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Her voice was accusing. “Jade never said.”
“Jade doesn’t know,” he returned, voice flat. “No one does.”
Madison’s mind was whirling a mile a minute; I could see it in her eyes. Her lips twisted in their pixie-like grimace. I expected her to ask why we were keeping it a secret—it was a legitimate question. The boy who’d been sitting at the window had stood up and was now focused on our table. No, not focused on our table, focused onMadison. Like she’d been the person he’d been waiting on.
“You two are seriously…” She trailed off with a harsh laugh, glancing around the café in disbelief. “You have a death wish, you know that? Lie to your girlfriend, check. Meet upin public, check. What if I was someone else, huh? Someone with a cell phone to text Babble?”
I inwardly flinched at the idea of someone submitting a tip to Babble. To have Ava find out that way was almost as scary as Jade finding out.
“That’s what happened in the hookup closet, right? Don’t be so surprised. I knew you were in there with someone, Connor. It was Maisie, right?” She turned to me. “You were tutoring in there? What the hell is wrong with the library?”
My thoughts had practically mirrored that sentiment exactly.
The boy who had been watching the conversation had stepped up behind Madison then, his head appearing over her shoulder. His blonde hair was long and tucked behind his ears, his bright blue gaze focused only on her as he gently trailed a finger down her arm. “People are beginning to stare.”
The familiarity in the stranger’s voice caused me to squint at him, that and the delicate way he touched her. Madison relaxed ever so slightly at the contact, knowing exactly who it was without even looking. “You askedMaisieto be your tutor?” she demanded of Connor, who focused on the table like Madison wasn’t there. “Seriously?”
“It’s not like Brentwood has a lot of tutors.”
“Did you ask her before or after the Most Likely Tos?”
If possible, Connor froze further. I couldn’t figure out why the answer mattered. Who cared if he needed a tutor before or after I was nominated Most Likely To: Marry A Math Book? Connor didn’t break her stare, the mask of zero emotion perfectly in place. “Don’t tell Jade.”
He had to see that it was a ridiculous request. Madison had declared her loyalties to Jade years ago—no way Madison would double back on her simply because Connor asked.
“Oh?” She folded her arms across her chest. “And why not?”
“If you tell her about the tutoring, I can tell her about this.” Connor tipped his chin at the boy over her shoulder. “Because I’m pretty sure I remember you telling Jade you’d stop seeing him.”
The two were caught in a stare down, one that made me shift uncomfortably. I couldn’t bring myself to check and see if anyone at the coffee shopwasstarting to stare, like the blonde boy had claimed, but I couldn’t deny that it felt like we were causing a scene.
“You wouldn’t,” Madison said finally. “I know you, Connor. You’re too much of a peacemaker to snitch.”
It was funny—as soon as she said it, I had to agree with her. I couldn’t imagine Connor truly using this as blackmail. “I would.” I sat up straighter, totally over letting her plow her way through the conversation. “I’ve done it before. My best friend runs Babble, after all. I could have her posting about it in minutes.”
Once more, we were in a standoff, waiting for the other to back down first. Madison narrowed her eyes at me, like we were caught in a no-blinking contest. I wouldn’t be blinking first.
“Fine,” she ultimately said, voice deceptively light. She spoke to Connor’s profile, voice ice. “I won’t say anything. But when everything blows up in your face, I’ll be the first to say I told you so.”
With one last well-placed glare at both Connor and me, Madison turned on her heel, grabbed ahold of the blonde boy’s hand, and strode straight out of the coffeehouse.
The residual tension lingered even after they both walked out, too thick to talk around. I stared at the textbooks in front of us, and for the first time, math read like gibberish to me. My limbs shook as unused adrenaline worked its way through my bloodstream. What had we been expecting, meeting in public like this? Madison was right—it was a wonder we hadn’t been caught yet.
Connor’s mask had slipped at some point after Madison stormed off. Tightness lingered behind his eyes now, along with something similar to worry. “I don’t think she’ll say anything,” I told him, desperate to ease the stiff atmosphere. “And I don’t think anything will blow up in your face.”
In an instant, the mask was back in place, shielding his inner thoughts from me for the first time in a long while. Connor picked up his pencil and tapped it against his notebook twice. “Yeah, you’re right. Let’s get back to our tutoring session.”
Connor began copying the rest of the page down, but even when it was time to walk him through the steps, everything had shifted. His mood, my mood, the friendly banter between us. Madison’s appearance had dashed all of that. It felt more like my previous tutoring sessions now, less personal, more surface level. By the time I brought my hot chocolate to my lips, the temperature had cooled considerably, leaving a lukewarm taste in my mouth.
* * *
My happy place was anywhere a mathematics worksheet was, even if that place was the Center Inspire art gallery. Mom had enlisted my help after school Tuesday to help her fold up brochures, and once I’d finished—about a thousand paper cuts later—I was free to finally work on a sheet Mrs. Diego had given me. After spending so much time on Algebra II with Connor, it was a breath of fresh air to get back to the wonderful world of Calculus.
∫cot²x dx equals to…?
Without missing a bit, I filled in the circle of the multiple-choice question.-cot x – x + C.
It was easy to get lost in functions and integrals, and with the way that life was playing out lately, math made for an easy distraction.
