“Look, an olive branch. Go talk to him.” Morgan releases me from her arm and gives me a not-so-gentle shove. I stumble a few steps forward, glad that at least I’m wearing sensible shoes for this occasion.For being bullied into making small talk with the guy who hates me, for reasons I totally understand.
“I didn’t realize you were straight-edge.” He reaches to his left and slides a glass of whiskey closer to him, his fingers toying with the rim of the glass. I can’t help but watch their movement. He’s wearing the thick gold ring stamped with his initials on his pinky. He wore that the night it all happened too. He taps it against the glass and my eyes dart to his face instead.
“I’m not. I just don’t feel like it tonight. And I don’t really drink much.” I shrug one shoulder as my hands kneed the hoodie I’m clinging to, desperate to slip it on.
“Me, neither,” Theo says, cupping the glass and bringing it to his lips for a long, slow sip. “But tonight I am.”
He holds the rim of the glass to his bottom lip as he studies me. I can hear the chatter around us, the dozen other students who were deemed worthy to be in here laughing and comparing stories about their first week. Yet they’re muted in my ears. It’s as if Theo and I are trapped in a room made of glass.
“How was your first week?” I hug my hoodie tighter and Theo’s gaze dips to my folded arms before rising to my breasts. This blouse suddenly feels even tighter, which is impossible because I can barely breathe. It may as well be a corset.
“Eh,” he finally says, shrugging one shoulder and taking a smaller sip before putting his drink down on the desk. He folds his arms over his chest, matching my posture, and my eyes are drawn to the way his forearms flex.Of all the boys in Welles to have a crush on, why did I have to choose him?I can’t help my girlish affection. It’s still there. Only now there’s a whole lot of other feelings mixed in, some of them incredibly sour, others deeply sad.
“Mine too,” I say. I barely remember details from my classes. The only moments that have truly stuck with me were in the pool. Probably because those felt like torture.
“How did the first tutoring session go?” Theo shifts his weight when he asks, and his eyes scan the room. I follow the path they take, and we both end up looking at James. I smirk and turn back to face Theo.
“A success, I’d say. In two hours, I managed to convince him that comp lit is his favorite class.” That may be a stretch. I did help him write his talking points for his first reading, and he said he felt a lot more prepared thanks to me.
“Mmm. Two hours, huh?” He lifts a brow.
“It’s Willa Cather,” I respond, as if that somehow makes sense to him. Her work is kind of complex, and really, it’s unfair that the teacher is starting them with that.
“When the season starts, he’s not going to have two hours to give up on the weekends.” His mouth settles into a straight line, and I sense that he’s leveling me with some sort of challenge, as if he thinks James will fail because I won’t be able to tutor him on a Saturday.
“I guess we’ll work during the week. Some people study at night, you know,” I snark, leaning in to whisper my retort. His eyes dim and the corners of his mouth turn down.
“Or you could convince him to switch to something a lot easier and worth the same amount of credit.”
“And teach him it’s okay to quit? I don’t think so,” I answer.
I meet his stare and fill my lungs with a long, slow draw of air through my nose. It feels as if I’m smirking, and I partly hope I am. The sense of victory lasts for several seconds, until it dawns on me that Theo’s faint frown has only hardened. I retrace my words in my mind, and I find the source of his reaction quickly.
Theo thinks I’m a quitter.He thinks I quit on his sister.
So do I. It’s all I think. All the time. Every day.
“I’m looking forward to starting our internship,” he says, surprisingly still willing and seemingly wanting to talk.
Morgan moves to a group of chairs to the right of us with Brooklyn and James, and she motions her hand for me to drop my hoodie. I don’t think she gets how naked I feel without it. I know she’ll march over and steal it if I don’t do something soon, though, so I set it down on a nearby chair. When I look up, I catch Theo’s eyes on my bare stomach and instantly have no idea what to do with my arms or hands. I end up leaning awkwardly with one hand on the wooden back of the chair and the other on my hip. I feel utterly ridiculous.
Theo spurts out a laugh, which he tries to cover with a fist, but fails. I snag my sweatshirt again and stand up straight, hugging it to my chest and wanting to crawl inside it, wishing it were the size of a sack.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice still wobbling from stifled laughter. “It was how you were standing. Not . . . not the way you look.”
He clears his throat and glances to the side, his eyes squinting as he swallows. His laughter stops, and his mouth straightens.
“I’m not wearing my own clothes. This is Brooklyn’s and it’s Morgan’s skirt, and I feel stupid—”
“You shouldn’t,” he cuts in, his gaze back on me.
He shifts his weight and stands tall, leaving the edge of the desk. His eyes dip from my face down to where my hands work the fabric of my hoodie into a stress ball. He reaches forward with one hand, hooks a finger in the material, and tugs it toward him. On instinct, I clutch it harder. His hand flinches a little, but he doesn’t let go. His eyes flit up to mine and his lips form a crooked smile that normally I would say is to mock me. But something between us right now feels . . . different.
I give in and let him pull my sweatshirt into his hands, and he tosses it back to the chair, rolling his shoulders as he straightens and drops his hands in his pockets.
“Damn.”
The word spills from his lips slow and thick, and my skin burns under his glare. I fight my urge to wrap myself up again. His gaze returns to mine after a slow blink.