Chapter 21About an hour after a tense dinner with all of them at the table—something that hadn’t happened in probably three weeks—Julian retired to his room. He’d opened up his laptop, and even debated starting to work on that project Mr. Singer had given him, when there was a knock on the front door. Julian pressed his ear to his bedroom door, hoping he could hear the sounds of his mother greeting someone, talking animatedly, and then parse out who was who.
“Julia? Well. She’s upstairs studying. Right now we have a no-friends policy.”
“Don’t worry—I have work for J. It will only take a minute, and I have instructions from our math teacher I need to explain.”
Josie. Oh, sweet Josie. When he heard the plodding of feet on the stairs, Julian leaped back to his desk and pretended not to ove
