“Oh.” She’d never thought about how much time it took to be on the football team. Lane probably didn’t have much time to study. She opened the door wider and he walked inside. Once the door was shut, she let Jasper down.
“Aw, poor cat. He only has three legs. How did that happen?” Lane bent down to pet him.
“A car accident. But he’s fine now.”
“I love his gray and white fur. He’s beautiful.” Lane picked him up and cuddled him to his chest.
Trudy made her way into the living room and sat down on the couch where she’d fallen asleep. Lane sat next to her and stroked Jasper’s fur. “Okay, teach. What can you do for me?”
She wasn’t sure where to start. She’d never tutored anyone before, but she figured it couldn’t be that hard. She just needed to figure out where he was going wrong. “Let’s see your last assignment.”
Lane set Jasper on his lap and unzipped his backpack. After shuffling through it, he pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.
Trudy tried not to gasp at all the red marks on the page. He hadn’t gotten one single problem correct. How was she supposed to help him raise his grade, if he didn’t understand any of it? She inwardly groaned and leaned back in the seat.
Lane looked at her expectantly. Like he was waiting for her to work some miracle. She had to think of something. “Let’s start with the first problem.”
He smiled at her. “Sounds good.”
“Velocity vs. distance. You know the velocity, which is written right here, but we don’t know the distance.” She showed him how to draw a graph to figure out the answer to the problem. He asked a few questions, and they worked on it a bit before he understood.
Then he pointed to the next one. “So, you’re telling me this means the velocity is negative? How can that be?”
“Think of it as a car going backwards.”
Lane chuckled. “Gabe and I did that once. It was late at night and hardly any cars were on the street.”
Trudy held in an eye-roll. Teenage boys were so stupid. “Focus.”
He looked like he was trying to hide his smile. “Okay.”
She leaned closer to show him how to do the graph with the negative number and caught the scent of his shampoo or body wash. She couldn’t tell which, but it smelled good. Like a clean, masculine scent. For some weird reason, it made her heartrate pick up.
They worked on his worksheet for more than an hour before the front door opened and her mother walked in. She carried a pizza box and set her purse down when she entered. “I brought some dinner—” She stopped short when she saw Lane on the couch, her gaze freezing.
After a brief, awkward moment, Lane waved. “Hello, Mrs. Ward. Trudy’s helping me with calculus.”
Her mother raised her eyebrows, but at least she became unfrozen and walked the rest of the way into the room. “Hello.” She then turned an intense gaze on her. “Trudy? Can I see you in the kitchen, please?”
Heat rose to her face as Trudy stood. “I’ll be right back,” she muttered to Lane before she followed her mother. She knew what was coming. A lecture. Just what she needed.
When she got into the kitchen, her mother set the pizza box down on the table and rounded on her. “How long have you been here, alone, with a boy?”
“Oh, my gosh, Mom. Gross. We were just studying. Nothing happened.” She reached for a slice of pizza. Her mother stepped in front of it.
“Do we need to go over the house rules again?”
Before Trudy came back with a snappy line, she looked at her mother. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her skin was saggy, like she’d aged ten years in the last month. Her hair was askew, and she looked like she was barely holding it together.
Her sister’s cancer was taking a toll on all of them. She didn’t want to cause any more stress on her mother. She swallowed what she was going to say and just shook her head. “No. I know the rules. I’m sorry. I won’t have Lane come over anymore when you’re not here. We can study at the library.”
Her mother nodded. “All right.” Her mother smoothed down her hair and looked at Trudy. “Since when do you study with a partner? This is something new.”
“Mr. Brown asked if I could tutor Lane. He will include it on his recommendation for Harvard if I do it.”
She stepped aside. “That’s nice of you. Why don’t you see if he’s hungry?” She motioned to the pizza box. “It’s dinner time.”
“Okay.” She went into the living room. “Do you want some pizza?”
“Heck, yeah. I’m starved.” He jumped up from the couch. Jasper followed them into the other room.
After they had all been seated, Lane picked up his slice. “Thanks for the pizza, Mrs. Ward.”
“You’re welcome.” Her mother smiled at him. “Trudy says she’s helping you in math.”
“Yep. Coach says I need to pull up my grade.”
“So, you’re on the football team?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lane took a bite so large, Trudy had no idea how he could continue to breathe.
“What would you like to do after high school?”
Lane swallowed. “I’m trying to get a scholarship. Coach says I stand a good chance if I can keep playing well.”
“What would you like to study?”
Why was her mother grilling Lane? How embarrassing. “Mom. Let him eat.”
Lane waved his hand. “I don’t mind. I’m planning on going pro, if I can get good enough.”
“Pro football? That’s ambitious. What if you don’t make it?”
“Mom!”
Lane laughed. “You’re right. It’s competitive. But my dad works for the NFL, and he thinks I can get in.”
Her mother arched one eyebrow. “He works for the Packers? What does your father do?”
“He’s the director of corporate sales.”
“So, nothing sports-related.”
Trudy wanted to crawl under the table. What was wrong with her mother? This was so embarrassing. Trudy had to change the subject. “Lane, who are we playing this Friday?”
He turned to her. “Why? Do you want to go to the game?” A grin took over his face.
Trudy had never been into sports. Not like her sister. Allison was a huge Packers fan and loved all the high school teams as well. Trudy never saw the point to chasing around a ball on a field. She shook her head before Lane got the wrong idea and thought she was into him. “No.”
“Why not?” her mother said. “You might have fun. It would do you some good to get out.”
Oh. My. Word. What was wrong with her mother? Why must she say embarrassing things? She stared at her with wide eyes, intently trying to transmit the “no” signal.
“Yeah. We could do something afterwards.” Lane looked like he’d won a candy bar or something. Or a bet.
She wanted to slap that stupid grin off his face. He didn’t want to go out with her. He wanted to win a bet and humiliate her in front of the school. She folded her arms. “No. I’d rather lick the toilet.”
“Trudy Fiona Ward. That was rude.” Her mother looked horrified. If only she’d overheard Lane and Gabe this afternoon.
Lane’s grin widened, and he mouthed, ‘Fiona?’
Trudy was past embarrassment, and truly into mortification. She wanted to turn invisible. “But—”
“You are not going to treat a guest in our home like that. Apologize at once.”
The way her mother looked, like she was going to blow a gasket, was enough to convince Trudy to do as she said. “Sorry,” she said, hoping that would be the end of it.
If Lane was uncomfortable by the discussion, he didn’t look it. He looked like he was enjoying every second of it. “Come on. I’m a nice guy. I promise. Go out with me after the game. We’ll have fun.”
Trudy’s gaze bounced back and forth from her mother, who looked like she was giving her the stink eye, to Lane, who was having too much fun enjoying her embarrassment. If she said no, her mother was going to have a fit. If she said yes, sh
e’d actually have to go out with Lane.
After a moment of contemplating how mad her mother would be if she refused, she finally let out a breath and slumped in her chair. “All right.”
Chapter 4
Lane inwardly celebrated the win, even though Trudy looked like she’d rather get all her teeth pulled than go out with him. He didn’t care. She’d said yes, and he’d take it. He was charming. He could turn her opinion of him around. “Great. I’ll text you when I’m done in the locker room and we can go to the coffee shop.”
“I don’t drink coffee,” Trudy said.
“They sell other things.” Lane gave her his best smile then turned to Mrs. Ward. “Thank you for the pizza.”
“You’re welcome.” Trudy’s mother stood and picked up the empty pizza box. “I’d better get back to the hospital.”
“Is that where you work?” The minute the words were out, he regretted them. She wasn’t dressed like a doctor or a nurse. And the flash of pain that went through her eyes told him so.
“No. Trudy’s sister is there.” She turned from him, but not before he could see the tears forming in her eyes.
Crap. It was something bad. He looked to Trudy, but she didn’t say anything, her face a mask of stone. Then she straightened and motioned to him. “I guess you’ll have to leave. Mom reminded me of the house rules. We can’t be here alone. Sorry.” She didn’t look sorry.
Her mother wiped at her face then turned back around. “You don’t have to leave. Trudy’s father will be home soon. I’ll text him.”
Trudy slumped back in her chair. “Okay. I guess we can finish that worksheet.”
“Don’t get too excited about it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Come on.”
He followed her back into the living room and joined her on the couch again. Her mother gave him a little wave as she walked out the door.
“What was all that about not being alone here? Is your mom like overprotective or something?”
Trudy gave him a funny look. “It’s just the rules. You don’t have rules at your house?”
“My parents pretty much let me do whatever I want.”
She made a face. “That explains a lot.”
He scoffed. “What does that mean?”
“Well, look at you.”
He made sure he didn’t have pizza sauce on his shirt. “What?”
Trudy picked up the calculus book. “Never mind.”
He grabbed her wrist. “Oh, no. You don’t get to say something like that and then never mind me. Spill it. What’s wrong with me? Why won’t you go out with me?”
She looked down at his hand on her wrist, her eyes wide. His fingers tingled where they touched her skin. Could she feel it, too? He let go of her.
Trudy pulled her sleeves down, clenching them in her fists. She suddenly grew emotional, her eyes blinking back tears. “No reason.”
Oh, no. It had to do with her sister in the hospital, didn’t it? He felt like a complete loser. He waited for her to gain composure, which didn’t take long. The stony mask was back in a few seconds. He patted her hand. “Hey, look. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“I’m not,” she said quickly, pulling her hand away.
Lane wasn’t sure what to say to that. Trudy was a puzzle to him. She was obviously dealing with a lot and trying her best to hold it together. He wanted to know what was wrong. Wanted to make her feel better about it. But he had no idea how to approach that subject, so he pulled out the worksheet they’d been working on and handed it to her. “We’re on the tenth problem.”
Trudy’s father entered the house a few minutes later. He mumbled a hello and went into a room in the back of the house. Like that would stop them from making out on the couch if they really wanted to. Lane held in a smart remark.
As he worked through the last problem, he looked at Trudy. She had her hair down, and it fell in front of her face as she stared down at his paper. He brushed it aside and she looked at him. Her brown eyes held a secret pain.
“What happened to your sister?” He hadn’t meant to ask, but he didn’t take his words back, either. He wanted to know.
Trudy dropped her gaze, the emotion back on her face. “She has cancer.”
Oh, crud. That was bad. He pointed to a family portrait on the wall. Trudy sat beside a young girl with wispy blonde hair. Both of their smiles were identical. “That’s her?”
Trudy glanced up. “Yeah.”
“How long has she been sick?” The photograph looked to be several years old.
Trudy stiffened, her lips pinched. “The beginning of last school year. After a month of tests, they determined she had leukemia and sent her to the children’s hospital in Green Bay. The commute was long and my mother was constantly driving there and back. After it looked like she wasn’t going to get out anytime soon, my dad got a job here in Rockford and we moved here. Now it’s only twenty minutes to the hospital.”
She looked like she didn’t want to talk about her sister anymore, so he changed the subject. “Where did you live before?”
“New Haven.”
Three hours away. He could see why driving back and forth wasn’t a long-term option. Trudy stared at the wall. “I miss it,” she whispered. Then her cheeks reddened. “That’s stupid, isn’t it? My sister is in the hospital, and I’m being selfish.”
He felt bad for her. She was going through so much, and then she had to move away from her friends in the middle of it. He shook his head. “No. You’re not being selfish. Moving is hard. Anyone would feel that way.”
Trudy swallowed. “Yeah. Well, let’s finish this up so you can get home.”
“I’m not in a rush. It’s more peaceful here.” Once again, he wished he had processed his words before spewing them out. Heat crept up his neck. Why in the world would he want to say that? Now she was going to ask why his house wasn’t peaceful.
Trudy shot him a look but didn’t say anything, and he sighed with relief. She leaned back on the couch. “Okay, this next one has a variable velocity. Are you ready to tackle it?”
He picked up his pencil. “Let’s do this.”
As she talked, he watched her mouth. She had pretty lips. He realized this was an odd thing to think about, but he was drawn to them. They were full, and red, even though he was sure she wasn’t wearing any lipstick. She didn’t wear any makeup that he could see. Some girls looked like their face was painted on. Trudy had a more natural look. It suited her.
“Got it?”
He stared at her. What had she said? He sheepishly smiled. “Sorry. My mind wandered. Can you repeat that?”
“Your mind wandered?” She looked at him funny. “What were you thinking about?”
He debated what she would do if she knew. She might be flattered. Then, on impulse, he blurted out, “Your lips,” and gave her a flirty smile. “They’re sexy.”
She frowned and pushed his arm. “Stop that.”
“Stop what? I really was thinking about your lips. Can I help it if you have sexy lips?”
She gave him a flat look. “I agreed to tutor you. That’s it. Stop trying to flirt with me.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll keep all lip comments to myself. But for the record, you’re the one that asked.”
She shoved his papers into his calculus book and plopped it on his lap. “I think we’re done for tonight.” She stood and crossed the room, her arms folded.
Great. Now he’d made her mad. He hadn’t been trying to. He gathered up his things and shouldered his bag. “Sorry. I promise I’ll be good from now on. No flirting Friday night on our date, I swear.”
She glared at him. “You know that’s not a real date, right? I had no choice in the matter.”
That’s when it dawned on him. If he could ask her to the dance when her mother was around, she couldn’t say no. It would be the perfect plan. He’d win the bet for sure. He grinned at her. “Yep.”
She let out a grunt and shoved him
toward the front door. “Good night!”
He chuckled as he left. Trudy was different than he thought she’d be. She had spunk. And she was going to be a challenge. But he was ready to take it on.
Chapter 5
Trudy huddled into her lightweight jacket as the bright lights of the stadium almost blinded her. It was chillier than she’d thought it would be on a September evening. She sat next to the band section on the bleachers. It was the only spot she could find that was free. Yeah, coming late was probably not a great idea, but she wasn’t a sports fan and football reminded her of Allison, so it was a double sting.
She bounced her foot as she fisted her hands around her sleeves. This was not what she wanted to be doing on a Friday night. She pulled out her phone and texted Izzy. What are you up to?
The reply came quickly. At the mall with Beth. She gets a discount from Rue 21 because her aunt works there. Isn’t that cool?
Yeah. Cool.
Chat with you later!
Trudy stared at the message, pain stabbing through her. She’d moved, and Izzy was finding new friends. Moving on. That hurt.
Not that she wanted Izzy to sit around and do nothing. That wasn’t fair. But she needed Izzy right now. And she didn’t ever seem to have time for her. Trudy slipped her phone back into her pocket.
A girl in a band uniform squeezed by her then sat next to her. She had bright red hair, obviously dyed. “Hey,” she said, smiling. Freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks.
“Hi.” Trudy gave her a polite smile.
“Did anything happen while I was gone? I’ve got a bladder the size of a pea.”
Trudy shook her head. “No. At least, I don’t think so. They ran around out there, but I don’t think anyone got any points.”
The girl laid her flute on her lap. “Not much of a football fan, huh?”
“Nope.”
“I’m Jessica, by the way.”
“Trudy.”
“Oh, you’re the one they call Prudy.” Jessica made a face. “Horrible nickname.”
Trudy could have been offended, but for some reason, she wasn’t. She liked Jessica. “Tell me about it.”
A Young Adult Romance Collection Page 3