“Yeah, we go camping all the time. Oh, and last year my parents saved up enough money to go to Florida for their twenty-first anniversary, but they drove down.”
At the moment, I felt unbelievably spoiled. Back home in New York, when it got really cold, my mother would take me to Miami for the weekend to soak up some sun. I never even considered Florida a vacation.
“Why? Where did your family go on vacation?” Alex asked me.
For a second I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to tell Alex that I had been all over Europe, South America, and even China.
“Oh, you know, just around,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“Oh, come on. Tell me,” Alex said and elbowed me in the side. When I didn’t answer, he frowned. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I guess I just feel awkward. I didn’t know this was going to be such a big deal. Everyone seemed kind of jealous.” And I don’t know how to act around you anymore, I wanted to add, but I kept my mouth shut.
“Jackie,” Alex responded, staring at me seriously, “what you did for Danny was thoughtful, and sure, some people are probably jealous, but that’s not a bad thing.”
“You sure?” I asked, looking up at him.
“Yup,” he said. “It also means that I expect something cool for Christmas.”
I laughed. “And what would that be?”
“Just a Darth Vader helmet, dual signature edition.”
“What’s that?”
“Nerd shit,” he said with a laugh. “And only one of the most expensive pieces of Star Wars memorabilia in the world.”
“Well, it sounds like you’ll have to be awfully nice to me.”
“How about I start by taking you somewhere fun tonight?”
My heart almost burst from my chest. He didn’t mean like on a date, did he? “Where?” I finally asked him, not bothering to meet his eyes. Instead, I concentrated on my anatomy notebook, flipping to a blank page and writing the date in the right-hand corner.
He paused at this. “I know someone who’s having a party tonight,” Alex said, trying to sound casual. “We should go together.” When he saw the hesitation on my face, he added, “You know, as friends.”
I thought that hearing those last few words would help me relax around him, but when my stomach dipped, I realized that maybe that wasn’t what I wanted after all. What if I just needed to give Alex a chance?
I was about to say yes, that I would go with him, but there was something about the way he was avoiding my gaze that made me suspicious. “Whose party is it?” I said instead.
“Mary’s,” he said in a rush. “But I thought that if you told me what she said, we could work everything out.”
I shook my head. “Sorry, Alex, but no.” Maybe I needed to stop thinking of all the bad things that would happen if there was something more between Alex and me, maybe I needed to give him a chance, but I wouldn’t do it at her party. Not after what she’d said, how she’d hurt me. There was nothing Alex could do to get me to go.
“Please, Jackie? I don’t get why you’re making such a big deal out of this.”
“If I tell you what she said, will you drop the subject?” I snapped.
“Of course,” he said eagerly.
“She shoved my family’s death in my face.”
“What? Why would she do that?”
“To hurt me,” I said, “because I’m friends with you.”
Chapter 12
After school, Katherine had a meal waiting for us. We all sat down and ate together, no snakes included.
“Someone want to get me some more milk?” Isaac asked, holding up an empty cup.
George raised an eyebrow. “What happened to your legs? No one here is your butler.”
“Jackie?” Benny asked me then. “Did you have butters to serve your food at dinnertime?”
Isaac, who was trying to chug from Cole’s glass before he noticed, spit milk all over the table in laughter.
“No, Benny,” I said. “We did not have any butlers.”
“Hey!” Cole complained, noticing his empty glass in Isaac’s hand. “That was my milk!”
“And this was your roll too,” Isaac said, shoving half of it in his mouth. “Mmmm, tasty.”
When everyone was done eating and the table cleared, I headed up to my room to do homework. It was going to be a very boring night since most of the guys were going to Mary’s party, but maybe later I could watch a movie with Jack and Jordan.
It was loud in the hallway as everyone got ready, and the smell of Axe seeped under my door. Finally all the commotion traveled downstairs, and I went to the window to watch everyone pile into the truck and pull away. Sighing, I collapsed on my bed, ignoring the calculus notebook that was open on my desk. Even though this was my choice, a tiny part of me felt left out. I wished I could spend the night hanging out with Alex and Nathan.
Not long after the thought crossed my mind, my bedroom door slammed open.
“Up!” Cole demanded, strolling into my room.