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She nodded. “Yeah.”
“I don’t have a dad,” I said, hoping I could somehow make her feel better about her home life by opening up about mine. “He died when I was three, and my mom just remarried a month ago.” But I’d already figured out I would never think of Barry as an honest-to-goodness father.
“I know.” Laina lifted her face to look at me. Then she gave a rather mischievous grin as she nodded her head toward the opened door of the counselor’s office. “You’d be surprised all the things you can hear sitting here.”
My mouth dropped open, shocked mute by a girl I thought was as dry as toast. Then I grinned and the two of us sat there a g
ood ten seconds, just smiling conspiratorially at each other. Leaning a little closer, I asked, “So you know any good dirt you want to share?”
She shrugged. But the glitter in her eyes told me she had heaps she could share. “I know enough to tell you you’re probably smart to leave behind those certain people you want to avoid.”
That I already knew. But she made me pull back in astonishment when she crinkled her brow after a thoughtful second and added, “Except maybe Ryder. He’s not like the rest of them. In fact,” she had to pause and blush before ducking her face and admitting, “he’s pretty decent. He helped me open my locker once. I had something jammed in the hinge and it wouldn’t budge. I would’ve been late to class if he hadn’t been walking by and seen me in trouble.”
I gritted my teeth inside my closed mouth because her story made me thaw toward Ryder, when in truth, I still wanted to lump him with the rest of his friends.
“I think he’s totally blind to social status. In fact, I bet he’d befriend just about anyone. But that group leaches off him and clusters around him so tight he really doesn’t have a chance to see the rest of us through the trees.”
I stared, stunned at how right Laina was. Ryder was different; it was his friends—leaching off him as she put it—that had shined a certain light on him and made him appear as someone he wasn’t.
Suddenly, I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to look at him from fresh, knowing eyes and ascertain if I could see that boy I’d met briefly at the basketball game again.
Snapping my laptop closed, I breathed out, “I have to go. I…I’ll talk to you later, okay?”
Laina gawked at me, clearly confused. But she didn’t ask about my abrupt departure. “O-okay. See you later. I guess.”
I found Ryder in senior hall. He sat on the floor, doodling in a notebook. With his back pressed to his locker and his knees bent, notepad resting on them, he had very little lap space left for a girl to lay her head. But Kiera had somehow managed to wedge in there, her eyes closed and blond hair spread across his pant leg.
The sight of her cozied up to him didn’t even deter me.
“Do you still have my glove?”
At my question, he glanced up, his mouth falling open in shock that—yes—I was actually going to talk to him.
Kiera tried to open her eyes when I spoke, but there must’ve been a light directly behind my head because she winced and lifted her hand to shade her face. “Who’s talking?”
“Grace,” Ryder answered her without taking his gaze off me. His eyebrows crinkled. “Why do you want it? There’s only one.”
“I just do,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. I had an idea that just might prove to be a perfect use for that one glove. “Do you have it or not?”
He stared at me a moment longer, most likely trying to dissect my ulterior motive behind the question before answering, “Yeah. It’s in my locker. I keep forgetting to give it back to you.”
When he set his notepad beside him and pressed his hands against the floor as if to push to his feet, Kiera shifted on his lap, turning in to face him. “I’m not moving,” she announced.
Ignoring her, I stared at the picture he’d been drawing. It was something architectural, full of lines and angles making a shape. He’d sketched in little trees and a street beside it to show how massive it was in size, but I couldn’t for the life of me decide what the object was supposed to be. Still, something melted, reminding me about the part of him I still liked.
I liked Ryder Yates. There was just no way around it.
“Don’t worry about it now.” I waved my hand in a dismissive manner, unable to take my eyes off his design. “I’ll get it from you later.”
When I turned away, Kiera asked Ryder, “Why do you have her glove?”
Smirking because I managed to make Evil Cheerleader Barbie jealous, I almost bumped face-first into Todd before I realized he was right there. His eyes squinted with curiosity as he glanced down at Ryder then turned back to me with a determined glint in his features, making me even more suspicious Ryder just might’ve been right about him; Todd’s interest in me was contingent upon his friend’s interest. The more attention Ryder and I paid attention to each other, the more Todd wanted to butt in and keep us apart.
“What’s up?” he asked.
I shook my head, hoping the slight narrowing of my eyes got across the whole message that I didn’t want to talk to him and he should mind his own business. “Nothing.” I muttered and sidestepped to move around him.
But the irritating jerk dodged in front of me. “Grace.” Though his tone was apologetic, it did nothing to inspire forgiveness in me. “I’m really sorry about yesterday.”
