Page 52 of Attractive Forces

I trudge out of English and almost walk straight into one hundred and fifty pounds of rugby player.

Logan. He’s waiting for me.

He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Just having his gorgeous eyes on me makes me slightly lightheaded. I can’t believe I got to kiss him.

“Hey, man,” he says.

“Hey.”

Neither of us chooses to expand on our highly original conversation. We just continue to stare at each other. The silence stretches until I can’t stand it anymore.

“We cool?” I ask.

Logan lowers his voice. “I would have thought we were better than cool, actually.”

My breath leaves me. Okay, he’s obviously not completely regretting it.

“Around the seventy-degree mark?” I asked.

“I was thinking over one hundred degrees. Scorching.”

“Wait, are we talking the Fahrenheit or Celsius scale?”

He breaks into a huge grin. “You’re geeking this up too?”

I shrug, breaking into a smile myself. “Why change the habits of a lifetime?”

And we’re standing there, grinning at each other in the middle of the hallway.

Logan seems to realize it because he breaks eye contact to gaze down the hall.

“I’ve got rugby practice after school, but you want to meet up after that? I can come pick you up?”

My heart goes into its little arrhythmia pattern that’s now such a common occurrence around Logan. “Yeah, okay.”

“See you then.”

Logan messagesme when he’s leaving rugby practice, so I abandon my calculus homework to get ready. I change my shirt and pull on a clean sweater before swiping my hands through my hair a couple of times in an attempt to get it to behave.

And okay, okay, I brush my teeth too. But it’s important to practice good dental hygiene.

As I head down the stairs, the noise of the next war reaches me. Forget a world war. This is on the scale of an intergalactic battle.

Apparently, Mum arrived home from her shift and asked Aaron to clean up the mess he left in the kitchen. And Aaron has decided her request violates his constitutional rights to be an asshole or something, yelling at her about how unfair it is and how everything is shit.

When I enter the room, Mum turns away from the shouting match to look me up and down. “Where are you going?”

“Just out with a friend.”

She huffs out a sigh. “I’d appreciate your backup right now.”

I start to apologize but then clamp my mouth shut. Because stuff it. It’s not my job to be the dad in this situation. I’ve got enough of my own shit to deal with right now.

“Stop being a dick, Aaron.” I direct my words in his direction.

Aaron turns to me with a snarl. “Why don’t you just fuck off?”

“Aaron!” Mum’s voice sounds brittle. Like it could crack at any moment.