Free Fury by Elizabeth Miles

giggled. “Go ahead, take it. It’s hot chocolate.” She winked at him. “Promise I didn’t even spike it.”
    “Um, hi. I mean, thanks,” Chase managed finally. Their fingers touched as he took the cup, and a small electric shock went through him.
    “Can I come in?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. She breezed past him, into the tiny living room. Chase cringed, seeing it all through her eyes: the lumpy presents underneath the fake tree, the peeling linoleum floor, the tacky “family portrait” of him and his mom hanging over the secondhand couch.
    But Ty didn’t seem to mind. She wasn’t looking around, judging it—she was watching him, waiting for him to say something. She seemed to be radiating light, light that made the cramped space seem bigger, cleaner, and less embarrassing.
    “I, uh, wasn’t expecting anyone,” Chase said, motioning to his sweats and bare chest. He’d been sweating all morning, and now this. . . . Well, at least Ty got to see his pecs. Although, unlike other girls, she didn’t seem to notice or care.
    “Oh, that’s fine,” Ty said. “I know it’s weird for me to come by on Christmas, but . . . I don’t really celebrate it. Doesn’t look like you’re celebrating too much either.” It might have sounded like an insult from someone else; but in that moment, Chase just felt Ty understood him.
    “Anyway,” she breezed on, “I’ve been tracking you down ever since you helped me and my cousins with our car. I wanted to properly thank you.”
    Chase must have been staring at her like a gaping idiot because she added, “I want to take you out.”
    He couldn’t believe it. Ty was doing all the work for him. It was the best Christmas present he could have asked for. All he had to say was
yes
. And he did—practically falling over himself in the process. “Um, sure. I think I’m probably free,” he stuttered, looking around the trailer. “I mean, yeah, I’m totally free. So, yeah.”
    Any game that he’d ever had was gone. In a strange way, he kind of liked it.
    Chase darted into his bedroom and changed as quickly as he could, flustered as he struggled with his inside-out jeans, smacking a fist against the wall when he realized he had no freshly steamed shirts. He tried to brainstorm conversational topics that would interest Ty; his gaze fell on
Macbeth
, and he wished he’d read more of it.
    As they left the trailer, Chase looked around for Ty’s car.
    “I walked here, actually,” she said as if it was no big deal. No big deal that she’d trekked through the freezing air and six-inch snow to the trailer park on the outskirts of Ascension.
    She looked at him sideways. “I hope you don’t think I’m stalking you or something.”
    Chase had to stop himself from saying he wouldn’t mind it. “How did you find my house?” he asked.
    “I have my ways,” she replied coyly, winking at him. His stomach was filled with warmth. “I know my way around here.”
    “Oh, really? How?”
    “My family used to live here . . .” She trailed off vaguely.
    “In Ascension? That’s cool. What brings you back to the area?”
    “I’m taking a year off before I start college,” she said, turning to him and offering a wide smile. Her lips were so perfect. “I wanted to come back and see how the place had changed. It’s kind of like . . . an extended road trip, for me and my cousins.”
    “That sounds awesome.” Chase tried to play it cool. So she
was
older. “Your cousins—what are they up to tonight?”
    “They’re coming with us,” Ty said with a girlish clap, like it should be obvious. “They’re at the Wash-N-Fold down by the drive-in movie theater,” Ty told him. “I was hoping we could take your car and pick them up?”
    Chase was momentarily disappointed that he wouldn’t have Ty all to himself, but two more hot companions wouldn’t be too hard to deal with.
    When they pulled up at the dingy laundry center a few minutes later, the other girls were