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“Okay, but I need to swing home to grab my suit.” Yes, Archie had suits I could ‘borrow,’ but I’d rather wear my own.
“Deal,” Jake said. “I’ll run you there while Arch gets things ready.”
Some of the tension bled off as the guys promised to let Ian know the game plan. Back at school, I spent my study hall time in the library actually getting the next round of homework done. Like missing Ian at lunch, I missed Jake in the library. My TA period just had me in the resource room making stacks of copies, so I had loads of time to brood.
Or I did—until Maria walked in with work of her own. “Hey,” she said with a faint smile.
“Hey.” We might not be besties, but at least she’d been kind of sticking up for me with Sharon.
“You need the other copier?” She motioned to the other behemoth just behind me.
“Nope,” I told her, and moved to give her more room. “Just have to make another thousand of these packets.”
With a grimace, Maria slid her backpack off and held up a sheaf papers. “I just have to make forty of these.”
“Cool.”
Look at that. We were being all polite. Maria was taller than I was. Had that lean build to go with it. She also had shorter, much darker hair and the kind of skin tone that always looked sun-kissed. We joked about it in junior high. She didn’t need to tan, all she had to do was look at the sun twice a day. Whereas I needed sunscreen and had to actively work at it, or I’d burn.
Arms folded, I leaned against my copier, keeping an eye on the collated and stapled packs as they came out. It had to cycle through the pages again and again to make the packets. At least the machine did all the work, it was just dreadfully dull.
We were the only two in the resource room. When Maria got the other copier running, the dueling machine noises created a godawful hum.
“Hey, Frankie?”
Oh. Please let’s not talk anymore.We’d been doing so well.
Twisting a little, I glanced at her. “Yep?”
“I’m sorry about the Instagram thing.”
Of all the things she could have said, that wasn’t what I expected. “Okay.” What else was I supposed to say? I lifted my shoulders. “Not like any of it was a lie, right?” Maybe not that.
Smiling faintly, Maria matched my pose with her arms folded. Neither of us wanted to be vulnerable in this conversation. But she was the one who approached me. “Yes and no. Sharon’s…look, I’m not going to make excuses. When Jake asked me to help out with her, I made him meet me to talk about it. I mean, if it was so important to him, then he should be able to do it face to face, right?”
The ground seemed uneven and a little treacherous, but I already knew about their meeting and the fact Maria hadn’t done anything.
“I was kind of bitchy about it—because it let me stick it to Jake.” Maria winced. “While I think he deserves whatever he gets, you didn’t.”
“Thanks,” I said slowly. “I think.”
With a huff of laughter, Maria dropped her folded arms and raked a hand through her shorter hair. “Yeah, that didn’t sound good either. This is so fucking awkward.”
“Little bit,” I admitted. “Look, Maria…I didn’t try to steal Jake from you.”
“I know you didn’t,” she said. “But I did try to take him from you.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“We all did. We all knew they had crushes on you, and it didn’t stop a single one of us.” That kind of went with what I’d overheard from her and Sharon in the bathroom. “Anyway, I should have tried a little harder. Just—look, be careful of Sharon. She’s not usually vindictive.”
“Wait, we are talking about the same girl who TP’d Mr. Blaisdell’s yard after he gave her a C in Texas History, right?”
That had been seventh grade, but still.
Eyes rounding, Maria laughed. “Oh my god, I forgot about that.”
I lifted my shoulders. “Just saying.”
