His eyes lock on mine again. “It didn’t work out.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at him.
A smile ghosts over his strong features, but vanishes just as fast. “No.” He pulls himself up from the pool edge in one deft motion and grabs his towel. “You hungry?”
Butterflies erupt in my stomach. If I’m not mistaken, Marcus is asking me to grab dinner with him, and this time it’s not a case of mistaken identity. “Maybe. Where are you going?”
“Where the burgers are laced with crack,” he says with a devious smile.
I know where he means, but Sam Hill is the last place I want to be. Even if Dad hasn’t fallen off the wagon yet, I don’t feel like being reminded of all my public humiliation. “We just had Sam Hill burgers last night. There is other food, you know.”
He shrugs. “What can I say? I need my burger fix. So, you in or what?”
I pull myself up and grab my towel. “I could eat…but not at Sam Hill.”
He looks at me for a long minute and I see understanding dawn on his face. “How about I call Mico’s Pizza for takeout?”
“That would be good,” I say, turning for the locker room. “I’m going to change.”
I’m shaking and I know it’s not from the slight chill in the night air. I’m not stupid. I know he doesn’t mean this to be a date. But that doesn’t stop the cyclone from scattering my thoughts to the wind and tearing up my insides.
I rush through my shower and throw on my clothes, sure that when I come out, he’ll have changed his mind and vanished. But, to the contrary, when I emerge from the locker room, he’s sitting on a starting block with his phone pressed to his ear, freshly showered and wearing worn jeans and a snug white T-shirt.
He stands, sauntering toward me. “Hold on,” he says into the receiver, then to me, “What do you want on it? Say anything but anchovies.”
With the word anchovies, his nose scrunches a little and a questioning smile curves his firm, red lips. And I’ve never wanted to kiss a pair of lips the way I want to kiss his. The unrelenting cyclone inside just took down all my power lines, scrambling my nervous system and setting off sparks. My brain short circuits.
“Addie?” he asks, and I realize he’s waiting for me to say something.
“Anchovies,” I repeat. Partly because it’s the last word I heard him say, and it’s playing on repeat like a stuck record in my broken brain. But also because anchovies are my favorite.
Friday nights were pizza night when I was little. Mom used to order me a small anchovy pizza all my own and set up the table on the back porch for us so my pizza never had to be in the actual house. She sat at the other end, as far away from my “disgusting fish pizza” as she could get and wouldn’t even let me keep any leftovers. The whole thing, box and all, went right into the trash bin when I was done. Dad used to take a bite of my pizza, then try to kiss Mom. She’d shove him away by the face and go wash her hand because it had touched his mouth and was contaminated.
“Seriously?” Marcus says, his face creasing deeper.
I take a deep breath. “Seriously.”
“Okay,” he drawls into the phone. “I apparently need one large anchovy pizza for pick up.”
I hold up my hands. “You don’t have to get anchovies!”
He listens for a second to whatever the Mico’s person is saying, then hangs up the phone. “Tonight is about solidarity,” he says, shoving it in his pocket. “If that means I have to eat anchovies, then so be it.”
My chest swells with emotion. “You’d do that for me?”
A smile tugs at his mouth. “No hypotheticals. I am doing this for you.”
“Why?”
“That’s what friends do,” he says, causing a shower of sparks in my belly.
It only gets worse when he hikes his duffel bag onto his shoulder and gently takes my elbow in his hand, directing me toward the faculty parking lot. His touch sets off a chain reaction down my spine that settles low in my belly. I’m all electric jitters by the time he clicks the locks on his old black pickup truck and opens the door for me.
I look at him for a long minute, not sure I trust myself not to do or say something stupid alone in a car with him.
He quirks an amused smile. “You don’t trust me?”
“If my alternative is running alongside, I guess I have no choice.”
He takes my elbow again and helps me into the passenger seat, and when sparklers go off under my skin, I know I’m in trouble.
We pass Sam Hill on the way to Mico’s, and Dad’s car isn’t there. Marcus must see me looking.
“We can drive over to Crazy Eights later and check for him, if you want.”
“I think he’s home.” I hope.
He cuts me a sideways glance. “That’s good, right?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
He pulls into a parking spot in front of Mico’s. “Give me a sec,” he says, climbing out.