But I didn’t move.
I planted my feet into the floor. If she thought she could glare at me with those blue eyes and I’d be intimidated like everyone else and back down, she was wrong.
“Move,” she demanded when she realized I wasn’t going anywhere.
“Make me,” I said calmly.
I might be a “geek” but I wasn’t a wimp. I was taller than her. Not by some great length, but still taller. I wasn’t bulky like the jocks and I wasn’t ripped with muscles, but still, I was broader, and if I didn’t want to move she wouldn’t be able to change that.
“Whatever,” she muttered, stepping around me, and fled the room.
I probably should have felt good I finally got the better of someone who claimed to be the best.
Too bad it only made me feel worse.
Wastoid – a waste of space. An insult.
I was still fuming.
Absolutely furious!
How dare Eric talk to me like that? And in my own kitchen!
I ought to rat him out to his mother and watch him try to worm his way out of that one. I smirked at the thought. It would be fun to see.
I could tell he was a momma’s boy. So totally lame.
But the way he’d stood up to me earlier, refusing to move… Not something I expected.
No one ever challenged me. Ever. If they did? I made sure they never did it again.
Eric had to know this. There was no trace of wariness or even regret in his eyes when he stared at me. It was like he wasn’t scared of me at all.
I kinda like it. I shoved the thought away, but it still persisted. I couldn’t help but respect and even be intrigued by the fact Eric wasn’t intimidated by me.
I was used to everyone scurrying to do my bidding.
Clearly, he wasn’t going to.
Like I said, I could challenge him. Totally make his life hell and go to his mother. I wasn’t going to do that though.
Aside from the fact that I’d gained some respect for him today, I saw how he was acting when I walked into the kitchen. He’d been having a conversation on the phone with someone he clearly didn’t like. The way he slammed the receiver down… well, I kinda forgot he was a geek.
For a moment anyway.
He’d been angry. When he spun around, I saw a moment of pain in his eyes before he hid it away.
It made me curious.
Most people were open books, which was a good thing considering I didn’t really read much.
Not Eric, though. Eric’s cover was closed, his pages were pressed together tight.
He was a book I wanted to read. The mystery between his pages called to me like a really good sale at the mall.
I wanted to open him up, find the page where I’d last left off and read and read until I’d devoured all the words.
During dinner I found myself sneaking glances at him out of the corner of my eye. He looked like he did the day before… but somehow different.
Eric had dark hair, so dark it was almost black. It was kind of curly, and fell over his forehead and made him look like a puppy dog.
Excerpt for tonight. Tonight the way the curls fell it was like they were rebelling, like they did whatever they wanted to do and what they wanted was to touch his skin.
His eyes were brown, a light brown that contrasted with the dark shock of all his hair. I never really noticed before how they seemed to light up his entire face, even from behind the black framed glasses he wore.
He hadn’t gotten glasses until second grade. People at school made fun of him when he first showed up with them on his face. I never said anything, I never defended him.
At the time, I secretly thought he deserved it.
That thought made me lose my appetite and the dinner on my plate no longer looked appealing.
I never noticed how tall he was until earlier either, when I’d stood almost toe to toe with him and challenged him to move. When we were little, I was taller than him. My mom always said girls grow faster than boys, but I had never thought about that much until today.
He’d caught up.
I had to tilt my gaze up to meet his now.
When I tried to look past his shoulders, I couldn’t. They were too broad for my eyes to stare off into space behind him. It was like everything about Eric commanded my attention today.
It was totally annoying.
Just like this stupid grade. I was a total airhead. I knew Mr. Brawn was for sure talking about me when he said people cared too much about their hair. Like caring about your appearance was a crime or something.
I wouldn’t care except this was totally going to bring down my average. If I brought home a bunch of lame grades I’d be in deep shit.
And I could kiss a car goodbye for my eighteenth birthday.
Extra credit it was. I had to write a two page paper on something scientific. Kill me now. The least the teacher could have done was give us a topic. How was I supposed to know what to write about?
I stared down at the blank notebook page in front of me and sighed. I needed to at least get a start on this. The party was this weekend and I wouldn’t have time to sit around and worry about it the entire time. If I at least had a topic, and maybe some of it started, I would be in much better shape.
Giving up on trying to pick a topic on my own, I reached for my science textbook to thumb through it and hopefully find something I could study and write about that wouldn’t bore me to tears or require me to turn my kitchen into a makeshift science lab.
As I shuffled through the pages, Eric walked in. The second he saw me at the table he stopped. “I didn’t know you were in here,” he said.
When he first walked in the house, I thought for sure he’d be “bumping” into me all the time, maybe even trying to get rides with me to school. None of those things happened. If anything, he seemed even more determined to avoid me than I was him.
“There’s soda in the fridge,” I said.
He nodded and went over to get himself a Coke. It made a popping sound when he popped the top. I looked up as he tilted the can to this mouth and became entranced by the way his throat moved as he swallowed the carbonated beverage.
He was wearing a plain white t-shirt over his jeans. One of the sleeves was rolled up higher than the other, and it made him look totally dorky. But it also exposed more of his bicep.
“What?” he asked, pulling the can down and staring at me pointedly.
“Nothing,” I muttered and looked back down at my book.
I couldn’t even tell you what I was looking at though. His presence was a complete distraction. Even though I refused to look at him again, I felt him standing there. He was watching me—the attention made the back of neck feel hot.
What the hell was wrong with me?
People looked at me all the time. It wasn’t anything new.
My skin never prickled when they did, though. I never once felt like I was under a microscope and everything about me was being studied up close.
It was a test I wasn’t sure I’d pass, just like that dumb pop quiz.
The sound of him moving closer made my toes jump against the floor beneath the table. I gripped my pencil a little tighter as he moved by.
Eric stopped, picked up the corner of my science book and tilted it toward him. “Extra credit?” he asked.
I nodded, still staring down. His fingers were long, and kind of thick. His thumbnail was slightly jagged, like he might bite it when he was studying or something.
I fought the urge to look up.
“I totally spaced on that quiz. I have to bring the grade up.”
He let go of my book and his fingers left my line of sight. “Have fun with that.”
“Hey,” I said as he was leaving.
He stopped and turned. His dark eyebrow lifted, arching over the top of his glasses.
I never really noticed how good he looked in them before.
“Um, you’re good at science. What should I write the paper on?”
“Y
ou’re asking me?” he said, a smirk on his face.
“Well isn’t science like your mothership or something?” I muttered. “You’re Mr. Brawn’s favorite.”
“Oh, so you do know we’re in the same class,” he scoffed and drank some more of the soda.
“Never mind,” I snapped. He was impossible! He never used to be such a pain in the ass.
I went back to the book, forcing all my attention away from him.
I expected him to leave, to go back to the room he was staying in and for me not to see him again until tomorrow night at dinner.
He didn’t leave.
The legs of the wooden chair beside mine made a scraping sound when he dragged it out and sat down. His soda can hit the table near my book and then he slid it out from under me and in front of him.
“What are you doing?”
“You asked me for help.” Why did he sound so amused by this? He probably thought I was stupid because I got a bad grade.
I admit, school wasn’t necessarily my top priority, but I wasn’t a bad student. I just wasn’t in the running for valedictorian like he was.
He started flipping through my book.
“Hey,” I said and reached for it. “I didn’t ask you to sit down and become commander of my book.”
He snatched it out of my grasp and grinned. He had very straight teeth. And his lips were like this dark shade of pink.
“Do you want my help or not?” he asked.
I made a face and he laughed.
He knew I needed his help and he was enjoying it.
I gave him a death glare and he acted like he didn’t even notice. Seconds later he slid the book back in front of me. It was open to a page toward the back of the book, where we hadn’t been to yet in class.
“Do it on this.” He tapped his finger on the page.
I leaned forward and looked down. “Astronomy?” I asked.
“Stars,” he said. “You know those things that light up in the sky?”
“I know what astronomy is, butthead.”
“Well after that grade you got today I wasn’t so sure.”
“You totally looked at my paper!” I accused. I felt my cheeks turning hot and I knew I was blushing. I was embarrassed about the grade, but more than anything I was embarrassed he saw it.
He’d probably never gotten that low of a grade ever.
“You were the one holding it up for everyone to see.”
“Was not!”
Eric smirked and lifted the soda to sit back in the chair and take a drink.
I glanced back down at the book. “So you think I should write a report about the stars?”
“The constellations.” He nodded. “We don’t have much time at the end of the year for this unit, so there’s lots of stuff that he won’t cover. He’ll like that you are learning something he doesn’t have time to teach.”
“I don’t know anything about the stars.” I flipped through the pages. “Guess I’ll have to read all this.”
He laughed. “You sound like somebody died.”
“Reading is boring.”
“Maybe you just haven’t found something you like to read.”
“Maybe,” I echoed. “But I know it’s not this book.”
He was easy to talk to. He always had been. Even when we were little, I remember how much I liked just being in his presence and how we would talk about everything.
Course, when we were in first grade everything consisted of cartoons and made up games.
“I have a better idea,” he said.
I glanced up.
“C’mon.” He stood up and pushed in his chair. “Let’s go.”
“Go where?” I asked, surprised.
“You’ll see.”
“You could just tell me,” I said.
“You’re used to always getting your way aren’t you?”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I defended.
“No. But doesn’t that get boring?”
“Of course not,” I scoffed.
But, with him towering over my chair, a little mystery in his eyes and that question coming off his lips….
Maybe it was a little boring.
When I didn’t get up, he walked out of the kitchen. I stared after him, feeling a little deflated. For a minute there I thought he might be a little different than everyone else. Guess I was wrong.
Seconds later he returned, with a set of car keys in his hand. “You coming?” he asked and snagged his can off the table beside me.
I stood up quickly and he smiled. It was a knowing smile and I wanted to kick myself in my own ass. Way to look desperate, Kelly.
I was never desperate for anything and if I was, I never, ever showed it.
So why is it that when this used-to-be friend turned geek-who-might-be-kinda-hot turned up with a set of car keys I tripped over myself to follow him out the door?
“Get your notebook, Kel,” he said, fondness in his tone.
He hasn’t called me that in years.
I backtracked to grab my notebook and pencil off the table, Eric was already out of the kitchen and heading through the mudroom on his way to the back door.
It wasn’t until I was rushing after him that I realized I was carrying school supplies to do an assignment and chasing after a geek.
And I wasn’t bored.
In fact, I was actually kind of excited.
Legit – saying something is legitimate.
One minute I was trying to avoid her, snapping at each other in the kitchen… then the next she was sitting in the passenger seat of my mom’s Buick and I was in the driver’s seat.
I don’t know what I was thinking.
I kinda felt bad about being an ass to her in the kitchen after school. I’d been pissed at my dad, pissed at the stupid pipes in my house, and I took it out on her.
She deserved it, but still.
Kelly always looked so shocked when I rebuffed her or snapped back. The look on her face the day we moved in and I slammed the door in her face, it was sort of epic. Everybody always did what she wanted and if they didn’t, she could manipulate or punish them.
That wasn’t going to work with me. She was beginning to see that, and I had to admit, watching her come to terms with it was pretty amusing. I also kind of liked the way her eyes sometimes flared when I did something she didn’t expect.
Like earlier when I refused to move. Or when I sat down at the table beside her.
I liked getting a reaction out of Kelly. I liked it when she looked at me as if I was an equation she wanted to figure out.
Never in a million years did I think I’d be sitting in a car alone with her. If someone had told me even last week this would be happening, I would have offered to drive them to the mental ward.
Here we were. The streets were already dark, but her golden hair was sort of like its own light. I had to fight to keep my eyes ahead and not allow them to drift to where she sat.
She smelled good. It was probably all the hairspray in her hair, but I liked it just the same. She’d changed her clothes since school. She was wearing bright blue leggings, yellow socks that climbed partway up her calves, and a yellow t-shirt that ended as the waistband of the pants started. The shirt was loose, so it kept falling down over her shoulder, exposing the creamy skin there.
There was nothing beneath her shirt. No bra strap, no tank top. That meant her bare chest was rubbing up against her shirt…
“Where are we going?” she asked.
I cleared my throat and focused on the road. “Almost there,” I replied.
“This is your mom’s car right?” she asked.
I glanced over at her. “No. I stole it from the neighbor.”
“Not funny.” She threw me a look, but her glossy lips pulled into a rueful smile.
“Remember when she use to take us for ice cream?” Kelly mused.
“You always got extra cherries,” I said.
“You remember that?” She seemed surprised.
“I remember lots of things.”
We both fell silent. I took the next turn and drove down the street and pulled into the parking lot. Through the window, Kelly stared up at the stone building even after I shut off the engine.
“What is this place?” she asked, suspicion in her tone.
“You don’t trust me?” I asked.
She turned the full voltage of her blue eyes on me. “Do you trust me?”
I once did.
I still wanted too.
But I wasn’t sure if I should.
“It’s a planetarium,” I answered.
“We have a planetarium in this town?” She seemed shocked.
I guess since it isn’t beside the mall, she wouldn’t have seen it. I kept that little joke to myself. She probably wouldn’t be as entertained by it as I was.
“So what do you say?” I asked. “Want to go inside and have a little constellation lesson?”
“Beats reading the textbook.”
“Words every guy wants to hear,” I muttered as I got out of the car.
She met me in front of the hood a funny look on her face.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you date much?”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed, but it wasn’t because I was amused. “What’s the matter, hard to think a girl would date someone like me?”
“I didn’t mean to offend you.” She almost sounded contrite.
“This way,” I instructed as we entered the building and I headed toward a set of stairs. It was dark in here. The community building was already closed for the evening and everyone was gone for the day.
“This is creepy,” she said from behind and I felt her brush against the back of my arm. I glanced over my shoulder.
Kelly was practically pressed against me.
I stopped abruptly. “You hear that?”
She was so close she ran right into me when I stopped. Her entire body came in to contact with mine. She made a low shrieking noise and I lifted my arm to wrap around her.
“What noise?” Her eyes rounded, looking like huge, white orbs in the dark. She clung to me. I don’t even think she realized it, but I did.
Oh, did I ever.
“Nothing,” I said and smiled.
She made a sound and yanked back to punch me in the stomach. “You did that on purpose!”
1982: Maneater (Love in the 80s #3) Page 4