“You sure about that? Last time I checked, you were almost mauled with love in a mud pit by your own dog. Besides.” He lifts his eyes from his tray after stabbing an individual green bean with his fork. A moment passes. “I want to do it.”
I swallow. “You … want to do it?”
“Sure.” He keeps his eyes on me, as if waiting for something.
I study the look of silent, calm determination in Vann’s face while bombs go off in my heart. Something about the way he looks at me has my pulse picking up. If he walks me home every shift from Biggie’s like the big, jock-warding bodyguard he wants to be, does that mean he’ll stay over every weekend at my place, too?
I’m going to need a bigger bed. And a muzzle on my morning wood. “But you can’t repeat the first day.”
Vann squints in thought, his fork still skewering a single sad green bean. He lowers it back to the tray. “What do you mean?”
“The fight. With Hoyt and the jocks. Throwing yogurt across the cafeteria. We can’t do that again, even off school grounds. The last thing either of us needs is—” I sigh, then go for a more honest approach. “The last thing I need on my conscience is you getting two more strikes on my behalf. I don’t want you packing your bags and heading off to Fairview High because of stupid Hoyt.”
A moment passes where I’ve touched Vann with my words.
That moment shatters at once when he wrinkles his face up and spits back, “So you’d rather those butt-wipes run you over, beat you up one night after work, then gloat in the locker rooms with their buddies later on about how they owned your ass?”
Clearly I did not, in fact, touch Vann with any of my words. “I just want you to be smart about this. Careful. Think it through.”
“I’ve thought it through,” he retorts. “I think you’re the one who needs to do more thinking. About what matters to you. About how much you’ve put up with already. Look at you … and me.” He points his fork back and forth between us. “We’re eighteen-year-old seniors stuck at a hick high school. The world has shat on both our plates. It’s time we stand up to it. It’s time—”
“Did you just casually use the word ‘shat’ …?”
“—that we fight back, Toby. And …” His voice softens. “And I’ll show you how. You aren’t alone anymore. I care about you.”
I stare down at my tray, suddenly unable to look him in the eyes. I think I’m trying not to blush. Or smile too big. Or cry. My emotions are all over the place, like Vann just tossed my heart into a blender and flipped the switch. “I care about you, too.”
“Good.” He stuffs the green bean into his mouth, satisfied.
A moment passes. The lunch room seems to be full of noise and chatter that, mercifully, seems to have nothing to do with us. I am suddenly deeply appreciative to be sitting across from a guy like Vann. There’s no doubt about it anymore. This guy is who I’ve begged for through so many sleepless nights for the past however many years, someone to call a real friend, a loyal companion.
On the other hand, a friendship with him could mean I’ll always be a step away from sitting in a police station somewhere, handcuffed, and waiting my turn to explain why three of Spruce’s top athletes are in the other room with bloody noses.
Maybe that’s a risk I’m willing to take with Vann. “It’s not just a hick high school,” I decide to say. “Nor is this a simpleton town.”
Vann has finished his lunch by now and is chugging a bottle of water. Its plastic crunches as he sets it down. “That so?”
“Maybe you just haven’t seen the better parts of Spruce yet.”
“Spruce has better parts?”
That makes me laugh somehow. “Yes, it does! Awesome parts, in fact. And people. You just … have to know where to find them.”
“Hmm,” is all he says before going for another chug of water. I watch him as he swallows. He could model, I catch myself thinking, staring shamelessly at his neck as it dances, strong and confident. I wonder if he realizes how beautiful he is, even if it isn’t a conventional kind of beauty. He looks like he’s from somewhere else, yet feels familiar when I look in his eyes. And his face can be so inviting and sweet …
When he’s not scowling angrily, that is.
It’s no time at all before my mind sweeps right back to the whole Vann-being-my-escort-home thing. Should I ask if that includes him crashing at my place? Or should I just let it happen naturally? Did he really have no problem sharing my twin bed, or was he being polite? Is a person like Vann ever “polite”, or does he always speak his mind with blunt, untempered honesty? I should definitely ask him. I should make it a certain thing, a plan, him staying the night at my house every Friday … and maybe Saturdays, too. I mean, if he really wants to go through all of that trouble …