Page 14 of Choosing Her
“The guidance counsellor suggested it?” Crossy asked, looking surprised. “Huh. She never suggests anything like that to me.”
“Probably because she knows all you care about is hockey,” I muttered.
He scoffed. “As if you care about anything other than horses.”
Okay, he had me there. I avoided eye contact as I flipped through the pages of my textbook, feeling like I should have an idea of what to suggest we do now, but really have no clue.
As I reached the middle of the textbook, a small card fell out of the pages, landing softly on the arm of the chair.
When I glanced at it, I realized it was another one of my parents’ postcards—this one from Ireland, when they were there at the beginning of term.
I’d received it just after I got this textbook and I’d stuck it in here to throw out later, and completely forgot.
Like all the other postcards, there wasn’t even an obligatory “wish you were here” or “we miss you”.
Just another variation of bragging about the trip and passive aggressively talking about how much nicer it was to travel without us.
At least this one had P.S. Say hi to Rebecca for us , which meant they hadn’t completely forgotten my existence.
“Another obligatory postcard?” Crossy asked, glancing at it. I quickly snatched it back and stuck it back in my textbook.
“Don’t call them that,” I muttered. I was allowed to be annoyed with my parents and roll my eyes at their actions, but he wasn’t. That wasn’t his place in my life.
“Sorry,” Crossy said softly. “That’s just what Naomi always called them.”
I felt a flare of annoyance in my chest as he said Naomi’s name.
I hated to think about them together, about her sharing her life with him, even if I knew they were connected in a way I couldn’t be with him.
I’d gotten one night with him. She’d gotten a whole relationship. How could our experiences compare?
“I don’t know how much studying we can do today,” I said. “So, you can just go back tonight. And next time, bring me some of your old tests and make a list of units you were confused by, and I can build an actual plan for us.”
“Do you have somewhere you need to be?” Crossy asked.
When I finally peeked a glance at him, I realized he looked a little hurt.
Like he was offended that I told him he could go home.
Ever since the school year started up, it seemed like Crossy actually enjoyed spending time with me, which was the total opposite of the summer, when we’d both avoided each other like the plague.
“I just have some homework I need to do,” I said. I put the math textbook back in my bag and pulled out my science book instead. Crossy’s eyes landed on it and his brows furrowed.
“Here?” He asked.
“Uh-uh.” I settled deeper into the chair and opened my textbook to where I’d put the worksheet that was tonight’s homework in it. “And I’m sure you want to get back to your friends, so I don’t want to keep you.”
“I’ll stay with you,” Crossy said. Huh? “I need some of your good studying mojo to rub off on me.”
“My good studying mojo?” I echoed.
“Yeah. You’re passing all your classes, right? Maybe if I study with you, it will rub off on me.”
“But we’re not taking the same classes,” I said.
He shrugged and tapped his temple. “Doesn’t matter. It’s all about the mentality.”
“Uh…” I tried to think of a nice way to tell him hat I didn’t want to study with him, because I didn’t want him to ruin the peaceful nature of my study space.
But how was I supposed to explain that to him without hurting his feelings.
Not that I should have cared about him like that—he certainly hadn’t been thinking of my feelings when he started dating my sister.
“I’ll give you coffee,” he said. He picked up the iced coffee he’d put down on the coffee table and shook it in front of my face like he was trying to hypnotize me. “You know you want it.”
I wish I could say I was immune to what he was doing, but my eyes followed the coffee cup every time it moved.
There was a coffee machine up here, but it only made hot coffee, when I preferred iced.
And besides, the coffee from Heart’s Coffee was always way better than anything I could make with the crappy machine here.
“I don’t watch your germs,” I said, because it was the best excuse I could think of.
Crossy smirked and for a second, I thought he was going to make a joke about how I hadn’t cared about his germs when I kissed him on New Year’s Eve. But all he said was, “Don’t worry, I haven’t taken a sip. I brought it for you.”
That broke me out of my hypnosis. I blinked and looked at him, expecting to see that he was teasing. But his face looked completely genuine.
“For me?” I asked. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Never hurts to be a teacher’s pet.
It’s caramel swirl flavor.” He held the coffee out to me.
I hesitated, torn between wanting to take it and not wanting him to know that he could bribe me like this.
Then again, he probably already knew, since he had to have noticed that I drank all the iced coffees he brought me in class.
What could I say? It was my weakness—especially the caramel flavor.
“Okay.” I snatched the coffee from his hand before he could take it back. I covered the name on the side, CROSSY spelled in big blocky letters, with my thumb. I didn’t need a reminder that he as the one who bought it for me. “Just for today, you can stay with me.”
His smile was so wide and blinding that it actually made me feel good about saying yes, even though I should have let him convince me. What was it about Caleb Cross that made him so difficult to hate?