“Meaning?” he asked, sounding bored.
“Meaning if Doug or any of my friends sees us together, he’s going to make your life hell. And I’m going to get an earful of shit.”
He lifted an eyebrow.
“What?” she asked, the simple look making her feel self-conscious.
“N-n-nothing. Just never heard you swear before.”
She winced. Truth was, she’d developed a potty mouth at her last home placement. Her foster sister, Sam, had been quite colorful in her speech. But Tessa had learned to curb it when she moved in with the Ericsons. Her foster parents were super strict and would kick her out if they had any clue how much of a delinquent she was capable of being. And there was no way she was giving them up. They’d been the closest to having a real family as she’d ever had.
“So do we need to do this here?” she asked, ignoring his comment and tightening her ponytail.
“The tutoring? No. I just have to sign off that you showed up and for how long.”
“Great. Do you have somewhere else we could go?”
“You mean, where we can hide?”
She huffed. “Come on, Kaden. I’m not trying to be a bitch, but you know how it is.”
His shoulders sagged like he’d had a sack of sand thrown across them, but he nodded and tucked his books in his bag. “It’s a small t-t-town, Tessa. Where are we gonna go?”
She chewed her thumbnail and peered over her shoulder again. They definitely couldn’t go to the coffee shop or the park, even the McDonald’s had other kids hanging there all the time. And her place was not an option. Boys couldn’t come over when her parents weren’t home, period, no matter what the purpose. “What about your house?”
He paused in loading up his backpack and looked at her like she’d suggested he get them a rocket to the moon. “You want to come to my house? Your boyfriend would gather a lynch mob if he found out we were hanging out alone like that.”
She shrugged. “He’d be pissed. But it’s not like he’d get the wrong idea, I mean . . .”
The slight wince he gave was almost imperceptible but she felt like shit the minute she realized how it’d sounded. Like he was no threat. Like she was so far out of his league that there was no possible way anyone would worry about them alone together.
“Kaden, I didn’t mean that—”
He looped his backpack over his shoulder as he stretched out to his full, impressive height. The smirk was in place again but there was a sad note in his blue eyes. “Save your apology. You don’t need to play that nicey-nice, everybody-needs-to-like-me game with me. I know who we both are. And I know where we stand. Let’s go.”
The comment was like a swift slap right across her cheek, knocking off the bright face she put out in the world. In just a few brief minutes, Kaden Fowler had called bullshit on her. She hurried after him as he made his way out the side door and into the parking lot. She did a quick scan to make sure no one was around. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t need people to like me. They just do.”
He sniffed and dug his keys out of his ripped up jeans.
“Okay, so maybe you don’t.”
“And that b-b-bothers the shit out of you.”
She quickened her step, trying to keep up with his long, easy strides. “It does not.”
But it totally did. It was suddenly driving her crazy. Why didn’t he like her? She’d never personally done anything mean to him. She couldn’t be held responsible for Doug and his friends.
Kaden stopped next to a beat-up Dodge Challenger and turned to her. “I live over on Dunlop Road. You can follow me. At a reasonable distance, of course, so no one links us t-t-together.”
She gritted her teeth. “Fine.”
She turned on her heel to stalk to her car, but he called her name before she could take a step. She looked back to find him leaning against the top of his car, staring out toward the football field instead of turning in her direction.
“It’s totally bothering you, isn’t it?”
She groaned. “Shut up. Point taken.”
He smiled but there was no humor in it. He opened his door to climb into his car, but before he closed it, his eyes met hers. “Don’t worry, princess. Your record is still perfect. My problem isn’t that I don’t like you. It’s that I like you too much.”