“Hey, everyone’s got their subject. Mine just isn’t English.”
Rae snickered. “Which is actually a shocker, since you love to read your textbooks.”
Aly stuck her tongue out at Rae and it made me laugh. Mike, too. His eyes connected with mine and I nodded toward him, trying to get him to wrap his arm around the damn girl. I mean, Aly had practically leaned herself against him. Every chance she got, she tried touching him in some way. Her hand on his forearm whenever she was laughing at a joke of his. She paid attention intently every time he said something. She was throwing off signals more than any girl had ever thrown signals at me. And Mike seemed completely oblivious to it.
So I jiggled my arm at him before pulling Rae closer. Hoping he got the fucking point.
Aly looked over at him and blushed. She got the point. But Mike? He looked like he was about to puke. The poor kid had probably never put his arm around a girl before in his young adult life. I grinned as I watched Aly scoot closer to him, trying to make it as easy on him as possible.
And when he finally wrapped his arm around her, she placed her head against his shoulder.
“Hi there, Michael.”
He grinned. “Hey there, Allison.”
Rae giggled. “Awwww, how cuuuuuute!”
All of us started laughing, which caused Michael to pull Allison closer. She wrapped her arm around his waist, holding him while he held her. It was cute, really. The two of them made a fantastic couple. They looked the part. Talked the part. Thought in the same way, and had much of the same goals. I’d learned that over the multiple car rides we’d
all had together over to the school. They talked about college. Career goals. Moving out and getting places of their own. They had the same sorts of ambitions with life, and in some ways I envied them.
You know, their ability to have options.
“You know, this day feels like it’s crept by like a slug.”
Rae’s voice pulled me from my trance and I kissed the top of her head.
“I don’t know. It’s flown by for me,” I said.
Mike shook his head. “Nope. I’m with Rae on this one. It’s crept by painfully slow.”
Aly shrugged. “I don’t really care, to be honest.”
Rae giggled. “If you could live here, you probably would.”
“Hey, now. Hey. Just because I enjoy school doesn’t mean I want to live here. I mean, cafeteria food for all three meals? I would rather d—”
She caught herself and everyone whipped their eyes over to me. Aly went to apologize, but I simply shook my head at her. This was exactly what I didn’t want. I didn’t want people tiptoeing around me. I didn’t want people feeling they had to mute themselves in order to preserve my feelings. I didn’t want things to change that drastically, simply because I wanted to try and keep things as normal as they could be. I wanted Rae leaning against me, I wanted my two new friends to joke around and poke fun at me, and I wanted to get through this school year with some sort of a future away from this place intact.
Aly stumbled over her words. “Clint—I’m—I’m so—”
I held up my hand. “Really, it’s okay. This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. I don’t want you guys feeling like you can’t crack jokes or poke fun at things or generally have a laugh. I almost died. It happened. But it didn’t kill me. It’s going to take more than that. Okay?”
Aly nodded softly. “Okay.”
Mike saluted me. “Loud and clear, General.”
I snickered. “Rae. You good?”
She sighed. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just—don’t like thinking about it.”
I pulled her close. “I know you don’t. I know.”
Aly piped up. “So, what are you going to do now that you’ve identified the guys and whatnot?”
I paused. “What?”
Rae cringed. “I kind of told her about the trip to the police department.”