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“But water polo…” she teased, knowing that was what his parents had kept saying he should do instead.
He sniffed and turned around, walking backward so he could face her. “Not for me. The whole scene. They wouldn’t have wanted me anyway—at least not without a monster donation from the family. My math score on the SAT was somewhere in the range of drunk monkey with a calculator.”
O’Neal laughed. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“Bad enough. But Maya said you’re a lock to get into Wainwright, that your junior year SAT scores beat all the seniors this year. Nice job, smarty pants.” When she shrugged, trying to act like his praise didn’t send little sparks through her, he gave her a wry look. “Maya, on the other hand, is convinced she’s going to be waitlisted and that her life will pretty much be over.”
O’Neal rolled her eyes at the familiar lamenting. “Maya will get in. She’s as much of a lock as I am with all her extracurriculars.”
When they stepped into the kitchen, O’Neal had expected Maya to be waiting for them, but the sunny room was empty, and the pool glittering outside the back windows was also quiet. Auden disappeared into the laundry room for a few seconds and came back wearing a navy blue T-shirt. He went to the fridge, grabbed two cans of LaCroix, and tossed her the tangerine-flavored one, remembering her favorite.
“Maya should be here any minute. She called and said she and Mom lost track of time shopping.”
“Shocking,” O’Neal said with a smile.
“Yeah, they turn it into a sport. I’d rather sit through ten math classes than get stuck shopping that long.” He leaned against the kitchen island and took a sip of his grapefruit-flavored water. “So are you excited about senior year?”
She opened the can, the sound loud in the quiet kitchen, and shrugged. “Sure.”
He lifted his brows. “Wow, with that level of enthusiasm, it’s a wonder you’re not on the pep squad. Is it because you’re just ready to get it over with and get to Wainwright?”
“I’m definitely ready to get to college.” She leaned back against the counter, the can sweating against her fingertips. “But I’m in the process of readjusting my expectations about what that’s going to look like.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” she hedged, fiddling with the tab on her can. “We went on a tour at the beginning of summer, and I found out that they don’t have a journalism program, so that kind of threw me. I guess I shouldn’t have assumed they’d have one. I’m going to have to be an English major like Maya instead.”
He frowned. “No, you don’t.”
“Uh, yeah. I do,” she said between sips of water. “Nothing else really fits what I want to do. I mean, I guess I could major in history or something. That could be—”
“No, I mean, you don’t have to do that because you don’t have to go there,” he said, his tone shockingly nonchalant.
She scoffed. “Oh, right. Yeah, I don’t have to go to the school that my grandparents have been preparing me for my whole life, the one other people would give their right arm to go to if they could.”
Auden set his drink down and eyed her, an oddly intense look on his face. “Key words:grandparentsandothers.Yourgrandparentswant you to go there.Otherswant to go there. But maybe…you don’t?”
She couldn’t process the question. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” he said, giving her a pointed look. “I’m not saying Wainwright isn’t a great school. I know Maya will love it because their creative writing program is supposed to be top-notch, and it looks damn fancy on a resume or whatever. But that doesn’t mean it’s the school for everyone. Just because it’s exclusive and expensive doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for you. If they don’t have your major, then go somewhere that does.”
O’Neal laughed because the idea was so ludicrous.Go somewhere that does.“I can’t just pick a random school. My grandparents are paying my way. I think the only other thing they’d accept besides Wainwright is like a nunnery or something. You do remember my grandparents, right? They won’t even let me group date or go to prom because boys and drinking and sin, oh my.”
His flat-mouthed expression said he was unimpressed with her argument. “You’re not dating anyone because you don’t want to, not because your grandparents told you not to.”
She stiffened. “What? You know how they—”
“I know you’re smart, and there are ways around rules if someone wants something badly enough,” he countered. “You’ve never wanted anyone that much, so you haven’t bothered to figure out how to break the rule.”
Her lips parted for a rebuttal but none came.
Auden gave her a knowing smile, and his gaze drifted from her face to her feet and back up, making her suddenly self-conscious of the white shorts and yellow sleeveless top she’d chosen. “Come on, O’Neal. You’re seventeen, right?”
Hearing her real name on his lips instead of Shaq made a tendril of awareness move through her. Suddenly, she felt very young next to him. “Eighteen. I was held back in kindergarten because I missed so much school that year.”
“So you’re already legally an adult and will be nineteen when you graduate,” he said matter-of-factly. “I get why your grandparents are overprotective. I know they’ve been through a lot.You’vebeen through a lot.”
She looked down, hating when the subject of her mother came up.
