That stopped him for half a second. He had expected a lie. He had built the whole last two days around the lie he was going to get, had rehearsed his answer to it in the shower and on the drive in and through all of fourth-period Government, and the kid had just stepped around it like it was a puddle.
"So you admit it."
"I admit I was in her car." Imre's voice was level. His hands were not raised; they hung at his sides, open, and he was looking at Gerrit not with fear and not with the flat defiance Gerrit had seen on guys who wanted to fight, but with something closer to attention. As if Gerrit were a problem on a whiteboard. "And I'll tell you what we were doing. But not like this, and not with them listening." He tipped his head, very slightly, toward the lot. Then he said, in exactly the same quiet tone, "You're making a mistake."
"Yeah?" Gerrit leaned in. His forearm was across the kid's collarbone, not pressing hard, but there. "Which part?"
"Most of it," Imre said. "But mainly the part where you think you already know."
Huck's hand landed on Gerrit's shoulder. It was a big hand, a left tackle's hand, and Huck had never once in three years put it on Gerrit for any reason other than to pick him up off the turf. "G. Coach's car is still in the lot. Let him go."
Gerrit let him go. Not because of the coach's car. He would think about that later, too, about the fact that it was not fear of consequences that made him step back, but something in the kid's voice that he did not have a name for yet. He stepped back and the kid straightened his hoodie and did not rub his collarbone, though Gerrit was fairly sure it hurt.
"Ask her," Imre said. "Before you ask me anything else. Ask Noor. And when she tells you, try to remember it."