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“Yes, ma’am,” I sighed, putting Cosette back in her cage.
My mom gave me a parting glare and left the room, and I felt heat rising to my cheeks as I went back to sit on the bed with Ian. But this time it wasn’t embarrassment. It was complete and utter humiliation.
Seriously, was shetryingto scare Ian away? We were sitting here with the Pre-Cal textbook open on the bed between us and our notebooks and pencils on the bed. How could we have possibly gotten dressedthatfast if we had been doing anything she clearly thought we were doing?
“If it makes you feel better, my dad has the same rule for me and my sister. Well, had the same rule for us before Izzie moved into the dorms at KU. Now he just has it for me,” Ian told me.
“Everyone else believes all those rumors about me. Why shouldn’t she believe them too? You know, instead of trusting her daughter,” I muttered. “I asked her why, and she said even the most outrageous lies usually have a grain of truth in them.”
“I don’t,” he said, putting his hand under my chin and turning my head so I had to look at him. “I don’t believe a word of it. I don’t know why the rest of the team gives you such a hard time, but I’m sorry. I wish I could make it better for you.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” I sighed. “Trust me, I’ve tried everything. I appreciate you wanting to help, though. Anyway, we should finish this homework, and then I need to see if my mom needs help with dinner before I get another lecture about making her do all the work in this house.”
Why had I just said that? Why had I just volunteered information about what my life was like? Not that he couldn’t have figured that out just based on the past two minutes, but still.
“It’s just the two of you?” he asked.
“Yeah. She and my dad are divorced. We lived in California, but Mom and I moved to Kansas City after the divorce to be closer to her family while she tried to get a fresh start.”
“How old were you?”
“It was the summer after sixth grade,” I sighed.
“I’m sorry. That’s rough. Having to make all new friends after just a year of middle school,” he said sympathetically.
I nodded. “Yeah. But I met Liss on the first day of seventh grade when she helped me clean up my textbooks after I dropped them, and she decided right then and there that we were going to be best friends.”
He chuckled. “She seems like that kind of person. I’m glad you have her.”
“It’s kind of sad that she’s basically my only friend,” I mumbled.
“The rest of the assholes in that school don’t know what they’re missing. Um, do you see your dad much?”
“I go out there during the summer for a few weeks. Not sure if I’m going to go this summer, though. I’ll probably be too busy getting ready to go to college.”
“Do you know where you want to go yet?”
“Either KU or K-State, probably. Sticking close to home. What about you?”
“Both of those schools are interested in me, actually,” he told me. “I’m hoping for KU, though. It’d be nice to be at the same school as my sister. But it all depends on if I get a scholarship.”
“Wait, isn’t your dad a lawyer?” I asked.
“Yeah, but he’s an ADA. A public servant. So he doesn’t get paid a lot.”
“Sorry. It’s none of my business,” I said, shaking my head. I didn’t even know why I’d asked him that.
“It’s okay. I don’t mind. I want you to know me. I want you to be able to see that I’m not hiding anything,” he said, looking me in the eyes.
“I do see that,” I assured him. “If I didn’t see that, I wouldn’t have said yes when you asked me to homecoming. And I wouldn’t have let you talk me into going to the game on Friday.”
“I meant it, by the way. First touchdown on Friday’s for you.”
I giggled, and he kissed my cheek. I stiffened for a second at the unexpected contact, but quickly relaxed, though I felt my cheeks flush as I turned my head away from him.
I wasn’t naïve. I knew what direction we were heading in, but this was beyond terrifying for me. And I needed him to understand that and be okay with taking things at a snail’s pace, even if he didn’t know why.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I didn’t mean to…”
