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He tugs again, shaking his hips to the music in a way that is clearly supposed to be cheesy but is actually just hot.
“Aw, c’mon, you know you want to,” he calls over the music, grinning wildly at me, cheeks flushed, and eyes hooded beneath those long dark lashes. Totally in the moment. Not a care in the world. Just so… carefree.
And no, I so do not want to join him. What I want is for the floor to swallow me whole right now.
I pull my hand free of his again, backing way up this time. And he seems to get the message that I am not just being coy. That I legitimately do not want to dance with him. He doesn’t seem too bummed, though, and goes for Graham, instead, who just shakes his head once.
“Nope. You guys do your thing. I’m gonna stay on the sidelines with Caroline here and pretend you’re not both making complete asses of yourselves right now.”
Well, at least I’m not the only party pooper in the room.
“Suit yourselves,” Dale calls. “More space on the dancefloor for us. Am I right, Seb?”
And the two of them go all out for their grand finale. Dale attempts the splits on the final note, then Sebastian tries to haul him back to his feet but loses his balance and falls in a heap next to him instead, because he’s laughing too hard to get back up.
And I’m laughing again, too. So hard my belly hurts. And when I pull out of the driveway an hour and a half later, I’m actually… happy. Even though I just spent the afternoon socializing. With Sebastian Murdoch—football jock, attention-seeker, troublemaker and total player. But also, maybe, a pretty nice guy.
Chapter Fourteen
Caroline
Ihavenoideawhat to expect the next day at school. Whether Sebastian will ignore me, or acknowledge me, or acknowledge me but in a mean way, just to counteract any possible kickback that might come his way once people find out he’s actually been(gasp!)associating with Fish Girl.
I’m really hoping he’ll ignore me. That would be the best-case scenario. The least likely to incur the wrath or ridicule from other students. Mainly, other girls. Mainly, Sebastian Murdoch’s legion of fandom-level admirers.
Still, the thought of Sebastian completely ignoring me leaves a bad taste in my mouth. My visit to his house yesterday has thrown me off. As in, I don’t know how to feel about it. About Sebastian, I mean—because there is a lot about him that’s different from what I expected. Okay, maybe not a lot, but definitely some things. And that has the potential to make my SH Prep situation difficult to navigate going forward… if I can’t just keep Sebastian slotted in the convenient “arrogant dumb jock” category. Because that’s a category I’ve at least figured out how to handle (mainly: avoid, avoid, avoid). But if it turns out he’s somethingelse, as I now suspect he might be, well, that’s going to require re-jigging my entire high school survival road map, since I’ll be seeing him on a frequent basis. And I’m not sure I have the desire, or the energy, to re-work a game plan that took so long to fine-tune.
Sebastian wanders into civics with his buddy Xavier a couple of minutes before last bell, his dirty-blond hair tucked beneath a faded backward-facing ball cap. He’s got a sucker in his mouth and the lollipop-ball cap combo makes him look almost boyish.
The chest muscles straining beneath his navy t-shirt, however, are anything but boyish.
His eyes widen in recognition when he spots me at the back of the room and his mouth splits into a grin around the sucker, flashing me his straight, slightly cherry-tinted teeth. Or maybe it’s strawberry.
Xavier follows his gaze to see who he’s smiling at and gives me one of those casual chin-lift greetings cool guys are so good at. I offer a cursory smile in return, then look away, in order to keep anyone else from noticing their acknowledgement of Fish Girl. But I can’t deny there’s a part of me that is kind of pleased, that Sebastian acknowledged me in public like this. Even though, for the sake of trying to remain invisible, I wish he hadn’t.
Once everyone’s seated, Mr. Hogan announces that we’ll be starting the class with a pop quiz on the assigned reading chapters, and I bask in a moment of self-righteousness since I could tell Sebastian doubted my prediction last night. He turns in his seat a few rows down at the announcement and his eyes go right to me, almost comically wide in panic.
I’m aware of a few kids around me glancing curiously in my direction, clearly confused because it’s pretty obvious Sebastian is staring right at me. At Fish Girl. The one person in class nobody ever acknowledges. Let alone looks at directly, except to ridicule.
That’s all it takes: one wide-eyed look from Sebastian Murdoch, for all my hard work at becoming invisible to suddenly burst open. I try ignoring him, but that just makes it worse, because people become even more curious. So I give him a meek two-thumbs up, forearms resting on my desk, so myyou totally got thisgesture draws as little attention as possible.
Sebastian nods, looks over at Mr. Hogan who’s already started handing out the quiz, then he looks back at me, eyes still round and panicked.
“I think I’m fucked,” he whispers and I smile without meaning to.
I shake my head. “Remember the cue cards,” I mouth. “You’ll be fine.”
His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows, then he nods again. Just once. Then gives me a nervous smile. And I know it’s a stupid thing to do, but I smile back.
I mean, Sebastian Murdoch… nervous? Who knew?
He swivels in his seat again halfway through the test and flashes me a cocky grin that tells me he’s doing ok so far with his answers and is stunned as hell about it. And I smile back. Again.
“Eyes on your paper, Sebastian,” Mr. Hogan calls and Sebastian’s head snaps back, his tall body shifting to face forward again, long legs stretched out into the aisle. He finishes the test with no further glances in my direction.
When Mr. Hogan collects our tests ten minutes later, Sebastian swivels again to face me.
“Nailed it!”
