“Totally fine,” I lie. I smile at him, but I feel like a dim bulb compared to the blonde.
“I thought you’d be stoked.” He considers a bag of flour, then, for some reason, puts it in the cart. “You get the place to yourself all week.”
“You’re not there that much as it is.”
“No way!” He laughs. “I’m there. You’re the one who’s always gone. You go to class, you go to work, you go to the library. You’re go-go-go. When do you just kick back and have fun?”
“I have fun.”
“Yeah?” He looks interested. “When?”
I bite my lip. “Okay, fine. I had fun.”
He shakes his head. And I have to give the guy credit—half a dozen other women have walked past, and now that we’re talking, his attention is undivided. “Had fun? Like, in the distant past?”
I laugh a little, feeling like a moron. “It feels that way.” I study the back of a box of cake mix, hoping he’ll drop the subject, but when I next look up he’s just staring at me with a look that says, “I can wait all day.”
I sigh and put the box back on the shelf. “I don’t study so much because I love school,” I admit, tugging the cart around the corner into the dairy aisle. “I study because I have a scholarship and last year I didn’t study—like, at all—and nearly lost it. In fact, I lost half of it. So this year I have to buckle down and do better. A lot better.”
He looks surprised. “Me too.”
I grab yogurt and add it to the cart, then follow that up with some eggs. Plenty of breakfast options now. “And I don’t go out to party or whatever because I did too much of that last year, and I don’t really seem to have an off switch. It’s just all or nothing. All partying, no studying.” I’m not going to mention getting arrested. “And if I didn’t stop, it would be ‘all living with my parents, no job prospects.’”
“I totally hear you,” Kellan says, nodding. “That’s why this arrangement is perfect.” He gestures between us. “You’re like this awesome role model. I come home and see your door closed, and I know you’re in there studying so I’m like, ‘Better study, Kellan, if you want to graduate.’ And then you go to work and I think, ‘Time to work out.’”
I squint at him. “Seriously?”
“Yeah. That’s why I posted the ad that I did. I wanted somebody like you; I just never thought I’d find it.”
You found me at the May Madness frat party, I think. But what I say is, “I’m glad it worked out. For both of us.”
He grins. “I’ll keep up my end of the bargain from now on, too,” he says. “Now that I know why studying is so important to you. And I’ll tell Crosbie to stop dropping by unannounced—he totally could have played one of his own games last night. He didn’t need to bother you.”
Wrong game, Kellan.
“Crosbie’s not a problem.”
“You don’t have to be nice about it. He’s my best friend, but we can hang out at his place.”
Another slice of disappointment at the thought of seeing less of Crosbie. Who could have predicted this?
“Really,” I say. “He’s fine.”
And that’s the understatement of the year.
*
Unfortunately, Kellan is true to his word. I don’t see Crosbie before they leave for the road trip, and when they get back it’s mid-October, and I don’t see him then, either. He’s around—I hear Kellan talking to him on the phone, or sometimes he’ll tell me about something Crosbie said or did when they were hanging out that day, but he doesn’t come to the apartment. Not when I’m there, anyway. He doesn’t come to Beans, either, and though I try not to, I start to obsess. What did Kellan say to him? Stay away from Nora, she needs her education? Or does it have nothing at all to do with Kellan and everything to do with what didn’t happen in the kitchen that night? Is he embarrassed? Does he regret it? Does he hate me?
Okay, I really don’t think I’ve done anything to be hated for, but after exhausting all other avenues, that’s where my mind goes.
“Hey,” I say abruptly. I’m eating a plate of spaghetti at the dining table and Kellan’s watching one of the Die Hard movies.
“What’s up?” he asks, pausing the show.
“Do you know if Crosbie’s still interested in doing open mic night at Beans?”
Kellan frowns and rubs a finger between his eyebrows. “Has he been badgering you with his ‘magic’ again?” he asks with a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry. I’ll talk to him about it.”
“No,” I say hastily. “I haven’t even seen him, that’s why I’m asking you. I thought he was interested, but he hasn’t signed up and all the slots are almost taken.” That’s technically true, though I haven’t actually given open mic night or Crosbie’s “magic” much thought recently. I just don’t know how else to ask Kellan what the hell his best friend has been up to without fielding certain questions in return.