Jake lifted his eyebrows. “I meant, do you have a job, or are you going to summer school, or did your parents force you to babysit your little brother, or what?” he asked.
“Oh,” Hype said. “Well, most of my friends are away or taking summer school or crap like that. I didn’t fail anything, and I’m too young to get a real job, so I just hang around here, mostly.” She stretched out her skinny legs in a way Jake just knew was supposed to make her look worldly and mature. “You know—work on my flash.”
“Right,” Jake said. He kept his face serious so he wouldn’t be tempted to smirk at her. “No babysitting?”
Hype shook her head. “I only have one brother, and he’s older.”
“I see,” Jake said. He saw the way Hype’s mouth set into a hard, angry line at the mention of her brother, and had the unple
