For several moments, a dark mood hung over us like the blinking “insert coin” sign over the air-hockey table.
Jasmine’s hand was still in mine, small and cold, and for the first time all day she looked nothing like the girl who used to out-shoot me at hoops or crush me at Mario Kart. She looked like somebody who’d been ambushed and didn’t even realise it until now.
I forced myself to let go of her fingers before I crushed them. “We need to get out of here,” I muttered.
She blinked. “Why?”
“Too loud.” I stood and grabbed my jacket. “And because I can’t think with Pac-Man dying in my ear every three seconds.”
We stepped out of the arcade into the early-evening Boston air. The chill hit my face like a slap. Traffic hissed by on Tremont, people rushing toward the T, neon from the corner
