“I know you avoided us,” Bubba said carefully. “Avoided all of us, but you came to my birthday party, and you left before I could say thank you.”
Blowing out a breath, I looked at the soda rather than him. He wasn’t asking me why. He wasn’t even accusing me. He just thanked me for being a friend.
“Well, I already had your present,” I said, trying to keep it light. “It would have been a shame to waste it.”
His only response was a soft snort. “You’re the only one who got me music.”
I frowned.
“You’re the only one who ever remembers I play guitar.”
Another shrug. “You spend most of your time working out or playing football, Bubba. You don’t let other people see the instruments.”
He had three guitars, two classics and his practice one. The classics hung on the wall in his bedroom in cases to keep them safe. The practice guitar, an acoustic, sat next to the bed on its own stand.
“You still know how to play Godzilla?”
I groaned. “Sorta, I think. You taught me that in sophomore year. When was the last time we…?”
He raised his eyebrows as we locked gazes. “We can play today if you want.”
“I thought we were here to do homework and because you wanted to talk to me away from the others.” I hadn’t missed that. He’d been careful to not include Coop in the quiet request. There’d been tons of time after school yesterday to bring up whatever else was on his mind.
“Yeah…” he said, his smile fading. He braced his hands on the side of the pool and hoisted himself out. The water droplets glided over him as he left with a bit of a splash. Before I could follow, he stood and bent, one arm extended to me. Clasping his hand, I pushed against the side to climb up, though it proved unnecessary when he all but hauled me out of the pool one armed. When I stumbled, he steadied me, his free arm going around my waist. “I need to talk to you about the college thing that the guys want to do.”
Removing my hand from his chest, I ignored the sudden leap my pulse. Still dripping, he motioned toward the covered table. I grabbed a chair as he patted himself down. “I’m going to get us more cokes. You hungry?”
“I could eat, but…”
“I’ll order a couple of pizzas. You still like pineapple only on yours, right?”
Bracing a hand over my mouth, elbow on the table, I chuckled. “Yeah I still like pineapple only Mr. Meat Lover.”
A flash of another smile and he said, “I’ll be right back.”
My phone was with my backpack, but it was kind of nice to just sit in his backyard and listen to the breeze. In the distance, a dog barked. If I concentrated, I could almost hear the kids playing at the little park down the street. I’d always kind of envied Bubba for growing up in such a nice neighborhood. Mom and I lived in a decent apartment, and there’d been plenty of kids around when I was growing up—like Coop, although I think he and I were the only ones who had lived in that courtyard pretty continuously.
Bubba returned with both of our backpacks in one hand and sodas in the other. “Pizza will be here in thirty. I told them to come to the gate.” With the steady breeze, the water, the shade and the bathing suit, I was actually comfortable, so I didn’t complain about staying outside. He opened my can for me without asking, so I drained the dregs of the first one before rising to drop it and his empty in the recycling can tucked next to the fence.
Back at the table, he’d pulled out his calculus book and dragged his chair around so he could sit next to me. Feet braced against my chair, he pushed his notes to me, and I pulled mine out of my backpack. My phone slipped out and there were a couple of messages on the screen. None from Mom, so I just nudged it aside for now.
We sat, quiet, for about ten minutes as we reviewed each other’s work and the practice questions.
“Well…” Bubba said after a minute. “That’s anticlimactic.”
A snicker escaping, I lifted my drink. “You don’t have any questions.”
“No, it all makes sense. I can even see why you made the choices you did.” The wonder in his voice had always been a weakness of mine. Bubba never thought of himself as the smart kid. Hell, half the time, he acted like the only reason we kept him around was because he was the football player.
Nudging his leg with my knee, I smiled. “I told you last year, you have this. Math is just numbers. Music is math. You play music beautifully, so you just have to stop thinking of math as impossible.”
“It’s hard to not think of it that way,” he admitted. “You remember algebra freshman year.” I’d taken algebra in 8thgrade, ahead of the others. “I needed you the whole year.”
“Because it was a different way of looking at problems. You like concrete things, not abstracts—which is weird, because music is arguably an abstract.”
“No, it’s not,” he countered. “Music is a feeling. It’s a pulse, and I can follow the notes especially if they are designed to provoke emotions. The only emotion math provokes is ugh.”
I laughed. “Well, I think you’re fine. We get real homework on Thursday. I’m betting she gives us an ungraded pop quiz tomorrow.”