Adrian Cole was the sort of man who asked good questions, not good compliments, and Harper soon learned that in about four minutes of Priya walking off, leaving the two of them standing near the reference shelves with a stack of qualifying round rules between them, neither of them had bothered to be opened yet. He didn’t ask what her event was or where she’d placed last year or any of the other chit-chat she’d steeled herself for. He wondered why she'd gone for the regional bracket instead of the state, when her scores, according to the roster Mr Ferris had circulated, would have easily qualified her for either.
"State's a bigger stage," he said, leaning against the shelf with his arms crossed loosely over a Ridgeview debate jacket that looked broken in rather than showy, "but you picked
