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the stranger. He was the hottest guy she’d ever yelled at. He might have been the hottest guy she’d ever seen. Her exclamation made him jump, then reach around the open door just as her fingers finally found the seat belt. She tumbled gracelessly out of the car and landed in the middle of the dusty road on her hands and knees. She groaned. Her nose and cheeks stung from the airbag burn. Her right wrist throbbed.
    The boy crouched down to help her. His eyes were startlingly blue.
    “Never mind.” She stood up and dusted off her skirt. She rolled her neck, which hurt, though it was nothing compared to the shape she’d been in after the other accident. She looked at the white truck that had hit her. She looked at the boy.
    “What is wrong with you?” she shouted. “Stop sign!”
    “Sorry.” His voice was soft and mellow. She wasn’t sure he sounded sorry.
    “Did you even try to stop?”
    “I didn’t see—”
    “Didn’t see the large red car directly in front of you?” She spun around to examine Magda. When she saw the damage, she cursed so the whole parish could hear.
    The rear end looked like a zydeco accordion, caved in upto the backseat, where her license plate was now wedged. The back window was shattered; shards hung from its perimeter like ugly icicles. The back tires were twisted sideways.
    She took a breath, remembering that the car was Rhoda’s status symbol anyway, not something she’d loved. Magda was screwed, no question about it. But what did Eureka do now?
    Thirty minutes until the meet. Still ten miles from school. If she didn’t show up, Coach would think Eureka was blowing her off.
    “I need your insurance information,” she called, finally remembering the line Dad had drilled into her months before she got her license.
    “Insurance?” The boy shook his head and shrugged.
    She kicked a tire on his truck. It was old, probably from the early eighties, and she might have thought it was cool if it hadn’t just crushed her car. Its hood had sprung open, but the truck wasn’t even scratched.
    “Unbelievable.” She glared at the guy. “Your car’s not wrecked at all.”
    “Whaddya expect? It’s a Chevy,” the boy said in an affected bayou accent, quoting a truly annoying commercial for the truck that had aired throughout Eureka’s childhood. It was another thing people said that meant nothing.
    He forced a laugh, studied her face. Eureka knew she turned red when she was angry. Brooks called it the Bayou Blaze.
    “What do I expect?” She approached the boy. “I expectto be able to get in a car without having my life threatened. I expect the people on the road around me to have some rudimentary sense of traffic laws. I expect the dude who rear-ends me not to act so smug.”
    She had brought the storm too close, she realized. By now their bodies were inches apart and she had to tilt her neck back, which hurt, to look him in those blue eyes. He was a half a foot taller than Eureka, and she was a tall five eight.
    “But I guess I expected too much. Your dumb ass doesn’t even have insurance.”
    They were still standing really close for no reason other than Eureka had thought the boy would retreat. He didn’t. His breath tickled her forehead. He tilted his head to the side, watching her closely, studying her harder than she studied for tests. He blinked a few times, and then, very slowly, he smiled.
    As the smile deepened across his face, something fluttered inside Eureka. Against her will, she yearned to smile back. It made no sense. He was smiling at her like they were old friends, the way she and Brooks might snicker if one of them hit the other’s car. But Eureka and this kid were total strangers. And yet, by the time his broad smile slid into a soft, intimate chuckle, the edges of Eureka’s lips had twitched upward, too.
    “What are you smiling at?” She meant to scold him, but it came out like a laugh, which astonished her, then made hermad. She turned away. “Forget it.