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“Hi.”Hi?After all this, that was all she could say? She wasn’t sure if it was a mercy or a snipe that he didn’t say anything—just kept watching her. Best get on with it. She set her shoulders and raised her chin with far more confidence than she felt. “I . . . I’m sorry.”
Again, nothing. But he did tilt his head a little bit, so that was something, but not enough to drown out the quiet. She imagined his expression was asking, ‘what for?’ in the same way her mother coaxed explanations to every little mistake from her when she was little. Before she could stop it, her mouth was moving and spewing more than she planned.
“I’m sorry for dragging you into my piss-poor lies. I know you don’t want to hear it, and I know that words won’t fix it, but you have no idea how sorry I am. I was being selfish and stupid, and you didn’t deserve that. I will go to them right now and say it was all a lie if you want me to. I’ll do anything you want. Just tell me and it’s done.”
Deja vu, right? Standing in front of Nathan Rondeau and begging him for his help—his mercy. Wouldn’t be the first time. She had a weird feeling it wouldn’t be the last; if he didn’t turn her away that is.
“You really need to stop saying you’ll do anything for people. You might regret it one day,” then he held up a paper. She hadn’t even noticed he was holding it until it was right in front of her face. Her eyes took a few moments to focus on it, but she was able to make out enough. Nathan’s name was written in the right-hand corner and a big fat C+ in red marker on the top. The quiz he took yesterday. “You’ll do anything?” he asked.
C+ didn’t seem like much to write home about to her, but from what he told her before, it was much better than the F’s he’d been getting. Strong, solid improvement, no doubt from her help.
She nodded firmly to his question. If this was a test, she was determined to stick by her groveling.
He cracked a soft, merciful grin. “Then take me bowling.”
She blanched in surprise, taken aback by the obscure request. “What?”
“I want to go bowling, and I want you to come with me.”
Tully scoffed, not sure if she was feeling amused or confused, but it was definitely something. “Bowling…really?”
“What, you don’t like bowling?”
“I uh, haven’t been in a while.”
“Then I’ll help you fine-tune your skills. Come on. They also have killer cheese fries.”
Tully stared at him and waited patiently for him to go back on his word, but he looked determined. They both took part in a fierce battle of stubbornness, fought with their eyes, waiting for the other to back down. But for some reason, Tully’s hard head and impossible stubbornness, couldn’t stand to disappoint Nathan Rondeau. She backed down and hid her surrender behind rolling eyes. “Fine. ButafterI stack my books. You know I work in the library on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
“Fine by me. I’ll come help.”
“What?”
* * *
She had a hard time trusting other people with things even as simple as helping her stack books in the library after school, even Nathan. But it turned out he wasn’t bad company or a bad stacker of books.
She already knew the first part of course, but the second part wasn’t as expected. Not that stacking books was particularly difficult, but it had taken her an abnormal amount of time to get the hang of it so she just assumed it was the same for others.
But that wasn’t what she was focused on. No, she was focused on something weirder.
Him.
He was weird.
Before the day prior, she’d never seen Nathan remotely upset. The accusation of cheating had nearly pushed him over the edge. The rage pulsed off of him. She truly thought he was going to come back and rescind his end of the deal. And now he wanted to go bowling?
Was he really smart, or really stupid?
Or wasshestupid? She couldn’t tell.
She chanced a look at him, down the aisle stacking away. She’d get done faster than she normally did when he was there to help her, but she really didn’t care much about that.
All she knew was that she was endlessly curious about this boy.
And she wanted to know more.
Mainly she wanted to know why.
