AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I stopped trying to look at Eddie without looking like I was looking at Eddie and answered Tex, “Not exactly.”
“Shame.” Tex bit into the square, chewed twice and his eyes got huge, “Fuck!” he exploded, chocolate and caramel flying out of his mouth.
My heart seized. He looked like he was going to have a chocolate-caramel-layer-square-induced heart attack.
“Tex!” Indy yelled, “You’re spewing all over the food!”
Tex ignored Indy and was staring at me.
“These are unbe-fucking-lievable. I think I’ve finally fallen in love, with a fuckin’ brownie!
It was a nice thing to say, especially from Tex. I smiled at him, full-on, forgetting for a second that Eddie was there.
Only a second, because Eddie muttered something under his breath and I looked at him, still smiling a bit. Then I realized where I was, about four inches away from Eddie Chavez, and the smile died on my face. He was still staring at me, but now he was staring at my mouth.
I felt my knees get a bit weak.
There was one thing on my mind…escape, escape,escape!
I turned back to Indy, “Thanks for asking me. Please ask me again.”
Indy was looking at Eddie when I talked to her and I noticed that so was Hank. Then both Indy and Hank’s eyes moved back to me and they both were sort of grinning.
“You’re always invited, girl,” Indy said.
It felt tremendously cool that she said that to me and I smiled at her. Then, there was a break in the crush behind me.
I started to go but Eddie grabbed my wrist.
“Hang on, Jet,” he said.
I looked down at my wrist, then up at him. I felt his toucheverywhere. It was like his fingers hit a switch, and I was a light bulb and he turned me on—a total-body, electric shock.
Panic went through me and I pulled my wrist away. If I hadn’t, I’d have thrown myself at him, right in front of his date. That would have been far more humiliating than the cup incident, I’m pretty sure.
His hands came up, palms out, and his face closed down.
“What?” I asked, because I couldn’t string two words together. Even if someone told me they could cure my mom, make her walk steady and give her back her arm, I still couldn’t have said more than “what.”
“Forget it,” he said and turned away.
That’s when I fled.
* * *
That was strike two. Strike three was even worse.
* * *
For the next couple of months, I totally avoided Eddie.
This was kind of hard to do, considering he was most definitely not avoiding me.
Before Indy’s party, Eddie came in every once in a while, got a cup of coffee, had a chat and left. After Indy’s party, Eddie came in all the time, got a cup of coffee, had a chat and hung around to torture me.
Let me explain about Eddie Torture.
Once, Jane and I were going through a box of used books that Jane bought. We were going to put some on the shelves, but most of them were going in the dollar bin.
