Once the soup was pretty much finished and the rest of the prep was done for the next day (at least the part I was responsible for) Anna shooed me out of the kitchen so I could go study.
I didn’t see Shane again before I left, which was bittersweet.
But I did need to get an hour or so of studying in before bed, so I trudged up the stairs to the third floor so I could take a shower before joining my friends in the lounge. As I got to the second floor landing, I took my phone out to turn the volume up; Shane went crazy if anyone used their phones in the kitchen, so I always turned my ringer off so I wouldn’t be tempted to check it.
There was a text message from Kaylee saying they were in the lounge and one from Brooklyn asking when I was coming to study. I didn’t bother responding since I was on my way, but then I noticed I’d missed a call and there was a voicemail message. I recognized the number as being the one I’d texted after Emmie had seen a flyer in the first floor lounge advertising a tutor; she must finally be getting back to me.
I put my phone back in my pocket, promising myself I’d listen to the message and return her call from my dorm room when I wouldn’t be interrupted. As I got up to the third floor, I was going to go straight down to my dorm room, but when I heard Chelly’s loud laughter, I smiled and turned toward the lounge instead.
“There she is,” Emmie announced, the first to notice me as she was facing the door. The rest of my friends looked up and smiled at me.
“Come sit with us,” Brooklyn said, waving me in.
I shook my head. “I stink like onions. I’m going to take a shower and then I’ll be back to study.”
“How’s your hot chef?” Chelly asked.
I shrugged. “He’s not mine.”
“Yet,” she drawled.
“Wait,” Emmie said, drawing my attention.
“What?”
She cocked her head. “Why are you blushing?”
“I’m not,” I protested but there wasn’t much point because I was blushing.
“Yes you are,” Chelly said. “What happened?”
I looked around the lounge because it wasn’t just us in there and I didn’t need everyone knowing my business, even if it wasn’t much. With a sigh, I stepped closer to the table and dropped into the empty chair that I knew was being saved for me. “He said something. But I know it doesn’t mean anything.”
Chelly’s eyes widened. “What did he say?”
I took a breath, feeling all my friends’ eyes on me as my face heated up even more. “He noticed my eyes.”
“Well, they are striking,” Emmie said, very matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean: noticed?” Brooklyn asked.
“He...” I looked away because I didn’t really want to say it out loud. Because if I did, my friends would squeal and get all excited and then make me hope that it really did mean something. I didn’t want to hope. Hope was dangerous because it always led to disappointment.
“He what?” Kaylee prodded.
I sighed. “He said I was beautiful.”
Cue the squealing.
“That is awesome! Your kitchen crush likes you!” Chelly exclaimed. Then, as she looked at me, the smile fell from her face. “Wait. What’s wrong? Why do you look like your puppy just died?”
“He doesn’t like me. He inhaled some fumes from the stove or something.”
“Nuh uh,” Chelly said, shaking her head. “He’s into you. Guys don’t just randomly say you have beautiful eyes if they’re not into you.”
I looked around at my other friends who all seemed to be in agreement, nodding along.
Crap. Here comes the hope, I thought.
“What happened after he said that?” Emmie asked.
I cringed.
“What did you do?” Kaylee said accusingly. Because she knew me better than anyone.
“I shut him down and he walked away.”
“Oh Celia,” Chelly said with a cluck of her tongue. “We need to fix this.”
“No,” I said. “We don’t need to do anything.”
“But...”
“No.” I said. “Don’t push me on this, Chelly.”
She opened her mouth, but Emmie put a hand on her arm. That shut her up, thankfully.
I sighed, suddenly overwhelmed with how tired I was. Working in the kitchen after a whole day of school hit me like a ton of bricks some days. And I still had a lot of work ahead of me.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I announced. “Then I’m going to do some studying. My algebra exam is in seven days and I still haven’t made it through all the chapters let alone the practice questions.”
“Come back down and we can go through them together,” Brooklyn said. I appreciated both her help and the change of subject.
I nodded at her and promised I would return after my shower before turning and leaving the lounge.
I really meant it at the time.
~ ♥ ~
The beep and metallic whine of the door lock jolted me into stuffing the paperback under the covers just in time.
Kaylee came into the room and didn’t look suspicious at all, even though I probably looked guilty even with the textbook in my lap. I felt bad that not only was I hiding the novel, I had staged the big algebra book in place, intent on deceiving her. Like kids who went to the movies and hid vodka inside a McDonald’s cup.
“Hey,” she said, coming over and sitting down on her bed across from mine. “You didn’t come back.”
I just shook my head since there wasn’t much to say that wasn’t obvious. Or a confession.
“Everyone feels bad for razzing you about the chef guy. We’re sorry.”
I shrugged. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not,” she said, taking her hair out of her ponytail and running her fingers through it. “I know you hate it. But if he told you...”
I held up my hand to stop her. “Just leave it, okay?”
She opened her mouth but then closed it again and nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry. We’re just...we just want you to be happy.”
“He doesn’t like me.”
Her eyebrows went up but she pressed her lips together, obviously working really hard at not saying anything.
“He doesn’t. He just seemed...I don’t know, surprised, like he hadn’t noticed my eyes before or something.”
“Maybe he hadn’t.”
“Just because you notice someone’s eyes all of a sudden doesn’t mean you like them. My eyes aren’t exactly normal.”
She laughed. “Your eyes aren’t abnormal. You just make them blue.”
“Still...”
Kaylee was quiet a moment and then nodded toward my textbook. “How’s that going?”
I looked down at the book as a reason not to meet her eyes. “All right, I guess.”
“You ready for the exam?”
“No.”
“Can I...”
“No, thanks,” I said, cutting her off again and slamming the book closed to make my point. She didn’t say anything else as I put the book beside me and started to get out of bed to go to the bathroom so I could take out my contacts and brush my teeth. As I slid my legs out from under the covers, the paperback fell on the floor.
I cursed inside my head as we both looked at it sitting there between us, probably both wondering what the other was going to do about it.
How about nothing? Because denial was my standard operating procedure.
Though she kept silent, her judgement felt heavy on my shoulders as I picked up the book and placed it on my bed before I headed to the bathroom.
~ ♥ ~
One of the great things about my friendship with Kaylee is that we love each other unconditionally and no matter how frustrated she gets with me, we are always still going to be friends. So when I came out of the bathroom, she was standing there waiting for me and before I could even say anything, she pulled me into a hug. I didn’t need to ask what it was for and she didn’t need to say anything about it.
We both knew. I knew that she would be there for me no matter what I needed and she knew that no matter how crabby I got about her meddling, I never held it against her and deep down loved her for it. Most of the time, just having her around made me want to do better, but then when it came time to study and actually do stuff about it, I sort of became paralyzed and ended up doing nothing.
Which is why I’d had to tell her she couldn’t tutor me. We would end up not being friends if I let her try to help me and then she failed. And she would fail, because I was just about the worst student there was.
It’s not like I saw school as being a long-term thing for me anyway. I would have loved to have been in sports in some way as a future career, but I wasn’t good enough at anything to compete professionally. I sure wasn’t smart enough to go to teachers’ college to become a PE teacher. So I figured I’d go into the family biz and join my uncle’s entourage. He’s two-time Oscar-winning actor Kevin Thomas—the guy people call the next Denzel Washington, and current Hollywood A-lister, which means he has a whole team of support staff. My dad, his brother, is his manager and my stepmother is his publicist. I’d been on location a few times so I know there are plenty of things I could do to legitimately get on the payroll, but Uncle Kevin had been adamant that I finish high school first. He paid for me to come here when it had become obvious that public school wasn’t going to work for me. It was either here or go on location with his entourage and get private schooling along with his kids, my cousins. But that meant no opportunity for sports and being on location got old really fast, so I’d picked Rosewood.
I was pretty sure when he’d said I had to finish high school, he meant getting a diploma and not finishing by getting kicked out. I just had to hang in for a year and a bit. Which seemed doable, until it came time to open the books.
As Kaylee let me go out of the hug, we looked at each other and silently called a truce. Then, as I turned from her to get into bed, my phone sounded as a text message came in. I picked it up off my bedside table and smiled at Chelly’s sad face picture with her apology scrolled over it.
Accepted, I sent back, to which she returned a smilie.
I was about to put my phone down and climb into bed for the night when I noticed the voicemail icon and remembered the tutor had called. Feeling like I could use to be a little mature about my situation, I dialed into voicemail and queued up the message then put the phone to my ear to listen.
“Hi there, my name is James Thorburn. You sent a message about tutoring? I thought we could talk about what subjects you need help with—that’s probably easier than communicating by text message. You can reach me at this number. I’m available tonight until about ten or tomorrow after class, so from about three-thirty on. Looking forward to speaking with you. Until then, goodbye.”
I took the phone away from my face and stared at it for a second.
“What’s wrong?” Kaylee asked.
I dragged my eyes from my cell and looked at her. “Sorry. I was just listening to a message from that tutor.”
She frowned. “So what’s wrong?”
“It’s a guy.”
She paused for a long moment and then said, “And that’s a problem?” She cocked her head and I could almost hear her add, or is this another excuse?
It kind of made me mad, but mostly at myself because she knew me so well. I shook my head. “No. I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter. I just assumed it would be a girl. I was surprised, that’s all.”
“Do we know him?
“I don’t know,” I said, turning back to my phone and queuing up the message again because I’d been so distracted after hearing that it was a guy that I hadn’t really paid attention to his name. “He did say he was available after class tomorrow, so he must be a teacher. Hold on.” I held up a hand as I listened to the message.
Kaylee stared at me, waiting.
“James Thorburn,” I said as I heard him say it in his deep voice. Kaylee shook her head; she didn’t know him, either.
“I don’t think he’s a teacher here,” she said. “His name doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Maybe he teaches at Westwood,” I suggested.
“Or maybe he’s a college student. Does he sound older?”
I nodded as I started the message a third time and put it on speaker. She listened, looking at me and making faces as she did.
“What?” I asked as I saved the message.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll have to call him back tomorrow.”
“He sounds like he has something up his butt.”
She smiled at that. “You’re not looking to date him. You want him to help you with your schoolwork. What might or might not be up his butt is irrelevant.”
I laughed. “Good point.”
“You’ll call him, though, right?” she asked, chewing on her lip.
I sighed. “Yes, Kaylee, I’ll call him.”