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Rocky turned his attention on him and shrugged. “The first couple of games are always the toughest.”
“It should be interesting,” Jay said. His smoothly shaved head made his broad jaw and facial features that much more intimidating. What struck me about him was how cold his eyes were, as if he didn’t really care much about anything. “Will have to see if Silas and North will be able to pull their weight.”
“I’ve seen them play before,” Kota said. “When it matters, they’ll step up.”
“We’ll see,” Rocky said. His eyes floated back to me. I steeled myself so I didn’t end up cringing behind Kota. “You’ll be at the party tonight?” Rocky asked me.
Was he talking about the same one Silas wanted me to go to? “I ... think so.”
“We’ll be going,” Nathan said, side stepping until his arm was pressed against mine.
Rocky and Jay perked up with interest at this. “Silas said she was going...” Rocky started to say.
Nathan stood his ground, but he had his eyebrow cocked, curious but aware he might have just messed up whatever Silas had said. “I mean Sang’s going and Kota and I will probably be there, too. I think it’s all the same party, right?”
Rocky shrugged. “Don’t know of another one.” He glanced back at me and winked. “See you there.” He stepped forward, clearly intending to walk past us, except he made a point to walk between Nathan and I. I stepped aside to give him room. Nathan hadn’t budged. I hadn’t moved fast enough to give him room and Rocky ended up bumping into me. As he did, he leaned in a little. “Can’t wait.”
THERE’S CUTE, AND THEN THERE’S TOO CUTE
Most of the morning was quiet. I didn’t get called up, and Mr. Blackbourne had me go over more memory exercises. This time it consisted of looking at photographs and scanning quickly for details and relaying the details back to him. It seemed pointless, but I trusted him, so I did my best.
At lunch, we collected out in the courtyard. Since there was a game tonight, all of the football players were in orange jerseys, including Silas and North. It was odd to see North wearing anything but his usual black, and the required uniform they wore to school. I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
“Stop staring,” North said, for the third time that day. He sat on the bench opposite of me. He smoothed his hand over the numbers on the front. “I keep thinking I’ve ripped it.”
“That’s when you know you wear too much of the same stuff,” Gabriel said. He sat down on the grass between us. “You’re dazzling us all. I swear, you look almost human.”
North stretched a foot out toward Gabriel’s back, knocking him over.
Nathan sat with me on the bench, picking potato chips out of a bag and occasionally offering me some. I shared my water with him. Kota sat on my other side, eating a sandwich and punching something into his phone.
“Ready for tonight?” Nathan asked me, chewing on a chip.
“I suppose. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be ready for.”
“Chaos,” Kota said, without looking up from his phone.
Nathan laughed. “It won’t be that bad.”
“Close enough,” Kota said.
Nathan rolled his eyes. He pulled a chip out of the bag and held it out to me. “Last one,” he said.
I opened my mouth, expecting the chip, but he zoomed it past my lips and brought it to his own mouth and ate it. I laughed, shaking my head. “You tease,” I said.
Nathan smirked, held out a finger. “Consolation prize,” he said, pushing his finger to my lip.
Out of almost instinct now, I opened my mouth, and he pushed his finger inside. I bit down, giving it a gentle bite. He grinned.
“What the fuck ... get your god damn fingers out of her mouth,” North barked at us.
North’s protest startled me so badly I nearly bit into Nathan’s finger. I had enough control to unhinge my mouth.
“What?” Nathan said. “She does it all the time.”
My eyes widened and I was blushing as six pairs of eyes floated over to me, all curious.
“See, look,” Nathan said. He shoved two fingers toward my face.
I was still blushing, avoiding eyes as I was sure they would be angry to discover what Nathan and I had been doing when we were alone. My mouth still opened at Nathan’s prodding. He slipped his fingers in my mouth and I bit down, chewing.
“Sang Baby,” North said, “you don’t know where his fingers have been. You’ll get sick.”
“I wouldn’t give her dirty fingers.” Nathan picked up my hand, pulled it toward his mouth and popped a couple of fingers inside. “Ain’t that right, Peanut?” he asked as he started chewing.
I tried to grimace around his fingers.
“God damn it,” Gabriel said, pointing a finger at Nathan. “You’re the one fucking up her fingers. I thought she picked up chewing her nails but I haven’t been able to catch her doing it. It’s been you.”
Nathan groaned, sucking the saliva off my fingers before pulling them out of his mouth. “They’re not messed up,” he said, but he checked my fingers over. “They look funny now because I just bit them.”
“How can you like that?” Kota asked me. “He’s biting you.”
I shrugged, pulling Nathan’s fingers out of my mouth and holding his hand in my lap to get him to stop. I was embarrassed now. “It doesn’t hurt,” I said, blushing.
“Let me see,” Kota said.
“No,” Nathan said. “That’s our thing.”
“I just want to see,” Kota said, although his cheeks tinged.
My heart fluttered in my chest. I couldn’t believe this. Why were we talking about this here in the courtyard? My eyes fluttered to the windows around us, wondering if other people were watching, or worse, if Mr. McCoy was lurking nearby.
At Kota’s prodding though, I opened my mouth. With his fingers inside my mouth, I bit down with the same pressure I used for Nathan.
Kota yanked his fingers from my face. “Ouch,” he said, waving his fingers in the air. “How can you stand that?”
“Doesn’t hurt me,” Nathan said, beaming. “It’s actually kind of nice.”
“Sang,” North said. “Don’t go biting his fingers. You’ll pick up germs and you’ll get sick.”
“Hey, why aren’t you worried about her giving me germs?” Nathan asked, taking my hand again and putting it near his face.
“You should know better.”
“Dude, she’s not five,” Nathan said. “She can make her own choices.”
“She can choose. She can choose not to get some crazy disease you’ve picked up from the two thousand dirty minions floating around here. She can choose not to get McCoy calling her into the office today.”
Nathan shrugged him off. He pecked at my fingertip before shoving one into his mouth, biting down.
“He’s probably
right,” Victor said. He’d been the one I was avoiding looking at the most. Now when I did, he didn’t seem angry, only mildly curious. Part of me felt it was worse. Did he not care? “If McCoy sees you, you might get her detention again.”
“Fuck McCoy,” Nathan said, but he pulled my hand back out of his mouth, and instead held it in his lap defiantly. “That guy needs to back off.”
The bell rang for our next class. It was a relief to me. I enjoyed hanging out with the guys, but at the moment, I wasn’t sure how to handle them. I wanted to support Nathan, but I also cared about what everyone else thought. Did Nathan biting my fingers mean something?
Everyone hopped up. I was grabbing my bag when Silas stepped up next to me. He looked good in his jersey, despite it being a bright orange and brown. Not my favorite colors.
I was just putting my book bag on when he grabbed my hand.
“Come on,” he said, his dark hair shifting, nearly falling into his eyes.
I smiled after him. “In a hurry for biology?”
He smiled back at me, urging me forward. I waved goodbye to the others and rushed with Silas to our next class.
In biology, I fell into my usual seat and he dropped in behind me. I was putting my book bag next to my chair when Silas held out a closed hand.
“Here,” he said, his face failing to hold back a broad smile. “I got you something.”
I blinked in surprise and held my palm open for him. He released a pink and blue terry cloth sports band.
“Wow, cool,” I said, grinning and I put it on my wrist. “Thank you.”
“Look,” he said, and he held up his arm, showing a matching blue one, with a very thin pink stripe going through the middle.
My mouth popped open in surprise. “Silas ...”
“I wasn’t sure if I’d see you before the game, so I wanted to give it to you now,” he said. “I thought since it’s the first game, I’d start a tradition with you.”
“A tradition?”
“Maybe it’ll turn into a good luck charm,” he said. “All the pros have something. I’d rather it not be wearing the same underwear through all the games.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Yeah, don’t start that. So it’s going to be us wearing similar colored wrist bands?”
