“Dawson said you had fun at dinner.” Ace smiles. He’s much cuter when he smiles.
“We did. We’re freaks. He moaned about Whitney, and I complained about Peyton’s stupid brother.” I give the bag a solid right hook and then laugh. “I’ve been pretending this bag is his head.”
Ace coughs, and Tyrese rolls his eyes over his shoulder. Like someone is there. Like, behind me.
Tyrese says, “Hey, have fun. We gotta go.”
Someone taps me on my shoulder.
I turn around and am face to face with the stupid brother.
“You been standing there long?”
“Long enough,” Aiden says flatly.
“Fan-tas-tic.” I rip the gloves off, throw them on the ground in front of me, and run out the door.
All of a sudden, I feel like running.
Running away.
But I can’t do that, so I do the next best thing.
Run across the driveway, down the hill, and sprint down to the track.
I sprint and sprint around the track.
Until I may die of cardiac arrest.
I run off the track, fall exhaustedly down into the grass, shut my eyes, and lay as still as I can. I’m trying to go into a meditative state. I can do yoga, all the stretches and breathing, but the meditation, the whole clear-your-mind thing, is very, very difficult for me. Plus, it’s hard to do when your heart rate is about three thousand beats per second. Instead, I just focus on slowing my breathing down. OOOMMM, OOOMMM.
Someone interrupts my almost-clarity by shaking me. “Keatyn, are you okay? Wake up. Wake up.”
I open my eyes and stare straight into Aiden’s face, which, with the sun setting behind him, makes it look like he only has a head. A head that is surrounded by streams of yellow and orange sunbeams. It looks very godlike, really.
I give him a puzzled look. “Why the hell are you shaking me?”
He looks panicked, and he’s breathing heavy too.
“Because I saw you collapse! I thought you died or had a heart attack or something. God, you scared me half to death!”
I let out a big sigh and roll my eyes at him.
It may have been the biggest eye roll of my life.
“I’m perfectly fine. Thank you for checking on me. It was very sweet, but I’d like to be alone now. I’m trying to meditate.” Then I close my eyes and try to forget the jerk is here.
“Why were you punching my head?”
“Because I hate you. No, that’s not right. Because you frustrate the hell out of me.”
“And you don’t think I want to punch your head too? You frustrate the hell out of me. I don’t know what to do with you. Every time I try to do something nice or special for you, it blows up in my face.”
“Well at least I don’t act like I like you, be all romantic and shit, then pat you on the back, say See ya later and then don’t see you later. Don’t call. Don’t text.”
“At least I didn’t go on a date with Dawson!”
“That’d make you gay. But it doesn’t matter. Whitney doesn’t even know me and now she hates me, not that I care. Obviously she doesn’t want him, but she also doesn’t want anyone else to have him. It’s about time she let him move on. Stop freaking torturing him.”
“And he’s going to move on with you?”
“Not at all. We’re just friends. But at least he talks to me.”
“I want to talk to you.”
“So why don’t you?”
“I felt like I screwed it all up with the Keats stuff, and then you told me you slept with him, and I don’t even know the guy, and I want to go hunt him down and tell him to leave you alone. That you’re mine. Especially after I saw his text today in French.”
“But I’m not yours.”
“I don’t think you could belong to anyone else.”
What. The. Hell? Who the hell does he think he is? “Oh really?” I say. “Just watch me.”
I get up and jog straight to the boys’ dorm.
I knock on Dawson’s door, fling it open, and then slam it shut. He’s sitting on his bed with his laptop across one knee.
He laughs when he sees me. “You’re pissed. What’s wrong?”
I move his computer off his lap, flop face down in its place, and growl. “Grrrrrr.”
“Aiden?”
“And his sister.”
Dawson puts both his hands on my back and rubs it gently. “Just relax. Then you can tell me all about it. And, while you’re at it, you should probably take your face off my lap before I get all turned on.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m just kidding. Jeez. What happened?”
I roll over and lay the back of my head on his lap.
He starts massaging my temples.
“Oh,” I moan. “Oh my gosh. That’s just what I needed. Oh, that feels sooooo good.”
He grins down at me.
“Oh. Please. Don’t stop,” I whine.
“I’ll do it for as long as you want, baby,” he teases.
And, finally, I relax.
Then I tell him everything.
We decide that Aiden is a jerk, and Peyton and Whitney are dumb. Then we go to dinner in the café together.
After dinner, I’m giggling as he tries to feed me bites of his messy brownie sundae.
Some hot fudge drips down over my lip and then, right in front of Whitney, he slowly licks it off and kisses me.