“What?” I challenge. My voice is louder than I expect, and I look left and right to see whose attention I’ve drawn. Two girls to our right noticed, but they’re pretending not to listen in. I recognize that move—the slight turn of the body while your ear remains to the action, hair tucked carefully behind it as to not obstruct.
“I never said I was a nice guy, Lily. I simply said I didn’t know what to do about the way I feel.” Theo may as well be putting on a play in Boston Common. His voice fills the car.
My stomach sinks and my neck flares up. I’m sure I’m red. My eyes shift to the girls spying on us and they’ve sunk lower in their seats, ears still poised as they remain silent. To my left, two guys Theo knows from football and a girl I recognize from my statistics course are staring at me.
When I look back to Theo, he’s leaned forward enough to reach my knee with his hand. He doesn’t touch me, though. He simply leans in and gazes at my screen, my stupid attempt at making him jealous.
“James says he’ll see you at seven. Enjoy your tutoring time.” He slides back in his seat and holds my gaze, his face void of any emotion at all. Then, he pulls his phone back out, looks down, and goes about hearting every photo in the world.
He’s not even sincerely looking at them.
“Yeah, well, you enjoy thinking about him touching me. At seven.” The fact that those words left my mouth shocks my skin numb and makes my mouth water. Theo doesn’t look up this time, but his posture sure does change. The repetitive tick in his jaw is rewarding. And I almost don’t care that five people from Welles are now steeped in our business.
Almost.
* * *
Back in the comfort of my sweatpants and two-sizes-too-big Welles sweatshirt, I feel more like myself. And oddly less confident than I was a few hours ago on the train.
Kissing Theo has made me stupid. I don’t know if it’s that I imagined it for so long that I assumed everything that went along with kissing Theo Rothschild would be roses and fairytales or what, but now that I’m back on earth, I realize that fairytales are scams and cute boys are grifters. It was silly to believe that was it—we’ve kissed and now everything is amazing!I still represent so much baggage for him I’m basically the luggage claim area of the airport. Thing is, though? He’s still Theo Rothschild to me, and while seeing shades of his sister in him hurts some, it also reminds me of how incredible she was.How incredible he can be, too.
Bag slung over my shoulder, I step up to James’ family apartment and knock. Coach Fuentes opens the door to let me in.
“You come to join the party?” he says, swinging the door wide and revealing James, Cameron, and,of course,Theo, all piled on the sofa with video game controllers in their hands and intense scowls denting their foreheads.
“Dude, you shot me!” James shoves Theo in the arm and gets an elbow in return.
“You shot me first,” he responds.
I roll my eyes.
“Great. So, not a lot of studying happening tonight,” I mumble as I step into the living room for a better view.
“Oh, hey, Lily! I’ll be done in ten minutes. The guys are staying for dinner, but they’ll be quiet.” James is a dreamer.
“Boom!” Cameron’s voice echoes as he falls back on the couch as if he wereactuallyhit with space shrapnel like his blue character was on the screen.
“Sure,” I say, smiling through tight lips. I glance to Theo, but he’s still in the ignoring-me mode.
Unlike these guys, I have a paper to work on. I was going to flag some quotes to use from the Gulf War memoir I read, but I’ll be lucky if I can scratch a single coherent word on paper in this atmosphere. My old roommate Angela is the teacher’s assistant in my recent history class, so I’m sure she’ll ask to help grade my paper so she can put it at the bottom of the curve. I’m supposed to proof James’ essay for him too. I’m starting to feel overwhelmed.
“They wanted to blow off some steam. I put them through hell this week at practice, and I figured with the game Saturday and all . . .” Coach Fuentes shrugs innocently so I smile with teeth this time to pretend all of this is fine.
“Great. Penny’s making enchilada casserole. You’ll take a plate, yeah?” he offers.
I nod, because at the very least I should get an excellent meal out of this situation.
I dump my book bag on the table and pull out my notes and the memoir to attempt a jump on things. My note cards fall to the floor, though, scattering in a dozen directions.
“I got this,” James says without pause, tossing his controller to Cameron, who can apparently handle playing two at once, and leaping over the back of the sofa to scour the area under the table with me.
“Thanks, but I’ve got this. Go back to your game,” I say through nervous laughter.
James insists on helping, though. In fact, he dives under the table before I can, crawling on his hands and knees. I reorder the cards in my hands, glancing back to the living room out of curiosity. Not even a peek from Theo. Somehow, he seems even more focused on the screen.
“Here, I think that’s all of them,” James says, handing me a messy pile.
I smile and sit back in the chair to organize the rest of my work. Rather than rejoining the guys, James stays, pulling out the chair next to me and grabbing his backpack that was slung over the arm. He slides the chair over so it’s inches from mine and pulls out his comp lit folder. I do my best to stare only at the table and the papers in front of us, but the draw to sneak glances toward Theo is too strong.