crosses his arms and asks, "What?"

Hannah shakes her head. "Thank G.o.d you dumped her."

"Seriously," Baker says.

"Aw, come on," Clay laughs. "She's not that bad."

"She's pretty bad," Luke says.

"Wally," Clay says, gesturing to him, "You always liked her, didn't you?"

Wally balances on the back of his chair and tilts his head in thought. "I could never figure her out."

"She's gonna tell Ms. Carpenter that I was skipping," Baker says, raking her hair back as she adjusts her headband. "She'll probably tell her before I even get to the student council office."

"She needs to get over her jealousy," Hannah says. "I mean, how long ago was that election? Like four months, at this point?"

"Yeah," Joanie says, "but between that and Clay dumping her a.s.s, I doubt she's gonna be our best friend anytime soon."

"Come on, we should go," Wally says.

"Yeah," Luke says, sweeping crumbs into his hands, "everyone's going to think I've been taking a huge s.h.i.t or something."

"Thanks for the nice surprise, y'all," Clay says, looking between Hannah and Wally as he stands up. "You know I love family meals."

"Especially illegal family meals," Hannah says.

Baker leans down and hugs Hannah from behind while the others talk and gather their trash. "Thanks," she says quietly into Hannah's ear.

Hannah ignores the somersault in her stomach. "You're welcome," she says, keeping her voice even, and then Baker and the others are gone, and Hannah reminds herself to return Wally's smile.

The days go on. The sun rises earlier and sets later, and the afternoons grow warmer degree by degree, and the whole earth starts to trill with antic.i.p.ation of spring. The live oaks that line the streets of the Garden District lean forward to whisper to each other, and the Spanish moss that hangs from their branches droops like heavy shawls they are ready to discard.

But Hannah clings to the static of winter as long as she can. She and her friends meet in the school parking lot each morning, the group of them thumbing their booksack straps while they wait for Luke to show up just before the bell rings with his Oxford shirt unb.u.t.toned and his tie not yet fastened; they gather in the senior courtyard at lunch time and dare Clay to eat French fries with yogurt or apple slices dipped in ketchup; they untuck their uniforms and lean against their cars at the end of the day, exchanging jokes and stories before Clay has to leave for basketball practice and Wally and Luke have to leave for track and field; they text each other late at night while they study their Theology notes and solve their math problems.

They spend every weekend together, wrapped securely in the knowledge that it is still early in the semester, that they do not have to worry about college and new lives until spring is in full bloom, that for now they are simply six high school kids allowed to plan their lives around Friday night hangouts and Sat.u.r.day night parties. Hannah knows the terrain of her kingdom: she knows what it is like to steal away to Waffle House to meet her friends late at night, to lie on the floor at Clay's house and throw ice cubes at him when he tries to make them all talk about s.e.x, to spend her Friday afternoons riding in Baker's car with the country station playing and the vanilla scent of the car freshener seeping into her clothes.

On Sat.u.r.day mornings Hannah and Baker take Baker's handsome Saluki, Charlie, to the dog park on Dalrymple Drive. They sit on the circular bench that wraps around the tree in the center of the park and watch Charlie gambol around the park with the other dogs.

"He's really happy today," Hannah says.

"He is," Baker agrees, her eyes gentle. She pulls at the threads on her scarf as a thoughtful expression comes over her face. "Sometimes I wish we could shut down all the roads in Baton Rouge," she says, "so there would be no cars, no traffic, and everyone could just walk around beneath the trees, and the dogs could run and play wherever they like."

"Charlie would probably run all the way down to New Orleans," Hannah says.

"As long as he came back."

"He would. You know he would."

They go to Zeeland Street Cafe for breakfast afterwards. Baker leads the way to their favorite booth, the one in the back left corner beneath the painting of an old Cajun man. She sits like she always does, with one leg pulled up on the seat so she can lean against her knee.

"Your mom would yell at you for sitting like that," Hannah says, tapping her foot against Baker's.

"My mom's not here," Baker says, her brown eyes dancing.

They eat bacon and eggs, hash browns with Tony's seasoning, and biscuits with jelly. Baker spreads the jelly onto her biscuit in that quirky way she always does-with grape jelly on one half and strawberry on the other. Hannah catches her eye and shakes her head, and Baker grins and asks, "What?", even though she knows what, so Hannah just shakes her head again.

"I'm getting you a coffee refill," Baker says, lifting Hannah's empty paper cup.

"I'm stealing your hash browns while you're gone," Hannah says.

They talk about the boys and Joanie and their cla.s.smates, and neither one of them mentions how the semester is ticking by, though Hannah knows they must both be thinking about it. Hannah taps the salt and pepper shakers together and watches Baker sweep her long brown hair over her shoulder while she talks, and all the while Hannah feels that happy, sweet feeling in her stomach-the one she always feels when she's with Baker, the one that's been growing stronger and stronger inside her lately.

On Sat.u.r.day nights they play music in Hannah's bedroom while they dress and do their makeup for whatever party they're going to that night. Joanie breezes in and out of the room, asking them which flats she should wear and whether they can see her thong through her dress, and all the while Hannah cannot stop looking at Baker, cannot stop yearning to take her hand or touch her waist, cannot stop wanting to make her laugh or hear what she's going to say next. When they stand next to each other at the dresser mirror-when Baker is so close that Hannah can marvel at the length of her eyelashes, can breathe in the scent of her hair, can glance at her eyes and wonder what exact shade of brown they are-when they stand next to each other, all of the goodness inside Hannah swims to the surface of her skin and shines outward into the air, until she feels like a conductor for light and electricity.

"You look happy," Baker says.

"I am happy," Hannah says. "It's Sat.u.r.day night and we can do anything we want."

Baker smiles and taps her eyeliner against Hannah's arm. "Let's get dressed for the party."

They stand before Hannah's closet and try to make sense of the kaleidoscope of clothes. Summer dresses hang next to winter sweaters, green pieces next to black, brilliant scarves next to worn away sweatshirts.

"This would be a lot easier if you color coded and separated everything by season," Baker says.

"But then I'd be a dork like you," Hannah says.

Baker looks sideways at her, then pulls a scarlet dress down from the closet and drapes it over Hannah's head, and Hannah isn't aware of anything except Baker's laugh, a laugh with a life force all its own.

They go to parties, and the six of them fall into the same routine every time: Luke and Joanie team up against another couple in a game of beer pong, Wally sips his beer slowly and catches Hannah's eye every once in a while, Clay walks over and talks to every person in the room, every person in the room walks over and talks to Baker. And Hannah, standing in the kitchen with Wally, looks over to Baker and feels drawn to her by a force so powerful, so lovely, that she can almost see it shimmering in the air between them. She wants to go to Baker immediately, to walk on water across the s.p.a.ce that separates them, to wrap her in a hug and hold her forever. Instead, she stays planted where she is, clutching a cheap beer and talking to Wally and some friends from their A.P. Calculus cla.s.s.

"You look pretty tonight," Wally says when the others aren't listening.

"Thanks," Hannah says, affecting as much nonchalance as possible. "So do you."

Then he laughs in that shy way he has, and Hannah turns away from him and talks to whoever is on her other side.

Baker always finds her after a while, whenever she manages to break free from other conversations, and Hannah's heart skips when Baker touches her wrist to get her attention. "It's loud in here," Baker always says. "Do you want to go outside?"

So they step onto the back porch when no one is looking, and they shiver in the early February air, and Baker looks over and asks, "Are you having fun, Hannah-bear?" with an expression that means she wants to know the real answer.

"Yeah," Hannah says, because she's always happy just to be around Baker. "Are you?"

Baker smiles her half-smile, and then, looking down at her drink, she says, "I'm bored."

"You do realize you don't have to whisper that like it's a guilty secret, right? It's not a sin to be bored."

"I just feel like I should be more excited to be here. Aren't parties supposed to be, like, a teenager's dream?"

"What would you rather be doing right now?"

Baker turns to look at her. They blink at each other for a moment, the crisp air cutting the s.p.a.ce between them, and then Baker's lips turn upwards.

"Eating macaroni and cheese at your house," she says.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Let's do it," Hannah says, throwing the rest of her beer into the gra.s.s.

They work out the logistics, deciding which one of them should drive-"I'm way more sober than you," Baker says, "you know I only had one drink"-until Clay pokes his head out onto the porch and says, with an edge to his voice, "What are y'all doing?"

"We're star-gazing," Hannah says with a straight face. "Baker's really into Ursa major right now."

Clay stares at her like he doesn't know whether he's being made fun of or not, and Baker bites her lip to contain her smile, and finally Clay shakes his head and leaves them on the porch.