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“The super-hot basketball sophmore . . .?”
The memory of a tall, curvy brunette with curly hair registered with a crushing wave of relief.
“Right. But if you’re going with Beth, who’s Mia going with?” My stomach clenched as I waited for his answer.
“No one yet. But sheisgoing, even if I have to drag her.”
Interesting . . .
“I mean, I could always take her,” I said with a casual shrug. “It’d get Olivia off my back.”
Ethan barked out a laugh. “You guys would kill each other.”
“I can play nice for one night,” I said, thinking of just how nice I’d like to be with the strawberry-blonde spitfire.
“No way. I’m pretty sure she’d rather take a pencil to the eye than go to the dance with you, dude. No offense,” he added.
“Harsh.”
Ethan shrugged, then went back to his phone, which told me this conversation was over and I got all the information he was willing to give on that particular matter, so I turned around and headed for my room.
Mia may be passionate in her dislike of me, but I knew the truth. Hidden beneath that smoldering ember of hatred was burning desire. And all it would take was one spark for us to go up in flames.
Chapter 11
MIA
SchoolonFridaywasuneventful, thank goodness. No one said anything else about the gym incident, and only a few people commented on my eye. The rest probably had already chalked it up to just another fight between us. After all, it was no secret we were enemies.
I spent most of the weekend hanging out with Ethan. Sunday was no exception, and we spent the majority of it lazing about in his room since the weather was cold and rainy. At the moment, I was currently lounging on his bedroom floor, staring up at the ceiling, thinking of how much cooler Carson’s room was compared to his—not that I would ever tell Ethan that.
I groaned and shook more chips from the bag into my bowl. “I don’t want tomorrow to be Monday.”
“Why? You have a killer test or something?” Ethan asked, taking a handful of chips.
“No. I promised Mr. Bell I’d come to school early so I could show a newb around. You know, give them a tour and all that.” And if tomorrow’s Monday, that meant today was Sunday, and the time I’d have to spend with Carson was fast approaching.
“Oh.” Ethan wiggled his brows. “New guy?”
“Uh, no. It’s a freshman and a girl,” I said. My sister had asked me the same thing when she called.
Ethan grunted. “Why are you always helping Bell out, anyway? It’s not like you get anything out of it. Plus, he punished you. Shouldn’t you hate him and be retaliating or something?”
“No,” I said, not meeting his eye. “I help because he asked, and I don’t want him to get mad if he can’t find anyone.”
“It’s Mr. Bell. He’s always mad at everyone. It’s his job. You don’t always have to do what makes everyone else happy, you know. Sometimes you can say no. Do what you want. You never had any trouble telling Ella no when she was around.”
I kept my head down, intently staring at my chips, because that was different. I could tell Ella to bug-off and she’d never even so much as bat an eye, let alone think less of me. I could be as snarky and anti-social as I wanted and she loved me just the same. But now she was gone and I felt like I had to be perfect to fill her shoes.
“Mia,” Ethan said, “look at me.”
“What?” I shrugged, trying to look innocent. “Listen, I don’t need one of your lectures, okay? It’s fine. I’m fine. It gets me out of the house, anyway.”
Ethan sighed, grumbling something under his breath about being a perfect that I chose to ignore. So what if I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. Was that such a crime?
And okay, maybe I’d gotten worse since Ella left. Other than Ethan, she was the one person I could be myself with. The one person who I could never disappoint when it felt like everyone else expected me to be the perfect student, the perfect daughter. Besides, I’d promised her when she left in August that I would live it up this year, put myself out there.So that’s what I was doing, wasn’t it? And since I couldn’t trust myself to regulate my social life, I’d decided I would never turn down an invitation. Even if it was one from Mr. Bell to help another student out in their time of need.
I glanced at my watch and moaned. It was almost noon, which meant I’d soon have to leave for Bake and Batter to set up the Angel Tree. Every time I thought about having to spend time with Carson again one-on-one, my stomach twisted. But I wasn’t nervous. I was anxious. Big difference.
