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fifteen

By the next morning, I was regretting my decision to text Thomas, which was pretty unfortunate because when I walked into school, he was at my locker.

He was talking to Clementine as I walked up, which seemed like a bad sign for me after the way Clementine had organized for us to meet the other day, but I used it to my advantage as he didn’t make eye contact with me as I walked up.

“Hi,” I mumbled as I unlocked the locker, keeping my gaze down.

“Hi!” Clementine said. “How was your night?”

I froze with the locker door half open as I thought about the night before.

The soccer game with Ainsley. Wearing Sebastian’s sweater.

Dealing with Tiffany over dinner. Sebastian and me talking outside the diner.

And the cherry on the cake, Sebastian and me talking about love on the street last night.

How could that be summed up in an easy-to-understand answer?

“Pretty good,” I said, knowing that there was nothing else I could say to explain it. “You? ”

“Oh, my night was great,” she said. “Anyway, I was just talking to Thomas here about how well they did at the game yesterday.”

It was clearly an in for me to finally acknowledge the boy that she thought I was super into.

When I glanced over at her, she wasn’t being subtle about it at all as she waggled her eyebrows at me just behind his shoulder.

I offered her a tight-lipped smile, trying to seem like I was grateful, even though I was just exhausted.

He probably mentioned to her that we’d texted briefly last night, but I doubt he mentioned it was not much more than a what’s up?

and maybe we can hang out this weekend (his idea, which I hadn’t responded to yet).

“Actually, I came to your game last night,” I told Thomas. “You played really well.”

I tried to put some enthusiasm in my voice, but it was hard when I hadn’t followed the game at all and had no clue what position he even played, let alone saw him on the field. But even though I didn’t pass off my enthusiasm very well, Thomas lit up at the words.

“Thanks! You know, we really…” And then he was on a whole spiel about soccer.

Clementine and I both nodded along, but I was pretty sure I could see from her gaze that she had no idea what he was talking about either.

I tried to seem interested as I started grabbing books from my locker and stuffing them in my bag while keeping an eye on the clock, waiting for the moment that it would be late enough for me to say, “Well, I need to get to class,” but the minutes seemed to drag on.

When Thomas stopped, I couldn’t tell you a thing he said even though I’d been doing my best to listen, but I nodded and said, “Yeah, that sounds really cool. And it was awesome to finally catch a game.”

His brows pulled together a little. “Oh, that was your first game?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” I said. “I’ve actually never been to any sport event that wasn’t swimming before.”

His face clouded over for a second. But then he smiled. “Well, glad your first could have been my soccer game.”

Yeah, I wasn’t going to tell him that I actually went just to see Sebastian, and I only did it because Ainsley had invited me. Some things are better kept a secret.

But speak of the devil, just as I thought about him, Sebastian came around the corner at the end of the hall. Ainsley was by his side, chatting animatedly with her hands while he nodded along. She seemed to cut herself off mid-sentence as she caught sight of us and waved.

“Oh, hey guys!” she said, coming to a stop beside us.

Sebastian automatically had to stop too, and I noticed that Thomas stiffened up as he did, almost shifting away from him.

I wondered if he was still weirded out by the way Sebastian almost threatened him to be good to me when we met on Tuesday or if it was because of something else.

I watched Sebastian, wondering if he was going to try to make eye contact with me, to make some sort of silent signal to me about the conversation we’d had last night. But, if anything, it seemed like he was throwing his back out trying to avoid my gaze as he greeted Clementine.

Meanwhile, Ainsley leaned into me and whispered, “We had to give Tiffany a ride this morning. The most awkward drive of my life. I wish you were there.” I grimaced in sympathy but was happy that I wasn’t in the car.

I’d caught a ride with Dean, who had decided to come to school at a reasonable time today.

But the mention of Tiffany reminded me of last night again.

Of Sebastian saying that he went back to her time and time again because it was all that he knew.

I wasn’t sure why the thought of it made my stomach turn.

Maybe I could handle it if he was really in love with her.

If I knew he didn’t want me, because he wanted her.

But the idea of him being just out of reach, in the arms of a girl he didn’t even love, just made my heart hurt.

The thought of it steeled my resolve to go out with Thomas again, so I smiled at him as flirtatiously as I could and said, “Oh, and by the way, I am free Friday night—if you still wanted to go out.”

Thomas’s face split into a smug grin. “You don’t say.”

I wasn’t sure if I liked the way he was looking at me right now, like a wolf realizing he was about to catch his prey, but maybe that was what all boys looked like when a girl said yes to them. It wasn’t like I had a line-up of boys waiting to go out with me.

The smile dropped off his face a moment later as he glanced at Sebastian nervously.

I looked over too, curious why he would be looking at him like that, but Sebastian was just staring at him impassively.

The only strange thing about it was that the usual smile wasn’t on his face.

But I didn’t see why he would care what I was doing with Thomas.

He had Tiffany—wasn’t I allowed to go out with somebody too?

He’d basically pushed me toward it last night.

Thomas gulped then looked at me again. “That’s, uh, great. I can pick you up at eight if you want. ”

“Perfect,” Clementine said, jumping in for me. “That gives you enough time to get ready after the swim meet.”

Thomas looked surprised. “Oh, you have a swim meet tomorrow?”

Even though I hadn’t gone to the soccer game to cheer him on in particular, it hurt a little that he clearly had no idea that we had a swim meet coming up.

Maybe it was because he’d seemed a little annoyed that the soccer game last night had been the first one I ever went to, even though he’d clearly never come to a swim meet.

But it wasn’t fair for me to hold that against him.

“After third period, two p.m.,” Sebastian said. We all turned to stare at him and he just raised his eyebrows. “What? Am I not allowed to be interested in what’s going on at the school?”

I guess it shouldn’t have been surprising that he knew the time of it since his sister was on the team. But she looked just as shocked as I did about it, which made me assume that he didn’t normally know it.

“That’s right,” I said slowly. I turned back to Thomas, trying to keep my gaze on him instead of thinking about Sebastian. “And Clem’s right that eight o’clock would give me enough time to get ready. Do you know where I live?”

He opened his mouth, probably to say no, so Ainsley jumped in and said, “It’s next to us. You’ve been over to our place before for Sebastian’s parties, right?”

“Oh,” Thomas blinked and glanced at Sebastian again, looking a little nervous. “Yeah, I’ve been over there. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

I smiled back. “Sounds great.”

He was already backing away like he wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. I tried not to take it too personally. It was probably for the best anyway—I’d always heard of the method of leave them wanting more .

As he walked off, Clementine sighed. “He’s so dreamy.”

I nodded along as if I agreed. But I couldn’t stop my gaze from drifting back over to Sebastian, wishing that it was him I was going out with instead.