The people around me seem to swirl and press in closer than I like. It feels as if every set of eyes in the hallway is trained on me, like they secretly know how badly I crashed and burned with Evie. I wish life were like a football game. The game I can read, have some amount of control over. Off the gridiron? I’m like a fucking leaf in the wind. Anything can happen. On a good day, I’m smart enough to keep my mouth shut and my nose to the grind. Backup quarterback or not, on a bad day, well…on a bad day, I’m just the shy, dorky loser I’ve always been, tripping over my stupid words and my too-long legs.
The hair on the back of my neck stands up as I shoulder my way through the halls to class. The feeling of being watched on the field isn’t the same as being stared at off it. It’s creepy. Especially because I know they’re only staring at me for having been an idiot. But I wish Evie looked at me the way everyone else does. I wish she looked at me at all.
I can’t shake the feeling that I missed my only shot today. What if I never get another golden opportunity like that?
I step into chemistry and my gaze automatically lands on her seat.
It’s empty.
I sit beside my lab partner, Zoe. She starts chirping before my ass even meets the chair. I fucking hate partnered classes. I’ll bet being Evie’s lab partner would be awesome though. She wouldn’t make me do all the work while she twirls her hair like a bimbo—I’m sure of it. But, again, I’m never that lucky.
Evie walks in the door and Zoe’s words die before they even register in my brain.
She keeps her chin up even though her cheeks are pink as she wobbles in with her too-high shoes. Her shirt is still stained red from the spaghetti sauce, but it’s even wetter than it was before. There’s white fluff all over the spot like she tried to scrub it with…paper towels…in the restroom.
What the fuck?
Did she just not want my stuff because she thinks I’m an asshole? Maybe Kerri was just trying not to hurt my feelings when she told me that Evie wasn’t in there. Or maybe Evie found another restroom to hide out in to avoid me. She sure as hell didn’t run home with her tail between her legs like Mike predicted.
My anxiety reaches a boiling point as she takes a seat at the lab table in front of me. It’s been torture for the past month to be so close yet so far from her. Worse is the fact that Jake, her partner, has been trying his damnedest to put the moves on her.
I’d love nothing more than to pummel him on the field. Or in the weight room. Or, hell, anywhere, really. He doesn’t play a single sport, so my options for randomly fucking him up on the field or the court are limited.
The only thing that’s saving his ass from my fists is the fact that she must not be into him. She never seems to take his bait. Sure, she answers his probing questions and isn’t ever mean to him, but she’s not drooling and batting her eyelashes the way my lab partner does with me.
I kind of hate Jake. I’m also extremely grateful for him. While everyone else in class takes notes on oxidation reactions, I’m taking notes on Evie’s favorite things. Each time she supplies Jake with an answer to one of his questions, I store that information faster than new plays from Coach.
“Hey, are you okay?” he asks her.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” She turns her head just slightly and peeks at me with a small smile.
Oh. My. God.
Evie Papageorgiou just smiled at me.
Maybe she doesn’t think I’m an asshole after all.
Shit. I never grabbed my clothes back from Alex. I could’ve given them to her now so she could change after class. Why didn’t I think of that?
Jake clears his throat and breaks the spell. “So I was thinking… Are you busy this weekend?”
“Well, yeah.” Evie shoots him a look that suggests he’s crazy for even asking. “Friday night is the football game and then the bonfire.”
He shrugs, clearly not thinking it’s as big of a deal as she does. “Oh, right. The game. You play the flute in band, right?”
She gives him a “duh” look. Hell, I give him the same one. How could he not know she plays flute in band? She’s only been doing it for the past two years. Even I know that.
“What about Saturday and Sunday? Do you maybe wanna go get some coffee and work on our next lab together?”
Shit, is Jake seriously asking her out?
“Um, maybe?” She throws me another quick look over her shoulder.
Does that mean something? Does she want me to say something? Because I definitely want to say something.
Hands off, dickwad! She’s mine! I saw her first!
“Okay, awesome. How about we meet there on Saturday around noon?”
Evie faces him again. “Only if you can tell me what my favorite latte flavor is.”
“What?”
“What do I like to drink at the coffee shop?”
Jake blinks at her a few times in confusion. “How would I know that? We’ve never been there together.”
“You’ve been asking me all these questions since school started. I already told you. Don’t you remember?”
He turns towards me, a silent cry for help in his eyes.
Not gonna happen, asshole. Your loss is my gain.
“Um…mocha frap?”
She makes a buzzer noise in the back of her throat. “Wrong.”
I have to cough to keep my laughter from spilling out. She’s so damn funny that it’s hard to breathe sometimes. It’s chai tea latte. Evie’s favorite drink at the coffee house is chai tea latte. Jesus, does this guy even pay attention to the words that come out of her mouth?
Her favorite color is black. She loves ’80s movies thanks to her mom, but she hates music from the same decade. She doesn’t have a favorite song because she could never choose just one. She thinks chocolate is the best food ever, but she always feels guilty for eating it, and that’s why she runs every day on the wooded trail behind the school after band practice. Her favorite class is AP history, and her least favorite is geometry. She hates all things math. She doesn’t really like parties, but she’ll go if her best friend, Jess, begs her enough. She’d rather sit at home with a good book. Jake never bothered to ask her what her favorite book is or who her favorite author is, but I’m dying to know the answers to these unasked questions because maybe that’s something we have in common.
“Listen, Jake, you’re a great lab partner, but I don’t think meeting at the coffee shop is the best place to prep for our next assignment. We could meet up in here after I’m done with band practice, though, if you want.”
“Yeah, I guess. You might spill your drink all over your shirt if we go to the coffee house anyway.”
My hands ball into fists at his callous jab, but Evie just rolls her eyes, seemingly unaffected.
“And thank you in advance for saving me from giving up a few hours of my weekend. Let’s just do this presentation and forget about it, okay?”
“Whatever.” He pouts like a little bitch.The sickeningly sweet voice beside me interrupts my effort to burn a laser beam right through Jake’s head. “We could go to the coffee shop and work on our next experiment, Rob.”
“What?”
“You and me? The coffee shop? This weekend?” Zoe bats her eyelashes at me while she twirls a strand of her black hair around her finger.
Yeah, that’s not doing shit for me.
My eyes snap to Evie as she jumps up from her seat.
“Come on, Jake. This presentation won’t give itself.” She moves to the front of the room on her wedge shoes, with Jake in tow.
I guess I can rule him out as the guy she’s crushing on. She wouldn’t go through this much effort for him. I can’t be mad at her for dismissing my help when I acted like a total idiot earlier. I was no better than Jake. If I put myself in her shoes, I wouldn’t want anything to do with me, either. I suck just as much, if not more than Jake. I’m so far beneath her that I don’t even know why I bother. Oh, wait. I don’t.
“Rob?” Zoe
whines.
“Uh, sorry.” I tear my gaze away from Evie as she sets up for her presentation. “I have practice and conditioning all weekend. I’m not really gonna have the time.”
“What about next weekend?”
Seriously, the eyelash thing needs to stop. She looks like she has a tic.
“I’m… I’ll, uh, check my schedule.”
“Great, so it’s a date!”
What? I never agreed to anything.
Evie clears her throat and then faces our classmates, taking a deep breath before beginning her part of the speech. Her chest heaves with her inhale, and my eyes are drawn to that damn wet spot. Her hard nipples are visible through her soaked shirt. She shivers a little and gets on with it, her voice strong and clear like nothing’s wrong.
Oh, hell. This girl could shoot me down twice as hard as she just did to Jake and it wouldn’t even matter. I’ve got it so bad that there’s no hope for a cure. My dick is right back to DEFCON 1 of throbbing and wanting.
A brush of bare skin against my arm startles me. Zoe. Sitting way too close for my comfort. I’ve gotta rein my boner in before she thinks I’m hard for her. Taking a couple of deep breaths, I refocus on the front of the room and remind myself that I only have to make it until after school for some relief. If I get to the locker room early enough, no one else will be in there to catch me playing with myself while I fantasize about playing with Evie.
The next ninety minutes are going to be an unfair test of my resolve.
Two
Roses Are Only Romantic if the Giver Isn’t a Coward
Sophomore Year, Evie
The lights onstage momentarily blind me. It takes a few blinks to make the faces in the crowd out. As the rest of the band takes their seats and organizes music for our annual Christmas concert, I’m busy scanning for a particular face. My mother and my grandparents are near the front and to the right. I don’t linger on them for too long lest the constant flashes from the camera blind me once more.
Tini is way in the back with her latest fling. I’m not even sure she knows his name, which honestly makes me feel kinda bad for the guy. He spoils her rotten and she eats it up, but it’s only a matter of time until my younger sister moves on to the next flavor of the month.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to be into a different guy every time you blink. It’s not like there are that many desirable specimens out there. Most guys are like the pubescent spawns of demons, with only a few worthy of friendship. Certainly nothing more. I guess I can’t really judge Tini for her boy addiction. I’m just as bad, if not more discerning. It’s not that I run through them like water. It’s that I’ve been stuck on the same guy for over a year now. If that’s not an addiction, then I don’t know what is. Nobody else even comes close to him. Not in brains, not in manners, not in looks. Not in anything. Never mind that he’s never paid me the slightest attention. Forget that I don’t really do the whole relationship thing. Or, at least, I never even wanted to try until I met him.
No. Apparently, I just lust after what I can never have. Self-torture really isn’t as fun as masochists would have you believe. Being delusional by thinking I have a snowball’s chance in Hell with him isn’t a real picnic, either.
I wish I could shake him from my thoughts, but nothing I do seems to matter. No amount of distraction severs my interest. Neither does his lack of attention. He holds me prisoner with nothing more than his eyes and his wit.
He’s so different from all the other guys. Where most sixteen-year-old sophomores are dumber than a bag of rocks, he’s super freaking smart. He never throws it in anyone’s face the way some of the intellectual kids do, either. Most guys are loud, attention-seeking jerks, but he’s quiet and kind. He’s the total antithesis of an obnoxious jock. I still can’t believe he’s a football player. Every other guy on the team is eager to take what they can get. On the field, in the locker room, in the back seats of their cars. Not this boy. If anything, he seems uncomfortable with all the attention girls pay him. It’s like he doesn’t know what to do with being good-looking and popular. He’s so freaking adorable that I can’t even take it.
Is he here tonight? And if he is, who’s he here to see? As much as I want him for my own, there’s no way I have a shot with him. He’s just too…everything. And I’m nothing.
My gaze continues to wander anxiously over the crowd as someone drops a cymbal in the percussion section. I don’t even register the noise, though several people around me jump in surprise. Mike is predictably here to watch his girlfriend, who’s in the flute section with me, but it’s not the sight of my adopted brother that has me deaf, dumb, and drooling.
My heart beats double time in my chest when I spy the figure sitting next to Mike.
He seems distinctly uncomfortable, his tall frame bunched in the small auditorium seat. His eyes never quite rise to stage-level, and he doesn’t seem to fit in with the group of guys he’s sitting with. They’re all talking loudly, laughing, and joking with each other. He’s just sitting there with his chin to his chest, and even from here, the hunch of his shoulders screams embarrassment. It’s almost like they’re making fun of him, but instead of standing up for himself, he’s just taking it.
I guess, when you’re as delicious as he is, being taunted doesn’t really register on your radar of epic existence.
He looks like a model ripped straight from the pages of any magazine, wearing a red polo shirt and flat-front khakis, and his hair must’ve taken hours to look that perfectly perfect. I squeeze my flute a little harder, trying to distract myself from the urge to run my fingers through that sandy-brown softness. I mean, it looks so…touchable. It has to feel like velvet, right?
Oh my God. I cut my gaze to the side to see if Alyssa heard me sigh. I think I actually sighed over his beauty. I’ve become the very kind of girl I’ve always judged. Lovesick and stupid.
She must not have noticed, so I return to my silent creeping.
Mike laughs and punches Rob in the shoulder. Suddenly, he lifts his head and his eyes lock on me.
I quickly avert my gaze to the safety of my music stand as heat floods my cheeks and I squirm in my chair. Shit, I hope he didn’t bust me while I was staring at him. That’s just what I need. For the popular Rob Falls to realize that geeky, little Evie Papageorgiou has an insatiable crush on him.
He’s nice enough to me, but then again, he’s always nice to everyone, so that’s no big deal. It was so much easier to crush on him in secret last year, before he turned into the effortlessly gorgeous golden boy of our class. He was always cute, sure, but now, he’s like some kind of shy Adonis. It could be worse though. With his looks, he could’ve turned into Narcissus. Both of those stories end in horrible deaths, so I’d rather keep pretending he’s the timid, skinny boy I first met.
“Hey.” Alyssa bumps me with her elbow. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I squeak then clear my throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Stage fright?”
“Yeah…” I lie. That’s not why I’m freaking out right now, but Alyssa doesn’t need to know that.
It’s believable enough anyway. I do get stage fright every single time. The pounding heart, the nausea, the inescapable fear of screwing up something I’ve practiced so hard for.
Those feelings fly away once the music starts. Who has time for anxiety when so much beautiful emotion flows through your body with every measure? There’s no feeling in the world like playing with an ensemble. It’s an indescribable rush of being part of something so much bigger than yourself. The harmony of so many hands and minds coming together to create beauty must surely be the closest thing to utopia that exists in the world. There’s also no worse pressure. One wrong note and you’ll blow the whole thing for everyone.
“Think about something else,” Alyssa whispers. “Oh! I know! Do you think the roses will be waiting for you when we’re done?”
“I don’t know. Maybe?”
“I figured whoever was leaving the
m would’ve slipped up by now. How does he even get back in the band room and know which seat is yours? I mean, I thought that, when they showed up after last year’s Christmas concert, it might have been a fluke. But then there were more after the spring showcase too? And those ones had your name on them, so we know they were for you.”
She makes a little humming noise in the back of her throat. “I think it’s the same guy who left the teddy bear on your locker last year for your birthday. You have a certified secret admirer.”
“That was last year,” I whisper back. “Besides, if I had a secret admirer, wouldn’t he…I don’t know, have revealed himself by now? I’m sure whoever it was lost interest.” If there was ever anyone at all…
“I guess we’ll find out after the concert,” Alyssa answers. Her tone suggests she’s sure of what we’ll find.
As much as it’s flattering that someone obviously spent the money and took the time to leave me those gifts, I can’t help but wonder to what end game. Why would someone go to all of that trouble but never tell me who they are? Especially after an entire year? Alyssa seems convinced there’ll be another dozen red roses waiting for me after tonight’s concert, but I’m not so certain.
Honestly, it’s probably a play on my family’s part to boost my self-esteem and make me feel appreciated by someone other than them. Or Jess and Alyssa have been doing it all of this time. They’re so insistent that I need to get out there and date that perhaps they think “a secret admirer” will provoke my interest in the opposite sex. Maybe that’s because I haven’t bothered to tell them there’s only one guy I’m interested in…
Our band director begins his usual welcome speech at the podium, and my anxiety ratchets up another notch. All thoughts of Rob, mystery bouquets, and secret admirers fly away as I repeat the necessary self-affirmations.
My fingers will fly, swift but sure. My breath will be strong. My timing will be flawless. My phrasing on-point. It will be beautiful. It will be perfect. It will be from the best parts of me.
Between Hearts: A Romance Anthology Page 26