“You want to ‘boop’ death? These are the actual thoughts you think?”

She stuck out her finger and booped the imaginary nose of death. “Boop.”

With two fingers he pointed at his eyes. “Focus.”

She leaned forward and met his eyes. “I’m focused.”

“On my honor, I only call you ‘Princess’ out of respect,” he said. “I’ll stop if you want, but I think you should get used to it.”

She sat back and considered it. “You can keep calling me Princess then. If it makes you happy.”

“Ecstatic.”

She heard footsteps on the stairs and turned to see Rafe standing at the top of the steps.

“Ready if you two are,” he said. “Meet you at the car.” He started to leave.

“Wait a stupid minute.” Emilie got to her feet. Rafe sighed and turned back around. The expression on his face indicated he knew exactly what was coming. “Oh. My. Lord. You are so…pretty. Holy cow.”

He wasn’t pretty. He wasn’t remotely pretty. He was beautiful. Even in his ratty work pants, battered-all-to-hell hiking boots, and a white T-shirt with a faded red-and-black flannel over it, he looked like he’d walked out of a painting of knights, kings, and fair damsels. Now short and almost dry, his hair revealed soft blond waves. Strong jaw. Full lips. The profile of a poet. The sharp eyes of a hunter.

“You’re staring,” he told her.

“Staring at your freaking perfect face,” Emilie said. “I don’t think those old guys at the hardware store were giving you the evil eye. I think they were checking you out.”

“Help,” Rafe said to Jeremy.

Jeremy narrowed his eyes at him. “Maybe we should have kept the beard.”

Rafe glared at him, then gave him the middle finger, which only made Jeremy smile.

“Can we go, please?” Rafe said. “If we get there in time, good chance Mom will feed us.”

“Let’s go.” Jeremy shoved Rafe’s bow case into his hands and went down the stairs.

Still standing at the top of the stairs, Rafe watched him walk away. Emilie watched him watching Jeremy.

“How did you two meet?” she asked, trying to keep her voice lightly curious, not nosy.

Rafe shrugged. “School.”

“Oh, come on. There’s gotta be a better story than that.”

“Sorry.” He started down the stairs.

Emilie scoffed. “It’s a good thing you’re pretty because you are a crap storyteller.”

Storyteller CornerThe West Virginia Lost Boys

Ignore Rafe. There is a better story than that. Here’s the short version.

August 2006, the first day of high school.

Ralph Howell—he wouldn’t become Rafe for another ten minutes—took a desk in the back row, the next-to-last seat on the right. He opened his new single-subject notebook and sketched a coyote on the inside cover. Hunched over his work, shading in the gray fur with his new mechanical pencil, he didn’t notice someone watching.

“Wow. Nice.”

Ralph glanced up. Leaning across the aisle from his seat in the last desk on the right was Jeremy Cox. The Jeremy Cox. They’d gone to different middle schools—if you could call the religious “academy” Ralph had attended a school. Still, Ralph had heard all about Jeremy from friends of friends of friends. Jeremy was British, which practically made him a celebrity around there. British, big fancy house, money. Rafe wasn’t sure he trusted that “nice.” Boys did not pay other boys compliments unless it was to salute a good burn or clap ironically if some genius dropped his lunch tray. It sounded like he’d meant it, though, both the “wow” and the “nice.”

“Dog, right?”

“Coyote.” He was a fourteen-year-old boy who’d gotten caught drawing animals in his notebook. To redeem himself, Ralph said, “I hunt them.”

“For real?”

He shrugged to say yes, but no big deal. “Dad’s been teaching me to hunt since I was a kid.” A deliberate choice of words, implying that while he had been a kid once, he wasn’t one anymore. The girl in front of them made a disgusted sound. “I got one this summer. Took him down on my own. He was killing our chickens.”

All true, except for the part about taking the coyote by himself. Dad had helped. A lot.

“That him?” He pointed at Ralph’s notebook.

“I guess.”

“I like it. Better than mine,” Jeremy said, showing off his artwork on the front page of his notebook. He’d drawn what any teenage boy saddled with the last name Cox would’ve drawn.

Rafe shouldn’t have laughed, but he did. Jeremy put his notebook away, grabbed Rafe’s, and studied his coyote drawing.

“How do you kill coyotes? Shotgun?”

“We’re bow hunters,” Ralph said with quiet pride. “Dad thinks it’s cheating to use a gun on an animal. Guns are for other people.” That was a joke his dad made all the time.

“I like that. Give the animals a fighting chance. Sounds more fun to shoot arrows anyway.”

Jeremy didn’t have much of a British accent. He must have lost it living in the States the past few years, but to Ralph, he did sound smarter than everyone else.

“I’m Jeremy.”

“Ralph,” he said.

Jeremy winced like he’d tasted soap. “No. Unacceptable. That’s a redneck name. At least say it right.” He lifted his chin and, in a voice eerily like Scar’s from The Lion King, said, “Thou shalt pronounce thy name Rafe.”

“What?” Sounded like he’d said rave.

“Rafe,” Jeremy said again. “Rhymes with safe or chafe. Like rage with an f. Got it?”

“Rafe,” he repeated. He liked it. He didn’t know why he liked it, but he liked it. Maybe he just didn’t want to be a Ralph anymore. Maybe he never had.