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“I don’t have a problem with rich kids,” Noah says—how magnanimous of him!—“but girls like you don’t hook up with guys like me.”
Girls like me? I cross my arms and tilt an eyebrow.
“You’ve never met a girl like me.”
He sighs, then lifts one hand to rub at his jaw thoughtfully. My eyes fall to his hands, and I resist the urge to bite my lip. He has nice hands, too. Nice, big hands, with short fingernails—surprisingly clean for a gardener—and prominent veins. His knuckles are a little bruised up.
He thinks for a moment. Then, to my surprise, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, swiping the cracked screen. “Alright, then. When do you wanna do this?”
I blink. “Do what?”
“Whatever you wanna do. Hang out.” He tilts his head a little to the side, catching my eyes. “Hook up.”
There’s a quickening in my chest because before, this was just a plan, but now, it’s very much crystallising into reality. I thought if I gave him the chance to text him it would put him on the back foot, keep me in a position of power, but now he’s calling my bluffI’m the one on the back foot.
Now. This was my plan, right? It’s just going better than I anticipated. Given how disastrously my previous plan failed, I didn’t expect this one to go so smoothly. Noah doesn’t seem to be interested in playing games or over-complicating things.
“You actually want to hook up?” I ask, just to make sure there are no misunderstandings between us.
He shrugs. “Yeah. Why not?”
Why not? It’s not exactly a passionate declaration of love—or lust. Is this how normal people date? This complete and utter lack of game-playing is throwing me off. If anything, this feels like it’s a game beyond a game, a game on a level I’ve never experienced before.
I want to ask if he likes me, if he thinks I’m pretty, if he likes my outfit, if he wants to see me naked—but it would be too embarrassing to ask any of that. I want to ask him what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling, but I’m not even sure he’s feeling or thinking anything. And if I ask him why he wants to hook up, he might return the question, and I don’t want him to know he’s my ticket to getting my trust fund back.
The most important thing is to keep my cool.
Just because I’ve never done something like this without someone like him doesn’t mean I should allow myself to get flustered.
Besides, he seems pretty calm and collected, and I refuse to be less calm and collected than a gardener working part-time jobs to fund his mom’s wedding. That would be even more embarrassing than Evan’s weird obsession with Sophie Sutton. Because at least Sophie goes to Spearcrest, and she’s smart enough to end up in a top university.
This guy is not Sophie Sutton—and I’m not Evan. I’m going to be the one in control.
“Alright,” I say, throwing on my airy voice like a disguise. “What are you doing tomorrow?”
“I can’t do tomorrow,” he says, waving a hand. “I’m working.”
“What about the evening?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“I’ve got training.”
I frown. “Training? What do you do?”
“Boxing.”
I glance down at his hands, at the bruised knuckles. His phone wallpaper, his big arms, his broken nose and the faint bruising on his cheek are all making sense now.
A boxer. That’s so rough.
My father is going to hate that.
“Fine,” I say, even though I want to ask him a hundred questions. “When are you free, then?”
He flicks through his phone. “Mm… Thursday evenings I’m free after training. Town is going to be dead, but you can come mine if you like.”
Everything is happening so fast I’m reeling. Thursday is a school night—I’d have to sneak out, but there are plenty of ways to do that. How will I make my way to his? I could book a taxi to pick me up on the main road and take me to his.
His.
