It’s what I try to tell myself,andSophia when she asks, again, what exactly I’m doing. But I don’t know that I believe my own words. Or that I want to. Maverick isn’t wrong. That pull between us exists. And the more I learn about him and get to know who he really is, the harder it becomes to deny that it’sabout more than just chemistry. So the only way I can handle it is to avoid him.
I don’t attend the next self-defense session, and at nine forty-two that night, there’s a knock on my sliding door. Maverick’s hulking figure stands on my back deck, hands clasped in front of him, breath leaving him in white bursts.
“What are you doing here?” I’m dressed in leggings and an oversized shirt, hair pulled up in a ponytail.
“I’m here for your private self-defense lesson. And I have the shirt I borrowed.” He holds up my Steve the Babysitter shirt.Stranger Thingsis a guilty pleasure for me. “Blood-free.” He gives me that lopsided grin that makes it hard to turn him away.
“I don’t think the lessons are a good idea anymore.”
Most of his face is in shadow, but his bottom lip slides through his teeth. “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior, Clover. What happened last time. . . It won’t happen again. I’ll absolutely stay in control. I really want to teach you how to defend yourself.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s me,” I tell him. “If you keep coming over here, offering me private lessons, I’m going to make decisions I can’t unmake. And let’s be real, you’re terrible at the whole not-flirting business.” I smile uneasily, hoping he understands that this isn’t me trying to push him away. I’m trying to protect us both.
“As much as I want to disagree, you have a point.” He lifts his hat, running his hand through his hair and revealing his face.
“Oh my God.” I step forward and reach up, as if to touch him, then withdraw my hand and bring it to my lips. “Did I do that?”
He has two black eyes.
His smile widens. “You sure did.”
“How can you even explain this?”
“I play hockey. Shit like this happens all the time. I’m fine. And super fucking proud that I’m such a great teacher.” He winks.
“I can’t believe you’re joking about this! I feel awful.” I poke at my cheek with my tongue. “Are you sure your nose isn’t broken?”
“It’s not broken. I promise. Stop worrying about my face and think about how badass you are that you’re capable of doing this kind of damage to a guy my size.”
I bite my lip and stare up at him. Even with two black eyes, he’s still stunning. “It is kind of badass, isn’t it?”
“It’s totally badass. Are you going to let me teach you some more moves?”
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to give you black eyes all the time.”
“To be determined, then?”
“To be determined,” I agree. “Will you be in class tomorrow?”
“Eh.” He lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. “I’m not sure I can sit through a three-hour lecture with you and a bunch of sophomores who don’t know how badass you are. It’s torture.”
“You’ve done it for the better part of the semester.”
“Yeah, but that was before you got into my head and under my skin.” He taps his temple. “Three hours with a hard-on isn’t conducive to learning. It’s too heightened a state. There have to be studies about it.”
I sigh.
“That’s one of my favorite sounds, Clover. Hands down. Want to make it again so I can record it and listen on repeat?”
“This is the flirting I’m talking about.”
He thumbs over his shoulder andwinks. “That’s my cue to leave so I don’t go crossing more lines than I already have. See you in my dreams.”
And with that, he disappears around the side of the duplex.
Maverick does showup for class the following night, and leading up to exams, he stays true to his word. He doesn’t stop by my house again, and the only time I see him is in class, or occasionally I pass him on campus. He nods and says hello but stays inside the lines I’ve drawn for us.
But at the end of every class, he leaves a paper crane, labeled with a number, on the edge of his desk. At first, I think it’s a countdown to the end of the semester, but the numbers keep going up instead of down. Curious, I look up the significance of paper cranes and discover that a thousand cranes equal a wish. He’s at five hundred now.
