ROB
Rob stood still in the middle of the gym for a moment, staring in the direction Thea had gone.
Thea…what is her last name?He felt sort of stupid for not knowing the answer. There were five hundred kids in their senior class, so he couldn’t be expected to know everybody, of course, but they had been going to school together for the past three years.
Was this the first time they’d ever had a conversation?
He couldn’t think of another one.
And she was a surprise. She was nice, of course, but that wasn’t so shocking. Plenty of people were nice. And Rob was well aware that a larger than usual percentage of the population of this high school—both students and teachers—were nice to him. He might be dissatisfied with his free-throw shooting average, but there was no denying that he was the team’s star player.
Thea hadn’t seemed to care very much about that.
And it wasn’t because she didn’t care about basketball. She had been able to give insightful commentary on his game, and she’d been right on about everything she’d said. She’d just been sort of…unimpressed, albeit not in an unflattering way.
It intrigued him.
And the party. He had been so sure she’d want to come along to that. He had never seen her at a party before, and he thought he understood why—she must be the kind of girl who no one invited. It wasn’t that she wasn’t pretty—actually, with her big, curly hair, wide eyes, and curvy frame, she was prettier than he had ever noticed before. But she was quiet and kept to herself. He didn’t think he had ever seen her with a large group of friends. She wasn’t very popular.
Why hadn’t she jumped at the chance to spend the evening at the party with Rob and the rest of the team?
Could it really just be that she wants to study?
He didn’t know, but suddenly he was filled with a desire to find out.
He grabbed his duffel bag and hurried out of the gym. It had only been about a minute since her departure, and he caught up with her quickly on the sidewalk in front of the school. “Hey,” he called. “Thea.”
She turned. “Yeah?”
Her dark hair gusted in the night wind. She really was pretty, Rob thought. Why had he never noticed her before?
“I was thinking…” He paused, formulating a new plan on the fly. “I thought I might go to the Waffle Shack. Do you want to come?”
She frowned. “I thought you were going to Jillian’s party.”
He shrugged. “Those parties are kind of lame.”
“That’s not what you said,” she objected. “You said that it would be fun.”
“Well, I mean, okay, it probably would be,” he allowed. “But you’re right. I shouldn’t go out and get drunk the night before the chem test.” Not that he would have done any drinking at the party if he had gone. He couldn’t risk jeopardizing his future that way.
His future was the only thing that mattered.
“Come get waffles with me,” he said again, pushing away thoughts of the party and the other kids there, the way they would be celebrating the game and enjoying themselves without any worries about what their actions might mean for their own futures. Suddenly, he didn’t even want to be with them. He wanted to be with this girl who had chosen academics over a party. Why didn’t any of his own friends share those priorities? “We can study for chemistry together,” he offered. “We can review covalent bonds.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You want to blow off the party to study? With me?”
“Well, and eat waffles,” he said. “Are you in or out?”
“In,” she said, somewhat warily.
He nodded. “Great,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The Waffle Shack was across the street from the high school, making it a popular destination for seniors, who had open-campus privileges. Rob wondered whether anyone would have come here for a post-game waffle, and he was relieved to see that the place was empty. If anyone he knew had been here, they would have wanted to come up to him and dissect the game.
Rob didn’t want to talk about basketball right now. He didn’t even want to talk about chemistry. He wanted to get to know Thea.
Because of the late hour, the Waffle Shack was self-seating. He led her over to a booth in the corner, grabbing a couple of menus from the slot in the wall on the way over, and they sat down.