Nadine came back before Lex figured out how to finish his sentence. It was clear he had an interest in my sister. Why wouldn’t he? She was beautiful, smart, funny, and had shown clear signs she was into him: laughing, looking at him with bright eyes.

She’d only been gone for half a second. So much for her stated mission to find Mom. Nadine had probably second-guessed herself and decided not to leave me alone with Lex for too long. She had this thing about me being overprotective. I was kind of surprised she’d left us at all.

“I couldn’t find her. I’m sure things are going fine, though. So, what did I miss?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I mumbled.

Lex still looked stunned. But I wasn’t wrong: he was interested in Nadine. And he was too old—two years too old—and American. Which made it worse, somehow—your garden variety white American boy did not have a good reputation.

“Well, let's get lunch.” Nadine steered us toward the picnic shelters with heavily-laden tables.

The spread was mostly French-inspired finger foods. There were miniature quiches, sweet and savory crêpes, and roasted vegetables tied in neat packages on top of crusty portions of baguette. Finger sandwiches were always popular, but I wasn’t fond of the ones made with pâté. I helped myself to a few deviled eggs, though.

“What are these?” Lex asked my sister, pointing at a tower of petits fours.

“You’re kidding!” she said with mock horror. “You Americans are so uncultured. You can’t tell me you’ve never had petits fours? You’ll love them. Here.”

She loaded a few frosted cakes onto his already heaping plate of food.

“Easy there. We can always come back,” I said, stepping slightly in between the two of them. My sister scowled.

We found a good spot under one of the nearby oak trees. The shade was welcome with the midday sun beating down. There were a few clouds, but as I had noticed before, they were more ornamental than useful.

“They do this every year?” Lex asked, indicating the busy campus grounds where people were now congregating in little groups to eat.

Nadine nodded, wiping crumbs from her chin. “Since the university first opened its doors to students back in the nineteenth century, they’ve been welcoming faculty and their families back to campus.”

“Cool. The food is amazing. I thought they’d just have Subway sandwiches or something.” Lex picked up his petit four and examined it on all sides.

“Nope. The food is always amazing,” Nadine said. “This welcome thing is a chance for each of the departments to show off their stuff. I don’t think they make everything, but the culinary arts department provides at least some of what’s on the table, and they’re one of the top-rated programs in the country.”

I wondered what Lex’s dad would think of the culinary arts at Saint Catharine’s.

“You sound like you’re advertising for the college. Do you think you’ll come here as a student?” he asked.

Nadine shrugged. “I have no idea what I want to study. And I guess it will depend on what kind of aid package I get from other schools. We get a substantially good deal here as children of faculty. But I’d like to go a little further away from home.”

Lex nodded. “I get that.”

Nadine set down her plate and wiped her hands on a napkin. “Of course, I haven’t started looking yet.”

“She’s only fifteen,” I said, trying not to growl.

Nadine rolled her eyes. “I’ll be sixteen in a few months. Theo still thinks I’m a baby.”

“You should give him a break. He’s just looking out for you,” Lex said.

Good, he realized she had someone doing that for her.

“How about you?” Lex asked me. “Any plans to make your own mark at St. Kate’s?”

I had thought about it. But while I didn’t mind staying close to home, I wanted to be at a larger university. “It’s not for me. I’m not really into the whole liberal arts thing.”

Lex finished off the last bite of his petit four. “And before you ask?” he said, “I’ve got my applications half-completed for a bunch of schools here in Canada and back in the States, and I have no idea where I want to wind up. Moving here took up too much of my brain for the past few months. But now I should really get on the ball.”

It turned out we had all loaded up so heavily with our first plates that we were too full to go back for seconds.

“I wanna see what the chalk art has yielded so far. Care to come with?” Nadine asked Lex.

Lex dusted off his hands on his pants. “Sure.”

“Excellent.” She tossed her hair over her shoulder and grinned at him before looking at me. Naturally, I fell a step behind them.

We walked together toward the sculpture garden, where teams were in the middle of creating their masterpieces. Some of the offerings were very much child-inspired with stick figures and rainbows, others were more in line with traditional oil pastels done by the impressionists, and there was everything in between.

“You want to join in?” Lex asked my sister, gesturing at the box of chalk.

“Unless you have a hidden pre-teen or two, you won’t qualify as a team and will just be taking up valuable real estate,” I said.

Lex nodded sadly. “Too bad. It looks fun.”

“Do you paint?” Nadine asked. “Or draw?”

“I dabble,” he said.

Interesting. A gamer boy who liked to draw. Honestly, he hadn’t set off any alarms for me, but it’s not like I knew him at all from our brief conversations.

After we’d spent some time admiring the various art contributions, Nadine suggested we head towards the river.

“I heard Asian Studies unearthed the old dragon boats, and they’ve got them out on the river.”

Lex perked up at that. “Dragon boats?”

Nadine nodded. “They’re kind of a big deal here. Traditional Chinese rowing. There’s a drummer in the back of the boat, someone calling the strokes, and a flag carrier out in the front. Everyone else just rows like mad and tries to stay in time.”

“I take it they’re carved to look like dragons? I think I’ve seen pictures.”

Nadine nodded. “Yeah. Well, the old ones have intricately carved wooden dragon heads at the bow. Newer ones are disturbingly plain aluminum things. The school has a team and races competitively, but they also have these old boats that they take out sometimes just for fun. Wanna go see?” Nadine asked, grinning and resting her hand on Lex’s arm.

“That sounds great,” he said.

The campus was set up on both sides of Twelve Mile Creek—a section that ran gently enough that campus crew teams could row without fear of being swept off to the falls downstream by rapids.

The rowing club had a dock where two dragon boats with carved wooden heads were tied off. No one was racing at the moment.

“Wow. Look at that one,” Lex said, pointing to an absolutely huge boat pulled up on shore. It was clearly just for show. The massive dragon head was intricately carved and painted with bright red, orange, and gold scales. Blue and white whiskers trailed back along the sides of the face.

“Have you ever paddled in one of those?” Lex asked Nadine.

“Yeah. Well, not the older ones. I tried once. But my arms are too short to get the paddle in the water at the right angle, and it’s really tricky to match the rhythm. My brother’s done it, though.”

Someone got on a megaphone to announce that the exhibition would be starting in ten minutes, and people in bright orange and yellow life jackets appeared from all corners to converge upon the dock.

The boats practiced for a few minutes before being called to the starting line. It was a 250-meter course. When the sounding gun started, the drums beat out loudly across the river. I could feel the pulse deep in my chest.

Lex watched with wide eyes as the boats went impossibly quickly along the course.

“Wow. I had no idea they could move that fast…” he said, turning to me.

“You should come back tomorrow and try for yourself,” said a woman wearing a dragon boat T-shirt, handing Lex a brochure. Then she looked at Nadine and me. You should both come—all three of you, I mean.”

Nadine waved her hands in front of herself. “Count me out. These arms were not made for paddling. But they’re great at cheering. Woo hoo!”

“The two of you, then. You’d be really helping out. Community groups sign up to crew a boat, but we’re always shy of paddlers. Can I put you down as fillers?”

“It sounds like it might be fun,” Lex said, looking at me for an answer. I didn’t know why he was looking at me since he was more than welcome to attend on his own.

“They’ll do it!” Nadine said enthusiastically.

Then, it occurred to me that this was a brilliant plan. It was a way to spend more time around Lex—giving me a better chance to determine if he was okay for my sister.

“Great,” I said. “I’m in.”

Nadine squealed and took out her phone. She wandered off, texting with her bestie while Lex and I shared our contact information with the Rowing Club representative.

Spending some time paddling with Lex was an okay start, but I’d need to spend a lot more time with him to really get a feel for who he was as a person. The dragon boat thing gave me an idea.

“Look,” I said, “you seem like you might be a nice enough guy, but Nadine deserves only the best. You understand where I’m coming from. So here’s the game plan: if you want to ask my sister out, you’re going to need to go on a few trial dates with me first.”

“What?”

“Dates. Let’s say six. That should give me enough of an idea of what kind of guy you are.”

“But—”

“This dragon boat thing can count as the first. I’ll pick you up.”