“Just be careful, Brooke,” Caitlyn says to my retreating back. “You don’t want it blowing up in your face.”
The bathroom door swings closed with an ominous squeak.
Chapter 20: Talk Poetry to Me
If Cassie and Caitlyn think they can play mental games with me to get me to stop going after Carter they are so wrong. I’m even more determined to get him now. I check my phone for third time since I sat down in the café. 4:05. Where is Carter? I’m going to kill Cassie if she detained him somewhere to keep us from meeting. Yeah, I’m trying to score a date, but I’m also trying to score a good grade on this presentation. We reconfirmed our meeting during English class this morning so I’m positive he didn’t forget. I also caught him checking out my t-shirt during class. Or my boobs. Whichever.
I take a tiny sip of my latte and check the door to the bookstore again. Yay, I see him. He made it and sans Cassie this time, thank God. Carter pushes through the double glass doors and smiles when he sees me. I wave and wait for him to walk around the patrons and shelves of books to our table.
“Hey, Brooke, sorry I’m late,” he says, dropping his backpack and slipping into the seat across from me. “I would have been here earlier but Cass’s friend Caitlyn was tearing through my truck in the school parking lot. Said she dropped her cell phone in there but I haven’t seen it.”
“No worries.” I give him the most understanding smile I can and briefly touch his forearm. Okay, this might be a little forward of me but he doesn’t shrug me off or anything so I’m taking the opportunity. “I went ahead and got you a drink too. Do you like chai lattes?”
His eyes brighten and his mouth slightly opens, like he’s taken aback. “Yeah. Love them actually.” His eyebrows scrunch together like he’s trying to figure out how I knew his favorite drink.
Whoopsie. Did I go a step too far? I mean, it isn’t like I have his favorite pineapple and pepperoni pizza in a small collapsible cooler in my backpack for a snack when we get hungry. Okay, I do. But it isn’t like I’m going to take it out or anything. Not now, anyway.
I wrap both of my hands around my latte and take a long sip, hoping when I pull the cup away from my face he won’t be giving me that inquisitive look any more. I put the cup down and he’s flipping through his notebook. Whew.
We spend the next twenty minutes showing each other what we’ve prepared for the presentation and sipping our lattes. Every time Carter reads me something from his notes, I find myself studying him—the tiny brown mole a quarter inch below his ear, the way he pushes his longish dark hair off his forehead out of habit, the way he licks his red, very kissable lips after he’s been talking for quite some time, and those eyes. He’s got the biggest, sexiest, brown eyes I think I’ve ever seen. Like, he’s 75% Italian, 25% Buck. And he’s so, so smart. I wish I could overhear what he and Cassie talk about. Him: Literature, culture, politics. Her: New dance kicks, groundbreaking anti-frizz serums, and European seaweed wraps to make her thighs look even teenier.
We’re working on the section of our presentation, “Graves’s Poems and their Meanings,” which Carter did the majority of the work on. He’s good with all of this poem interpretation stuff. He has lots of actual research from important critics to support his ideas, of course. We’ve narrowed it down to three poems to read and interpret for the class, one of which is Counting the Beats, the exact one he had posted in his blog. Which he still doesn’t know that I know about, nor that I check his blog religiously each night for updates.
He is trying to convince me that I should read the poems and he should do the interpretation for each. But I’m trying to convince him that he has a much more dramatic and poetic voice for this kind of thing. We are taking turns reading each other lines from the poem.
Me (in my best valley girl lost on her way to a mall grand opening and asking someone for directions):
“Where shall we be,
(She whispers) where shall we be,
When death strikes home, O where then shall we be
Who were you and I?”
Carter is completely cracking up, so much so that his eyes are tearing and he wipes at them. “You can’t read it like that. You’re losing the meaning.”
“Okay, your turn. Show me how to do it, Poet Master,” I say.
Carter clears his throat, puts on a serious face, and looks down at his book.
Carter: (in a much softer, slower voice, emphasizing key words)
“Not there but here,
(He whispers) only here,
As we are here, together, now and here,
Always you and I.”
“Wow,” I let out an exhale. “That was really good. That settles it, you read the poems.”
Carter shakes his head and laughs again but agrees to be the poem reader anyway.
The more time we spend together, the more I find that talking with Carter is so easy and so right. I wonder if he is noticing this… this “thing” between us. I look at him and he has a huge smile on his face. I hold his gaze and return the smile. There. There it is again. There is that connection between us. The thing making my heart beat fast and my skin get all tingly—like if you lit a sparkler and held it a little too closely to your arm. Carter reaches across the table and puts his hand over mine. Okay, this is it. He’s going to mention that he has sparkler-tingly skin too. He’s going to ask me out.
“I’m glad we partnered up on this project. You’re pretty cool, Brooke,” he says.
“Me too. I mean the happy partnering thing. I’ve been having fun hanging out with you.”
Okay, I should just go for it. Ask him out right now while he’s glad and I’m glad and everyone is glad to be together. It’s the perfect time. It’s…
“I guess I should get going,” he says, pulling his hand back and interrupting my internal pep talk. He gathers his pens and books and shoves everything into his backpack.
I’m completely frozen to my chair. Do it, do it, do it, I’m mentally chanting to myself.
“Carter?” I ask as he stands.
He looks down at me and smiles. “Yeah?”
“See you tomorrow,” I say.
“See you.”
His smile is heartbreaking.
Chapter 21: Return of the Sparklers
What a freakin’ wimp I am! I totally had him right there—right in my hands. I can’t believe we were completely in the moment and I just let it go with a “See you tomorrow.” What was I thinking? Well, I know what I was thinking. I was thinking he’d ask me out, but that isn’t how Boy Swap works. The girls are the ones doing the pursuing. It’s not like Chris went gunning for Cassie. She relentlessly pursued him until he was too weak to resist. Well, that is giving him way too much credit. But she was the one to go after him. And that is what I need to do. I need to suck it up and ask Carter out.
After the presentation, of course. That is taking up the majority of my thoughts while I should be listening to Mr. Shank’s talk about upcoming events and practices. I already know the important stuff—like there is no home game tonight and thus no band party. We have an all band/flags/dance early morning practice in the school gym Monday morning though. And we have an out-of-the-norm football game Monday night, which has never happened before, but I don’t need to get into the heads of the high school football scheduling people. I just have to show up, march, and play my flute.
I wonder what Carter is wearing today? I spent a lot of time putting together my outfit for the presentation. I don’t know if other people are dressing up but I didn’t think it would hurt. I’m wearing a really soft baby blue sweater, my super cute denim skirt, tights, and my favorite brown boots. I added a splash of body spray in case Carter gets close enough to me to get a whiff. My pink scarf doesn’t match my outfit at all today so I’ve tucked it inside my left boot. I’m hoping no one says anything about it not being visible. It’s not like I haven’t worn the scarf enough in the last couple weeks for absolutely every BSC member not to know I’m one of them.
Band ends and the room quickly becomes noisy with the sound of everyone chatting as they dismantle their instruments and tuck them away in their cases. I walk toward my locker to stash my flute before heading out to class. Chris grabs my waist and swings me around before I make it there. God, he’s irritating. I really don’t have time for this.
“You look cute today,” he whispers in my ear. His breath is hot on my neck.
“Thanks,” I say, trying to wiggle from his grasp.
“What’s wrong?”
Seriously dude, get a freaking clue. How about you’re dating someone else while you are supposedly in love with me? I am so over this crap. Not to mention your new frou-frou model boy shirt looks totally lame. Did Cassie pick it out?
I feel myself glaring at him but I try to recover. “Nothing,” I say, finally getting him to let go of me. “You know I have that presentation next hour. I need to go.” I quickly walk away from him, toss my flute in my locker, and half jog/half walk to English class.
* * *
Carter is already there waiting for me. And okay, Carter didn’t dress up for our presentation (why did I think he would? He is after all a guy), but he looks extremely hot in his faded jeans and black t-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders.
“Ready?” he asks as I slide into my chair next to him.
“Totally,” I say.
“Should we go first?” he asks, obviously confident in our project.
“Why don’t we wait just a few to see what other people do?” I suggest, suddenly feeling completely nervous. I cannot screw up our presentation or Carter will think I’m a major moron and never date me.
Mrs. Miller begins class and the first three groups give their presentations. Not to be rude, but there is more sucking going on in this class than a tank full of algae eaters. Did anyone do research? These presentations are just bad, bad, bad. Which makes me feel totally ready to give ours. I look at Carter and nod. He raises his hand and Mrs. Miller gives us the go ahead.
As I follow Carter up to the front of the classroom, I am momentarily preoccupied with my advantageous view of his very cute butt in his jeans. Cute butts are my kryptonite, I swear. I am jolted back to reality when we face the class and thirty sets of eyes fall on us, waiting for something interesting to come out of our mouths.
“How many of you have been in love?” Carter asks the class.
The students stir in their seats. About half the class raises their hands.
“How many of you would do anything for your true love?” he continues.
A little less than half the class raises their hands again. Absolutely everyone is paying attention, which is totally a first in this class. Even Mrs. Miller looks like she is enjoying Carter’s questions.
“Now, how many of you would jump out of a third-story window right after you saw your true love jump out of a fourth-story window? And not because of you, but because she’s in love with someone else.”
There are a lot of “oohs” and “no ways” coming from the students. But nobody raises their hands.
“Today we’re going to tell you about this British dude who did just that. A poet who loved so passionately, that when his girl fell in love with someone else and tried to pull the plug, he did the same thing.”
Carter gives me a wink and I look back at him for a moment in amazement. He totally and 100% completely rocks. It’s hard, but I break my gaze from him, turn to the class, and tell them some facts about Robert Graves’s life.
When we finish the presentation, everyone claps and Mrs. Miller says, “Excellent, excellent,” as she jots down notes. While we walk down the row to our seats, Carter reaches back and gives my hand a squeeze. I feel my face flush. Ohmigod, did anyone see that? And better yet, can I get him to do it again?
The rest of class flies by and I barely listen to the other students’ speeches. After we gave ours, nobody wanted to go. One girl even complained that it wasn’t fair to have to give her presentation after ours. Which Mrs. Miller said was utter nonsense as we all had the same amount of time to prepare, but I could totally sympathize; not everyone was lucky enough to partner with WWFPOET.
When the bell rings, we head out the door and Carter stops me in the hallway.
“You were awesome, Brooke,” he says. He puts his hand on the back of my neck, just under my hair, and gives me a couple of light squeezes.
The mini-skin sparklers are going off on my neck now and I feel like I could just faint right here in this very spot.
“Me? You were awesome,” I gush.
“Okay, we both were phenomenal,” he says with a laugh.
“Together we are. I mean, we work really well…together,” I stumble.
We both stand in the hall, staring at each other…waiting. I know he is going to say something else. Like, how we should continue this outside of class. Maybe meet for another coffee and discuss more poetry. But he doesn’t. And I don’t. And the moment when it would have been perfect to ask Carter out passes and now it is just an awkward moment.
“Well,” he says, switching his stack of books from one hand to the other, “I guess I’ll see you around.”
I nod. Carter leaves and I turn in the opposite direction, taking the long way back to my locker. Argh. I can’t believe I botched it up again. I totally screwed up the perfect opportunity to ask him out.
Chapter 22: To Send, or Not to Send
Lizzie and I decide that tonight will be our girls’ night. Partly because she has been so freaking mopey all day that I don’t think she’ll make it until tomorrow night without some heavy duty cheering up and partly because Chris had the nerve during gym class today to ask me what we were doing tonight. I mean really. He thinks he’s all Rico Suave now or something with this Brooke on Wednesday night, Cassie on Thursday night, Brooke on Friday night stuff. And when I said no, he actually whined, “But Brooke…we always spend Friday nights together.” I couldn’t believe it. “Really?” I said to him. “What about when you had that family dinner last Friday night?” A.K.A. Cassie. And he said, “But that was family.” Seriously. He said that. So he must think that he’s either super sneaky or I’m brain dead. I said, “Well, Lizzie is like family and she needs me so that’s where I’ll be tonight.” Let him go run off and find Cassie if he gets bored. Of course, she probably has a date with her own boyfriend tonight.
Sigh. Carter. He’s another reason I want to have a girls’ night with Lizzie tonight. I need a major distraction. I can’t stop thinking about him. I started out wanting to date him to get back at Cassie, but now I think I really like him. I know I’m happiest when I’m spending time with him. That has to mean something.
“So which one do you think she was better in?” Lizzie asks. She’s lying on her stomach in front of my TV, with one of my pillows in her arms.
“Huh?” Whoops. I’ve been completely tuned out for a while now. I’m sitting on my pink fuzzy bean bag chair and we’ve been watching the season one DVD of La Jolla Cove.
“You didn’t hear me at all?”
“I’m sorry. I must have been day dreaming. What was your question?”
“Whitney Lucas,” Lizzie says, standing up and crossing the room to the birds’ cage. “Do you think she was better on La Jolla Cove or The Pier?”
“Oh, definitely The Pier. She seemed to be more herself on that show. They portrayed her too much as the evil vixen in the La Jolla Cove series.”
Lizzie picks up Baby’s special pink sleigh bell with hearts cut out all over it and rings it for her. Baby loves when I ring her bell. It’s her favorite toy. I still don’t know what Chris Jr. likes. Of course, sometimes I feel like I don’t know what any of the males of any species likes.
“But everyone loves a good evil vixen,” Lizzie says, looking over her shoulder at me.
An image of Cassie draped all over Chris and sneering at me enters my mind. “Not everyone,” I say.
“You seem super distracted tonight. Is something wrong?” She comes over to
where I’m sitting and squats on the floor.
I immediately feel bad. “I’m sorry, Lizzie. I’m supposed to be cheering you up and I’m just sitting here in a daze.”
“It’s okay. Is something wrong? Tell me about your problem and it will distract me from mine.”
Ugh, that’s just not possible. I can’t tell Lizzie everything that has been going on with me lately, best friend or not. I swore an oath not to spill about the BSC and explaining to her what is going on with Cassie and Chris and me and Carter, well, it just wouldn’t make any sense without the BSC history divulged. And Carter is occupying the majority of my mind tonight. I have to, want to, ask him out and I don’t think I should wait until school Monday. I think I should do it as soon as possible. Like, this weekend. But how? Send him an e-mail? To: Carter, From: Brooke, Re: Date with me? That’s too much like a modern check-the-box-if-you-like-me note. Not to mention if Cassie somehow gets into his e-mails, she’ll flip out. But maybe I can e-mail him and ask him to meet me somewhere and then ask him out in person?
“Are you going to do this all night?” Lizzie asks.
“What?”
“Get that glazed look on your face and stare at some invisible thing over my head.”
“I’m sorry,” I say again. I sit up on my bean bag chair and stare straight at Lizzie, willing myself not to let my mind wander again.
“Is it Chris?” she asks gently.
“Is what Chris?”
“The reason you are so out of it tonight. Are you upset about Chris and…you know…”
I widen my eyes at her. “What?”
“Well, I thought you might already know, but if you didn’t, I swear I was going to tell you tonight,” Lizzie says.
“Tell me what? Just say it.” I already know it is going to be bad. I glance over at the birds’ cage. Chris Jr. is flying all over doing an acrobatic show again and Baby is sitting still giving him a really pissed off look. I so know how she feels right now.
Just Your Average Box Set (Just Your Average Princess, Just Your Average Geek, & Just Your Average Celebrity) Page 24