Mattyboy

Heaps of student rentals there, lots of old big houses split up to into apartments. People rent out the old maids quarters and stuff.

I had kinda assumed that this would be the substance of the next chapter (and maybe Joel falling off a horse, I'd think).

The funny thing is, Joel's kinda wrong about that. Johnny Lundst and Westley seem to have been suppressed for the moment. People mostly took punchy Joel in their stride at the falls, and felt like Davin would have enjoyed some more company for the day. Gavin clearly wants Joel on their baseball team. Colt-and-the-Keplers-new-friend seems like it would be an okay status at Fletcher.

Ah, I see from chapter 8 that there's a nurse on her way down the hall to tell someone from Team Liberty about Harry.

I was figuring this too. They seem to be in Devon's room, not in Henry's. Glad to hear you're working on it. Angelica seems quite capable, she was just trapped and didn't know before. But this, plus finding Henry is going to add up to a lot. And the twins know about Henry, but aren't in the building anymore. There were many POVs in this chapter, but Henry was neglected. Seems to be his day for that 🥹

As awful as the moment must have been for her, I'm glad Angelica has managed to pull the threads together about her husband. She's still got finding out that Henry's there to go, which may be a comfort to her that he's there and therefore safe, also awful that he's there and she'd not done anything about that.

I agree with your smart point that this portrait of Nick has a very blurred-out background. It's be interesting to see if that was just the focus tightened to the present to move the story along, or if there's more bad stuff back there. The supportive friend gang is excellent, and I think more common in boarding schools than it is in boarding-school-stories. Danny slotting into the empty chair at the table will be excellent for keeping the group dynamic stable (and maybe he can snuggle with Jonah a bit). From the reveal of the number of chapters to go, I can see why you'd think there might be another go-round with Noah. Noah may want the closure of a talk with Nick, but it looks pretty clear that they are broken up now. And Jack has a moral green light to try harder now that this has happened. It's been quite a while since Noah was offering much in the relationship, other than occupying a boyfriend-role in Nick's mind. So there's about no obstacles now to clear sailing with Jack, who definitely should be invited to Nick's (for safety reasons if it needed further justification) for spring break and the summer.

The suicide squeeze is on . . . here's the throw ... here's the play at the plate

This is not the way, @Krista.

That's a fun line about getting the tiger to jump, I bet he will.

I don't think it'll take long, although that's up to our author. Nick was upset about Noah, in a pretty understandable way, but this clears the way for Nick and Jack to get together; the main obstacle to that was Nick wanting to be true to Noah, and that's gone.

Our no-longer-secret-author likes her twists (and the comments section getting into its own twists). But yeah, I think that's what's going so far (pretty much agree with the rest of your assessment too). Krista I feel is being a bit coy about Davin, and (a bit rudely, I thought) says that "polite and diplomatic" isn't mentioned his character profile. But he lists off six things he's ruled out (including kitten-murderer), while very carefully not putting a foot near exactly one particular land-mine.

Roy not knowing anything and Westley apparently not talking seems to add up to Temp Town rumor mill hasn't caught up with this one. "Joel Benton missed batting practice" probably wasn't page 1 news there, either.

mm self-absorbed, but he had a date with his girlfriend, and then his parents ordered him to include new-guy-he-doesn't-know-well, and he doesn't love that idea. So sure. Also sure looks like he doesn't know what's going on, but didn't press Joel on the non-answer part.

We really know very little about Colt. One thing we do know about him is that Trace and Celia have high expectations for him. Remember the box-carrying; Colt can get in trouble for not helping, but it's not inherently all that much fun. Joel isn't up for questions, and Colt doesn't have any answers, but if they go as a group to the falls, questions will be asked, and Colt will held responsible for how that goes, but without any control over that. He may not be enthused about this deal. (I'm guessing he senses that problem but couldn't lay it out that cleanly). Minimally, Joel will be a third wheel attached to whatever Colt's normal falls fun is, and apart from the lawn-mowing relief, Colt doesn't have any experience with Joel being fun.

Celia: “I really do hope this angsty charity case phase runs its course soon,” Well, yes. That would be good.

Lovely moment with some depth to it re: Alex's feeling about his voice. p.s. what chapter was the pool party referenced here?

Well, you know them better than I do

And they really love "camping." Celia thinks it's booze. Maybe, but there's other stuff can go on while camping that maybe you don't wanna do in Mom's house (or your boss' house. )

It's also still very early days for the story. It's looking to the readers at this point that Joel is going to be Lacey and Colt's foster- brother, but it's not really known to Joel or the household for sure that he's not just Trace's houseguest for a few days. I'm kinda guessing that Davin may have been told NOT to press Joel. The only guess he made was one he was pretty sure wasn't it. I think he may know what guess not to make, and he's politely trying to push this along without doing what he was told NOT to.

That and the crack about Colt and Gavin not showering together adds up to something, I think. One of Colt or the Keplers is bi or curious or something and it's on their minds. Minimally, Davin's stepped up from indifferently friendly to actually friendly.

Nice start. I like the description of the intra-game dynamics and how players sort out by temperament.

There's really not much substantive to go on for Colt so far. Joel has worried that he's upsetting Colt and the Keplers. Colt's done some mild grumbling about being told his schedule's being changed, but hasn't done anything negative to Joel so far. The Keplers have done not much but their interactions seem to be done with a smile of some mild friendliness at each instance. The smiling could be taco-based, but I'd actually go so far as to say I think the Kepler bros think Joel will be good for Colt, but we don't have anything on why. 🌮🌮 😄

That can't be right. Why would she do that to us? @Wildone we may need an intervention here. What's the point of having it all done (and sawn apart and stitched back up) if not to post it?

Tuesday will do just fine. Thank you, ma'am.