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Maria glared at her briefly, then looked at me. “Can you just think about it?”
“Nothing to think about,” I told her, and if we were done, I was heading back to our table. “I get where you’re coming from. But this isn’t something that you need me to do. It’s something you want me to make happen, and I can’t—no matter what the circumstances are.” I couldn’t push the guys to do something they didn’t want to do.
“Well…” Patty said, drawing a finger in a line against the table. “If you change your mind… might just make the year a little easier.”
“You—”
I slapped a hand against Jake’s chest and shook my head. “See you girls later.”
“Yeah, later,” Maria said as Jake transferred his glare to me.
I hoped my expression saiddon’tas much as my head screamed it. His jaw tightened, but he nodded and backed up a step so I could pass him. It took him a minute to follow me, and then he fell into step.
“You alright?” he asked as we circled the other tables. Sharon was just entering the room, and she glared at me.
Yeah, no pretense there.
Good to know.
“I’m fine,” I told him. See, I’d gotten that phrase down. “They wanted to talk. We talked. All good. How was practice?”
Cause that had to have sucked.
He made a face. “It was practice, boring as fuck sitting there watching everyone else. But Coach figures it will be good to teach me some patience.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Eh,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll live. I might even nap if he stops checking on me.” The last he added with a wink.
At our table, the others all gave me a quick look. “All good?” Ian asked. “Since Mr. Impatience there couldn’t wait for you to finish your conversation.”
“Eat me, you weren’t thrilled about her being over there either,” Jake retaliated as he pulled out my chair and moved my backpack so I could sit.
“But I, at least, was able to control myself and wait,” Ian retorted with a smirk.
“Frankie thinks my ass is a seven, but won’t give me a scale. Discuss.”
I groaned as Coop utterly derailed them and I was the sudden focus of two sets of blue eyes. “What does that make us?” Jake asked.
“Yeah,” Ian said slowly. “Kind of curious about that.”
“Good luck, she won’t give me a score either,” Archie stated. “And I asked first.”
I shot Coop my middle finger, and he beamed at me.
Ass.
By lunchtime,we had new subjects to discuss—like the huge lit project Coop and I just picked up, the upcoming test in Calculus, and Archie and Jake were having a heated debate about their robotics project. It was kind of surreal to discuss genre while at the same time they were arguing the laws of Robotics as written by Asimov, and Ian made notes on his song list under the guise of asking me calculus questions.
It was hilarious and relaxing after a day of whispered conversations, stares, and really less than subtle finger pointing. I was not looking forward to study hall in the library. Jake and I were usually left alone, but that didn’t seem as likely today, and he was already grumpy.
Eating off-campus had just been the safer option. Back at school, we checked in with the study hall proctor before we headed to the library. It was the first time we’d been alone, really, since Sunday night. The time in the SRO’s office didn’t really count; we hadn’t been able to talk.
Even though we had our books open to read, catching up on the day before, we kept glancing at each other. Pressing his foot against mine, he asked, “Are we still keeping PDAs to a minimum at school?”
I grinned. “Yes.”
“Damn,” he whisper-grumbled. “You’re looking particularly adorable at the moment.”
