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“What are you doing, Beau?” Her words are curious more than accusing.
I lift my gaze to meet her eyes. “Thank you,” I blurt.
Her eyebrows knit together. “For what?”
“Uh. For helping me graduate high school and making sure I didn’t get kicked off the team.”
She tilts her head. “I didn’t get to tutor you during the home stretch, the final semester. That was all you, buddy.”
“But it was you that inspired me to work harder.”
“So you didn’t spend second semester senior year making out with what’s-her-name in the stacks?”
I shake my head no. “Ashlyn dumped me after she got early acceptance somewhere out East. I told her I was determined to play the game in Texas for the rest of my life, come hell or high water. She didn't like that too much. Never mind that I didn't have Ivy League grades or money.”
Mary backs off and straightens her back, and my body silently screams at the distance between us. “Wow. She could have at least held out until prom.”
And here’s where it gets super awkward. “Thing is, I was relieved she dumped me.”
Mary’s lips part. She watches me warily. “Why would you be relieved?”
“Because I wanted to ask you to prom.”
ChapterFour
Mary
Are you fucking kidding me?
“Is this part of the joke?” I hate that I can’t control the wavering of my voice.
“What joke?” He looks confused, but then again, I’m used to that look.
I gesture to the red and brown plaid bow tie at his neck. “That ridiculous bow tie, the Oxford shirt, and the world’s ugliest blazer I’ve ever seen. It’s 86 degrees in this building, and you’re sweating like you just ran a marathon. You aren’t taking any of this seriously.”
“Now, hold on a minute. Will you slow down and listen to me?” Beau wipes his brow with the back of his meaty hand, then looks around the room erratically, muttering about needing a chair for me to sit in so we can talk.
The legs of his desk chair scrape along the aging hardwood. “Here. Sit. I want to set the record straight right the hell now.”
Well, he sounds pretty serious.
It’s hot as hell, and I wouldn’t mind sitting for a second. There are no other plain chairs in this classroom, so Beau gets the bright idea to drag one of the student desks over to where I am.
“Beau, this isn’t necessary,” I say, but he is undeterred in making a big production of this conversation. Once he plants the desk in front of me, he struggles to sit in it.
“What the hell, did these desks shrink since I went here?”
I sigh and cover my eyes. “No, Beau. You got bigger.”
Peeking through my fingers, I watch him try to shoehorn his giant body into it, but it’s no use.
“No way, dude, they put a preschool-sized desk in here by accident.”
“They did not,” I say.
“Ah fuck it,” he says, pushing the desk aside and accidentally knocking it over.
“That’ll teach it,” I say, looking forlornly at the upturned desk.
