Thing You Should Know About Me #70: I don’t like Andrea. Now, I like mostly everybody, but Andrea is one of the few people I don’t like without any particular understanding of why. There’s just something about her that bothers me. And despite wracking my brain for a reason, I don’t have one. Tom, however, is completely enthralled by her gorgeous blue eyes and candy-red lips and prim way of sitting and standing.
“Bee,” she says to me. Her smile is not quite a smile.
“Andy,” I say, because she’s insisted I call her that. As if saying a nickname over and over again will generate some sort of familiarity between us. “I didn’t realize you were coming.”
“Is there a problem?” Tom asks, glancing back at me through the rear-view mirror.
“No, of course not,” I say, shrugging. Then I notice the slight downturn of his mouth and the way his eyes flicker to Andrea briefly, as if he’s not quite looking at her, and I want to ask. But I’m afraid he’ll bust me for being nosy, so I move to something else. “I’m excited for tonight.”
My words are genuine. As much as I’m not a huge fan of big, loud parties, I have hopes that I’ll enjoy this one. After all, it’s at Keagan’s house, a place I’m comfortable with. I breathe in and out, steadying myself after my long day, finding some solace in familiarity.
Tom smiles. (Although his eyes maintain some wariness.) “Good.”
The party is in full swing when we arrive.
I walk in first (bad idea), so I’m immediately hit by a wave of humans: Keagan, Michael (who slips my mom’s bill into my purse as he hugs me), Greg, and some of Tom’s old friends from high school. I hug Mariah and Trey, who both graduated with Tom last year, and Mariah introduces me to her friend. Because of all the noise, I barely register that her name is Casey. Behind me, Tom is shouting something about a video game, and the music blares, and the sound of cue sticks hitting billiard balls pops against my eardrums.
I awkwardly smile and nod at Mariah and Casey, even though I suddenly can’t focus on either of them (oh God this party is already overwhelming me helphelphelp). I turn toward the game room, scanning for the pool table, and when my eyes find it, I nearly drop and cover my head. There stands Levi (OF ALL PEOPLE) making a perfect shot, his tall, lean body bent over the table, and I have to force my mouth closed. Enough gaping at him, Bee.
If I wasn’t going to let Tom talk me into playing before, I’m sure as hell not going to now. And if I thought for one second that this party was going to get me out of seeing That Boy today, I was dead-wrong.
Levi straightens, his bright red sweater falling loosely across his shoulders and around his long torso. When he raises one hand in a triumphant fist pump, I can see the top button of his jeans, and the belt around his hips, and the sliver of skin and hip bones and muscle just above that.
Everything is beautiful. Everything is terrible.
I clear my throat. Once again I’m staring at him, and once again he’s caught me. He knows exactly who I am and that we talked and that he named my car and that I’m an awkward human being, but he still smiles at me.
I nod in his direction, grinning a little too hard, thanking God he’s too involved in the game to walk over to me. I wonder when he’s going to start thinking I’m a creep for staring all the time. I need to compose myself, get my crap together.
He’s just a boy.
(Who just happens to be everything I want, so help me.) Tom slaps my shoulder, already holding a beer, and leans close to me. “Hey, don’t take this the wrong way, but everyone can tell who you like.”
I elbow him hard in the ribs. “I don’t like him,” I whisper harshly. “And you already know I think he’s cute, so you don’t count as everyone.”
“O-kay,” he says lamely. I can’t help but smile at him. “I won’t let your secret out, then. Could be bad for you.”
I purse my lips. “Tom, you’re incorrigible.”
“Come on, Bee,” Andrea says, coming up beside Tom. “You don’t have to show off with all your big words.”
Her tone is decidedly teasing, like she’s my older sister and she wants to mess around with me, but somehow her smile looks like a sneer. I wonder for the umpteenth time if I’m reading into something or if I’m actually right. “Incorrigible?” I ask. “It’s not that big—”
Someone to my left interrupts me. “Unredeemable, incurable, habitual.”
I suck in my breath.
“Come on, Andy,” Levi continues. “If you don’t know that word, then maybe you should retake fifth grade vocabulary?”
He’s teasing, laughing like it’s all in good fun, but now he’s pissed off the Wicked Witch of the West. With a disgusted glance in my direction, Andrea shrugs and turns to my brother. I half expect her to hug him, to play the whiny girlfriend, but they don’t even make eye contact. Tom grabs his beer bottle and tosses it in the trash, and Andrea heads straight to the drink table.
I don’t know what’s going on with them, but I brush off my concern and pivot to face Levi.
He’s right there. Right behind me. Too close too close too close.
“You know her by Andy?” I blurt.
He shrugs. “She practically chewed me out the second time I met her and didn’t call her Andy. I never forgot again.” He chuckles, fingers wrapped around his cue stick, which rests chalk-end-up next to him. “But I’m sure you know all about that.”
“Ha!” I laugh, a little too loudly. (Tone it down, Bee.) “Yes. Well. Tom must see something in her.”
“Hmm.” He glances over at Tom, who is purposefully avoiding eye-contact with us. “Maybe.”
My shoulders relax. “You see it, too?”
“They’ve never been this weird.”
I sigh heavily. “Right? I mean, I don’t know her that well, but…”
“Yeah.” Levi jerks his head up at the sound of his name being yelled from across the room. “One sec, it’s my turn.”
I follow him to the crowded pool table. It looks like Keagan and Michael have joined the game, as well as three new arrivals. To avoid being trampled, I sit down behind them on one of the kitchen barstools next to Mariah. I don’t understand the rules of the game at all (I’m dreadfully confused), but I watch intently nonetheless. The room tenses when Levi knocks three of the balls out of the game. A cry goes up: anguish from Michael, triumph from Keagan.
It’s Michael’s turn, and then Keagan’s (I’m starting to get the idea that they’re playing with teams), and three other guys I don’t know. When it’s Levi’s turn again, he saunters over—narrowly avoiding the foot Michael sticks out to trip him—and sets up his shot. We’re all watching, holding our breath, and Michael is completely bitter that we’re all rooting for Levi.
Of course, he strikes perfectly, and the balls fly just how he wants them to, and everyone jumps up wildly. Levi shouts something I can’t understand and grabs Keagan’s face in his hands. Laughing, Keagan slaps him on the back, raising their hands in the air between them like they’ve won some big championship. Everyone crowds around them and I’m grinning hard from their contagious joy.
Mariah leans in close, laughing over the racket. “Levi’s been trying to beat Michael at pool for over a year. The tension’s been high.”