These are my people. I knew the very first day last month that if I found friends in this school, this is where I’d find them.
Sunday greets me when I approach. Introduces me, includes me. Even puts his arm around me once. Fleetingly. I suspect it was some kind of secret signal to another guy that I’m not available. That even though he and I are not together, he’s claimed me.
I’m surprisingly OK with that.
But when the bell rings and he leans down to—I don’t know, kiss me?—I put my hand on his chest. “I like you,” I say. “But I’m not looking. So…”
“So?” he says.
“So if that’s what you’re after, I’m gonna disappoint you.”
He takes my backpack off my shoulder and says, “I’ll walk you to class.”
The rest of the day flies by with my head in a fog. What is he doing? Does he want to be friends? He wasn’t mad when I stopped his kiss. If he was going to kiss me. I think he was.
At the end of the day I grab Alesci’s jacket from my locker and head to the front of the school. Sunday is there, waiting right where Bowman picked me up yesterday.
“’Bout time,” he says, taking my backpack and giving the jacket a weird look. Please don’t ask me about it. Please, please, please. “Wanna come over? I got a couple hours before work.”
“Oh, I can’t,” I say. “I have night school down at Gilbert.”
“Need a ride?”
I nod, wincing at how dependent I am on people these days. When we get to his car, he opens my door for me. “Thank you,” I say.
He just smiles, gets in his side, and holds out his hand. “Give me your phone.”
“What?”
“Your phone. So I can call you and give you my number.”
I fish around in my backpack for my phone and hand it to him. He doesn’t even remark on how old it is, how the screen is cracked, or how all the numbers are practically rubbed off on the outdated keys. He calls himself, then presses end, adds his name to my contacts, and hands it back.
“Call me when you’re done there and I’ll come get you.”
“I thought you had to work?”
He shrugs and starts the car. “My boss is flexible.”
Chapter Eight
As soon as I’m out of Sunday’s car my mind immediately goes back to last night with Mateo. It’s like a switch flips. But his motorcycle isn’t in the parking lot, and I realize I have another class to go to before his.
I sit through science with my leg bouncing the entire time. Science isn’t a class. It’s a room with about eight kids who have a textbook and do tests. You can do them all open-book and get a C, or do the work and study and go for an A. I opt for open-book and complete four tests in two hours.
The teacher, who never even introduces himself to me, shoots me looks each time I turn one in. “Trying to get them all done in one day, Drake?”
“Yes,” I say. “I have very little control over my life at the moment. I take it where I can get it.”
He leaves me alone after test three.
When the class is finally dismissed I am consumed with thoughts of Mateo. We didn’t even set up a time last night. What if he’s not here? Where am I supposed to go? Should I go to the office and ask?
But in the end, he is sitting at that little table desk in room twenty-one. He’s not wearing a suit. Jesus fuck. His plain white t-shirt stretches across his chest just like the dress shirt did yesterday. And his bare arms are covered in tattoos. His dark hair is neither long nor short, and he’s got a little curl that falls down onto his forehead.
I want very badly to touch that little curl of hair.
“You’re late,” he says.
“I am?”
He nods up to the clock, which reads five minutes after five.
“Was I supposed to be here at five? Because you never said yesterday.”
“Here’s your book,” he says, leaning around to grab a textbook and dropping it on the table with a loud thump. “And here,” he says, repeating the action, “is your workbook. You have homework every night. We meet at five and stay until seven. On the weekends—”
“Weekends?”
He looks up at me, those green eyes burning. He’s pissed about something, I realize. “We did agree on every day?”
“But you never said anything about the weekends.”
“We can meet at my house on the weekends.”
“What?”
“My house, Shannon. Do you prefer mornings or mornings?”
I don’t know what to say. This guy, he’s like a bulldozer who runs me over. “I don’t think I can do weekends.”
“You can,” he says, nodding. “Now sit down and tell me what you know about integers.” His legs stretch out under the table. They scissor between mine. My eyes dart up to look at him. “Problem?” he asks.
I blink.
“No? Then read the first paragraph on page eight and tell me what you think it means.”
I look down at my book.
His legs move against mine. Rubbing back and forth. What the fuck?