Page 18

Nine
Conner
We should’ve stayed upstairs.
After my weird freak-out, I practically flew down the back stair that fed into the kitchen. I don’t know what happened. Why I got so mad. I just know I didn’t like hearing her talk about herself that way. Not so much the words she used but her tone. Accepting. Direct. Like the fact that I’d never be into her was just that. A fact. One everyone knew.
Everyone but me.
By the time she caught up, I had her backpack yanked open and was digging through it.
“Wait—”
When I look up, she’s rushing across the kitchen, her face screwed up and bright red. I immediately jerk my hands free. “I was just getting your calculus book,” I explain, remembering the way she reacted the last time I reached into her backpack. “I forgot mine at school.”
“No, it’s not that,” she says, pulling it toward her, across the table. “The zipper is broke.” Her head is bent over, examining it carefully. “If you don’t open it just right, it takes forever to get it back together.”
“Oh…” Shit. “I’m sorry,” I say, reaching for it. “Here, let me see if I can—”
“No,” she says, jerking it out of my grasp. “It’s fine.” She drops the backpack on the floor and sits down. “I’ll fix it later. Let’s just get started.”
I sit down across from her, watching while she opens her book and retrieves her binder and pencils. She’s all business. There’s no ridiculous hair flipping or going out of her way to find reasons to touch me. Every movement has a purpose. Everything about her has meaning. Reason.
I like it.
I like her.
A lot.
She looks up and catches me staring.
“What?” She cocks an eyebrow at me. “Do I have something on my face?” It’s the same thing I said to her at the library yesterday, and it makes me laugh.
“Just a bunch of freckles,” I say, reaching out on impulse to tug at the end of her bright orange braid.
She goes beet red in the space of a second and swats my hand away. I let go, leaning back in my seat with a grin, still looking at her.
Clearing her throat, she looks down at her open textbook, tapping her pencil against the page. “Can we work now, please?”
Work. Right.
I drop the grin and sit up in my seat. “Yes.”
“Okay.” She falters for a moment like she didn’t expect me to be wrangled so easily. “What do you need help with?”
I push back the smile that tugs at my mouth. “All of it.”
“Seriously?” She scowls at me when I nod. “How did you end up in AP Calculus?”
I give her a shrug. I’ve lied enough. I don’t want to dig myselfin any deeper.
Within minutes she’s reviewing today’s lesson, explaining formulas and equations.
She’s a good teacher. Patient. Thorough. Explains stuff to me over and over when I pretend not to understand. Answers every dumb question I ask without so much as a sigh or an eye roll.
Everything’s going fine until my mom decides to be nosey. She comes in and starts digging around in the fridge, pulling stuff out to make dinner, even though dinner isn’t until seven and it’s barely 4:30 in the afternoon.
Pretending is harder with her around. Every time I ask Henley a question, my mom makes a noise like she’s trying to keep herself from laughing. I glare at her over the top of Henley’s head, and she shrugs, giving me an innocent, what did I do? kind of look.