I keep seeing Reid, cocky and good and just assuming I’m on his level, pushing me forward, and I think: You, Reid. You should be here.
Riya, pushing Andrew around and destroying every challenge, Addie and this total joy that comes over her in the kitchen, so thoroughly that it’s like she forgets the pressure of everything and sinks into it.
And then. Here I am.
And it’s all just—terrifying.
I shove my hands down into my pockets and try to think of something else, anything else.
Then I hear laughter floating up from the trees. “Will, you can’t say that out loud.”
“Why not? You’re the only one here and you’re not gonna judge me for it.”
“Who said I wouldn’t judge you for it? I’m judging you.”
Will’s laugh rings out as I round the corner and find them sitting on this picnic bench, facing each other, almost touching.
Riya jumps up as soon as she sees me and points. “Carter is here and she will judge you with me.”
Will glances up at me and waves, leaning forward on that bench as soon as Riya stands, still leaning when she sits.
“Yeah,” I say. “I judge you.”
“You don’t even know what I said,” says Will.
“He said he—”
“I said I hate cats. I hate literally everything about cats, and if I could travel back in time and create a catless world, I would do it.”
“Oh my god, I am judging you,” I say.
“Cats hate you. Your cat wants to eat you alive and steal your soul. And if it can’t do that, well it’s at least gonna knock your shit off the counter just to watch you have to retrieve it.”
Riya says, “What did CATS EVER DO TO YOU?”
“Cats never did anything to me because I refuse to be alone with one.”
“You’re afraid of cats then,” I say.
Will narrows his eyes. “I like to take precautions around my enemies.”
Riya stands again and Will’s hand moves to curl around the back of her leg, fingers just barely resting there against her skin. “Where you going?” he says. It’s quiet, and I actually blush hearing it.
“Off with someone who doesn’t hate animals.”
“It’s not all animals,” he says, and Riya rolls her eyes and steps over the bench to link arms with me.
Will’s mouth curls up, eyes all mischief when he laughs, and Riya waves a fake-offended good-bye to him.
We walk off together, her arm in mine like we’re back in middle school, and I say, “Well, you can’t date him now. He hates cats.”
Riya laughs, or puffs out air, really. “There’s a hundred reasons I can’t date Will. Cats are in, like, the top fifty.”
“Please,” I say. “That boy is so head over heels for you I’m surprised he can walk straight.”
“You don’t know Will,” she says.
“Okay, but I know what COMPLETELY DESTROY ME, PLEASE looks like.”
Riya shakes her head. “I’ve seen him give that look to like a dozen girls, Carter.”
“I’ve only seen him give it to you.”
She half smiles, like she doesn’t want to, but she can’t help it. She glances back over her shoulder to watch him walk away and says, “Well. That’s because I’m the only person he knows here.”
“You’d think that would be prime no-strings-attached-hookup time then. Is all I’m saying. And yet.”
Riya furrows her brow. Like she hadn’t quite thought of that. “Hm,” is all she says.
We’re mostly quiet, slowly looping the quad. Riya is lost in thought—over Will or the competition, I’m not sure. And I quickly get back to the business of stressing out about tomorrow, like that will help anything.
Stressing out, after that, about elimination. We did not perform at peak level the other day with our weird reduction and I don’t know how to fix it, don’t even know if it’s possible. I’m afraid even trying would only make it worse. Though, how could it get any worse?
I am the personification of stress.
Riya says, “You okay?”
And I say, “I’m fine.”
Just as feet pound up the pavement behind us, and Reid runs by, on Riya’s side.
He glances back when I say, “Thought you didn’t run in the middle of the day.”
“Full of surprises, Lane.”
He doesn’t even slow, just keeps running, and I bite my lip watching his back.
“Uh-huh,” says Riya.
I flip her off.
She laughs.
And Reid continues to run.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I don’t want to think about the elimination last night.
We had another pretty much cake challenge the night before last, and Reid and I were . . . better. By better, I don’t men good by any definition of the word, but not actively trying to tear each other’s throats out the entire time, so that’s. Well. Something.
Still. We’re off, and nothing is flowing like it should and no one thinks we can just go on like this. Toes on the line of aggression.
We still haven’t talked. Still haven’t gotten shit sorted out that honestly, I recognize now, we definitely need to get sorted out.
And I was clearly an idiot thinking this wouldn’t affect it.
Because obviously, it does, and it has.
We were in the bottom two teams last night: us and that freckled girl Addie keeps flirting with and whoever her teammate was. We skated through, but we . . . we are not going to skate through again. Not on barely tolerating each other.
Not on weird.
I blow out a long breath and poke at my dinner. The next challenge is tomorrow morning, and I need to talk to him before then or we’re out. And everyone knows it.
I stand from the table, square my shoulders, and walk to where Reid is sitting,
“Hey,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow. “Hey.”
“We need to talk.”
He sets down the Coke in his hand and says, “You’re gonna condescend to speak to me now?”
I want to swallow all the words I’d planned back into my throat, because the anger just boils right back up. But I don’t. I say, “You planning on insomnia again tonight?”
Reid looks at the table. Considers. Drums his fingers on the hard surface. Then says, “Two, like clockwork.”
“What if I came down to the common room and interrupted it?”
Reid sighs and meets my eyes. “Okay. Yeah. I’ll see you.”
He leaves.
I set my alarm for two, even though I’m pretty sure my internal clock will wake me up. And it does—1:45 and I’m lying there, blinking into the dark.
I’m sure Riya appreciates not being wrenched from sleep at this ungodly hour, so that’s . . . good, I guess.
Very little is good before, like, ten in the morning, though.
So I’m not enthusiastic.
I slide on a sweatshirt over this tank top, so it’s that and pajama bottoms for this clandestine meeting. Very fancy, very seductive.
And slip downstairs.
I’m there a few minutes early, but Reid’s already waiting for me.
He’s reading something I can’t see from here, and I have this annoying surge of something positive I can’t put a name to in my chest. Something I quiet before I can pinpoint. But I like people who read. It’s instinctive.
I shake my head.
“Hey, Lane,” he says without looking up from his book. He’s not whispering, but his voice is low enough I’m not concerned about waking anyone up.
“Reid,” I say.
I walk softly over to him in my socks, padding on the fancy old rug, and he just silently slides his feet from where they were kicked up on the back of the couch to the floor. So once again, I wind up sitting beside him at two a.m. by the fire.
I take a couple deep breaths, because for whatever reason, suddenly I feel like I need to. And sit. I pull my knees to my chest and my sweatshirt
down over my knees, then turn toward him.
He licks his thumb and turns the page. “You cold?” he says, glancing up at me.
“Not really.”
He doesn’t respond.
“What are you reading?”
Now that I’m used to the quiet in the room, every sentence, even though we’re keeping our voices down, sounds like a whipcrack. It makes everything feel extremely close in here. Han and Leia in the trash compactor. Walls closing in.
And Luke, I think. Was in that scene. And the wookiee.
Anyway.
He waits until he finishes the page he’s on before slipping a bookmark between the pages and closing the book, then looking up. He sets it on the end table.
“Howl’s Moving Castle, still?”
“Nah,” he says. “Finished Howl’s. You ever read anything by Jemisin?”
I shake my head.
“The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. Really good.”
I say, “I didn’t have you pegged as a dude who was so into magic.”
He kind of smiles. “No? Even with all the Avatar references? And Howl’s?”
“I don’t know, I just didn’t.”
“You have much to learn, young Padawan.”
I roll my eyes, but I’m smiling, and see this—this is why Reid Yamada is the most confusing person on the planet. Because this was how it felt the other night, too. Like I was having a human conversation with a real live person, and we actually might have a shred of a prayer at getting along. And then it’s back to hate.
Or anger.
Maybe they’re not exactly the same thing.
“You thirsty?” he says.
I open my mouth to say no, but he picks up two mugs I hadn’t noticed on the end table and hands one to me.
“Oh,” I say. “Yeah, thanks.”
It’s cocoa, apparently. In summer in Georgia. But nighttime always makes cocoa seem appropriate.
“Wow, this is actually . . . this is really good.”
He laughs and takes a drink of his. “Don’t seem so surprised.”
“I’m just saying. It’s exceptional.”
“You wanna know my secret?”
“I do.”
“Nestlé.”
Now I’m laughing. “Ah, box mix. You know how to spoil a girl.”
“Don’t say I never did anything for you. I did use real milk for this in the cafeteria microwave.”
I put my hand to my chest and say, “Oh! You shouldn’t have.”
Then we’re both just quietly smiling, this understanding passing between us that we would be laughing if the circumstance allowed.
“Why are you like this?” I say. It just pops out of my mouth, because it’s two in the morning, and oh how soon my never-coming-out-of-my-room-before-six-a.m. vow was cast aside.
Reid raises one eyebrow and takes a slow drink. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Just like . . . like this. Like. A person.”
“Well, I am a human person, Lane. This is how I’m programmed to interact. Though that’s exactly what a robot would tell you, I guess. You wanna Turing test me?”
I roll my eyes. “No, I just mean . . . I mean usually we’re like at each other’s throats and you’re a total asshole to me, and then under the guise of darkness, you turn into someone who’s actually likeable.”
“Likeable?” His eyebrows shoot about up into his hairline. “I’m marking this day on my calendar.”
“Shut up,” I say, but I’m grinning into my cocoa. Against my will. I want to be scowling.
“Honestly, I think two have been playing real well at this game, princess.”
I blush. At the dart of shame there, and I think, at the nickname. “There you go again with the princess.”
His voice is quiet, a little different, when he says, “You really hate the nicknames?”
I don’t answer, because I don’t exactly know how to. What, exactly, is the answer to that question?
“That one, at least?” he pushes.
I hear myself saying, “No. Whatever,” because princess I do not find annoying. Although I find the non-annoyance annoying so it’s a little complicated. “I could do without cream puff, though.”
He actually snorts and says, “Noted.”
“We’ve both been asses to each other,” I say.
“Ha, yeah, understatement.”
I sigh and look up at the ceiling. “Do you hate me?”
When I look back down at Reid, he has the most remarkable frown on his face. This deeply concerned absolute masterwork of a furrow that has me leaning toward him, wanting to smooth it out.
“No,” he says. My spine pops up straight again. “You piss me the hell off sometimes, like more often than not, but . . .” Now he’s kind of laughing. I have to assume because that, as well, is a major understatement. “Lane, I do not hate you.” He pauses, staring down at the mug in his hands. “Do you?” he says. “Hate me?”
I take longer to answer than he does. Wonder if the frown lines on my forehead are as pronounced as the ones that were on his. Wonder if he’s leaning forward, too. If he wants to brush them away with his thumb.
“I . . . I did,” I settle on.
I meet his eyes, and there’s something that I would swear, under different circumstances with a different person, was a flash of disappointment.
“I don’t think I do now.”
His eyes are back to neutral, and his face is open. Maybe in the same way everyone’s face is a little more open than they want in the middle of the night. Maybe more than that.
“Well then,” he says. “You and I are going to need to start working together. Like. Actually working together, none of this tiptoeing around each other shit.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“So let’s start over.”
I smile.
He holds out his hand. “Reid Yamada.”
I take it and we shake. One firm movement of our hands.
“Carter Lane.”
He does that lopsided smirk thing that makes me a little mad and kind of lights me up in a different way all at once, and for like half a second, his thumb brushes over the crook of mine when he slides his hand back. And it doesn’t . . . it doesn’t feel like starting over completely.
I clear my throat and cross my ankles under my sweatshirt.
“I’ll give you three questions,” he says.
“Like a game?”
“Like a game. Three for three. Friends know things about each other.”
“Okay,” I say, and I drain the last of my mug, then disentangle myself from my own sweatshirt. I criss-cross my legs on the cushion and just look at him. “What’s your biggest fear?”
“Ooh,” he says. “Hitting hard, I like it. You want like the big existential fears or the tangible ones?”
“Either. Both.”
He smiles. “Okay, but I expect to get as good as I give here.”
“Deal.”
“Existential fears. Like actual deepest, darkest, this-would-be-my-hell fear. I don’t know, I’m uh, I’m pretty shit at losing people. Just terrified of it all the time, I guess.”
He scratches at the back of his head, and I want to say, “Who did you lose?” but I know that’s weird and invasive, and before I even could, even if I wanted to, he says, “And the less uncomfortable, but just as truthful answer, is rats.”
I do let out a laugh at that. “Rats? Like just the little squeaking things?”
“Rats are vicious, man. And their beady little eyes and twitching and—” He literally shudders.
“Of all the things you could be mortally afraid of. Honestly, rats?”
“Oh god, you should have seen me when a rat ran through our kitchen when some ridiculous weather was driving them indoors. I legit screamed. Like jumped up onto a chair and everything.”
I am doing that silent, shaking laugh thing. “How old were you?”
He busts out a laugh that is way too loud for this time of night
and says, “Sixteen, it was last year.”
And now I’m just dying. The silent, shaking laugh thing has turned into the silent, shaking cry-laugh thing and it’s a hot minute before either of us can compose ourselves enough for him to ask his question.
“If you didn’t want to be a chef, what would you be? Don’t pick something dumb and practical unless you really do dream of being something dumb and practical.”
I blink. I guess I’ve never really thought of that before. It’s been “go to cooking school, be a chef,” for so long, so deep in my bones, that I honestly haven’t considered an alternative. But then the thought blinks into my mind: “BMX.”
“What?” he says.
“BMX like biking. It’s not part of my actual soul like food is, but I’m really good at bikes. I grew up in this neighborhood that was like almost all boys, and none of us had any money, so we spent most of our time on these trash bicycles out by the dirt hills. Which was actually technically a construction site that none of us had any business hanging out around but man, could you get some air off some of those.”
“You are full of surprises,” he says. “I’m really impressed.”
I’m blushing again, and I don’t want him to notice so I throw out a question that I’m immediately annoyed I wasted one on, just for the quickness of it. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Oh, boo, hiss,” he says, but it’s very good-natured. Like, his face is actually relaxed for once; even his posture is relaxed. Spread out over his side of the chair—one arm slung over the back, leaning against the corner, leg draped across the cushion, long and comfortable. “Green,” he says. “My turn. What is the weirdest thing you totally hate? Like weird enough you could not reveal this to anyone or they’d never let you live it down?”
“You make a strong case for telling you,” I say.
“It’s the rules,” he says. “Bet you can’t resist the rules.”
I suppress a grin. Because he’s right. With the notable exception of all of our back-and-forth sabotage this summer, I am a rule-follower. Particularly if those rules present a challenge. “Nemo,” I say.
He blinks at me.
“The little fish from Finding Nemo.”
His jaw drops. “Nemo? Bite your tongue. Nemo is fucking adorable.”
“He’s so annoying; literally every time he speaks, I think of all the different ways I would like to cook him.”
The Art of French Kissing Page 11