AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Come on, sit down,” Caleb said when I came out of the bedroom, looking up from dumping eggs and toast and what looked like leftover garlic potato wedges from last night out of a pan and onto plates. “You look nice.”
I looked exactly the way I always did, it was a weird compliment, but I guess I didn’t mind hearing it, even if exactly-the-way-I-always-did was actually closer to what I was going for.
“I forgot to give you these yesterday, but here,” he said, sliding a set of keys across the table. Just four keys on a simple ring, no crazy keychains. “The gold one is the building key, the other two are the apartment, and then the mail. You should change your address so your Donovan stuff starts coming here.”
“Change my address,” I repeated, and that sounded fucking ridiculous.
“Yeah. If you get something important you don’t want it going over there,” he said, likeover therewasn’t where I’d lived my whole life. But somehow that sounded ridiculous too. Just seemed like I fit here so much better even if I didn’t.
“You know me three seconds and you give me the keys to your place?” I picked them up, jingling them in my hand. “I could rob you, you know.”
He snorted. “I’ve known you a lot longer than that. And I guess I trust you not to rob me. On the off chance I’m wrong, I’ll just hunt you down and paddle your thieving ass until I get all my stuff back.”
“Why do I feel like you’re not even kidding.”
“I’m not. But I don’t think you’d do that. You’re not nearly as awful as you want everyone to think you are.”
“Don’t ruin my reputation Beast,” I muttered, and shoved the keys into my pocket, sitting down to eat goddamn breakfast like that was a thing I did now.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The drive to school seriouslytook like two minutes, so short I felt like we should have walked. But that would have been weirder, I guess, strolling down the block together instead of just walking in from the parking lot and parting ways at the lockers.
I underestimated— or didn’t estimate at all, actually— how much I was not going to like being away from him until fifth period, and as much as I hated to admit it, I kind of got the holding hands in the hallway, being annoying and kissing in front of people’s lockers thing. Not that I was into that kind of bullshit PDA, but just… after sitting next to him on the couch and across from him at the table and laying next to him in bed the last couple of days, walking into Algebra with him nowhere in sight, I just felt kind of naked or something.
“Hey.” I dropped down beside Walker, and he yawned and stretched back in his chair, turning my way and looking wiped.
“Hey.”
“How was your double?” I asked him, remembering practice like it had totally fallen out of my head. The Sharks chat on my phone had been quiet after Sunday practice, and Ellis hadn’t even texted bugging me to hang out.
Walker made a face. “Brutal. You ever do one-on-one with Ellis when he’s in a shit mood?”
Seemed like he was in a shit mood himself, but I didn’t mention it. “Yeah, I don’t know, maybe. I can imagine it.”
“Yeah, well now imagine Coach T off some kind of team building seminar or something, yelling crap about leaders needing to be followers and toxic… bridges, or I don’t even know what.”
“Sounds like a blast.”
“We were there till fucking six-thirty, I wanna die.” He yawned so huge I could see his tonsils, shaking his head. “Sorry you got stuck with clean up. Should have been me, I don’t know why he did that.”
“It’s fine, I don’t care. I was off my game too.”
“You looked okay. He’s just being a dick.”
“Did it… help? The… whatever. Teambuilding?”
“You mean do I still suck?” he asked, rubbing at his head and groaning.
“Nobody’s saying that. Off days happen.”
“Not to me. I don’t know. It feels normal and then… doesn’t. Comes out of my hand wrong.”
Neither of us said the wordyips, but it might as well have been written on the board, I could see it in my head like it was spelled out in Caleb’s refrigerator magnets.
“You’re just thinking too much,” I said, like it was no big deal. “Just relax. It’ll fix itself. No problem.”
“Hard not to think about it when it’s all anybody talks about. Ellis is gonna kill me with his bullshit. Or I’m gonna kill him. Why the fuck is he like that?”
