“I’m going to hop into the shower real quick. Feel free to start that sketch on my wall,” Ryan offered.
Ah-ha. THAT sketch.
Earlier that month, while we were both listening to Crass and Anti Flag during breaks, Ryan came up with the idea of my painting something elaborate on his wall. It was the first inkling I got that Ryan might be interested in exchanging more than ideologies and ideas with me. My “normal” friends told me he was for sure crushing on me hard, but I didn’t want to assume.
He never made a move on me, and I made sure we always kept things super platonic, so I was safe, right?
WRONG. But we’ll get to that in a second.
So Ryan got into the shower, and I stood on his bed, barefoot, my back facing the door, and started outlining my sketch. I heard the front door open and shut in the distance, and knew that Alex must’ve made his grand entrance.
I forced myself not to turn around or stop what I was doing. I was cool. Collected. A woman of many parts and virtues. I wasn’t going to stop what I was doing to acknowledge the almighty Alex.
The door to Ryan’s room flung open. For a few seconds, everything was silent. I wasn’t even sure Alex was in the room. I kept working on my sketch, but my fingers quivered and the outline became wobbly, jagged.
“And who the fuck are you?”
That was his opening line. I kid you not.
I didn’t turn around. Ryan’s words reverberated inside me.
Alex is an asshole. Don’t pay any attention to him.
“Name’s Lara.” I popped my gum without turning around. “Who the fuck are YOU?”
Rather than answering me, he flung himself on the bed, shoes intact and everything, his head landing on the pillow. I gasped. Actually gasped. My seventeenth century girl sensitivities were shot. I was wearing a kilt, and he had a great angle to see my underwear. How dare he? And also—what underwear was I wearing, anyway? The cute ones, right? Gosh, I hoped so.
Rather than jumping back, I scurried to the end of the bed and continued my sketch.
It was a mural that was supposed to take over the entire wall, and I knew I screwed up the middle section and half-assed it just so I could scurry away from Alex. Or rather, the shadow of Alex, since I had yet to find the guts to look directly at him.
The silence was so thick in the air I thought I was going to choke on it. The more we didn’t talk but shared a space, the more I wanted to cry and laugh simultaneously. And suddenly, I did remember ONE thing about Alex. I remembered Ryan telling me that Tom had a girlfriend, and that Daniel was fooling around with a few girls from his old school, and that Alex, and this is a quote: “Never had a girlfriend. Never will, too. I bet the bastard is still a virgin.”
That gave me new confidence. Not that I wasn’t a virgin. I was more virginal than a really good, upscale Italian oil. But Alex’s lack of conquests robbed him of his superior shine.
Finally, I chanced a look at him.
He was reading a book. Hell if I noticed the title on the cover.
Because Alex. Was. Fucking. Stunning.
In a totally unpredictable way.
I knew he was originally from Russia. That his parents moved here when he was eight. Honestly, though, it didn’t take much to see that he was not from here. He looked like a Viking in comparison to most people I knew.
First of all, he was six three. I kid you not. And he was only seventeen at the time. Second, he had a shock of white-blond hair, buzzed on the sides, with a bun he obviously wrestled into a Mohawk whenever they had a gig. He wasn’t thin and lanky like all the other boys who tried to ask me out. He had broad shoulders, even though he didn’t look like he worked out, and huge hands. Huge everything, really. And although he wasn’t classically beautiful, everything about his face was alluring and sharp. Like he was one of my sketches.
Suddenly I knew, I just KNEW, that Alex’s lack of conquests had nothing to do with his looks OR his attitude.
He simply wasn’t the kiss and tell type.
Alex cocked one eyebrow at me. “What?”
I didn’t know what.
I felt…unequipped. And for the first time, I realized what Boy Crazy meant. Because I suspected I could be very, very crazy for this boy.
“Ryan said you’re an asshole,” I said flatly. I didn’t know what else to say.
His face remained expressionless. “And?”
“And he’s right.”
He offered me half a nod, completely unmoved by what people thought of him. He flipped a page in the book. I got back to drawing. Or pretending to draw. A few seconds later, he asked, “You vegan, or just trend hopping?”