Biggest Flirts (Superlatives #1)(39)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“Can you go out tonight?” he asked. “Might as well get it over with.”

“No, I have to work late,” I said. “I promised Bob and Roger that I’d train them on the inventory database I set up. I tried writing down the directions, but old people can follow instruction manuals fine until they involve computers, and suddenly their brains explode. I’m going to have to hold their hands and lead them through it.”

Will nodded. “Wednesday night? Or are you busy then, too?” He sounded suspicious, like he was afraid I was making up an excuse about tonight and he expected one for tomorrow. I thought we knew each other pretty well, but obviously he didn’t understand that I tried not to make excuses. If I hadn’t wanted to fake-date him, I would have told him so.

“Tomorrow night,” I agreed, “as soon as I get off work.”

“Great,” he said again, emotionlessly. “What kind of date would you like to go on? We can do anything you want, as long as we’re likely to be seen so the news will get back to Angelica.”

I imitated what he’d said our first night together. “I want you to take me to lunch, and then I can show you around town.”

He turned so suddenly that his drum knocked into mine—a mistake I made all the time when I was talking to people on the field, but he did not. This time I could hear the hurt in his voice as he said quietly, “I want to do this, and help you out, but not if you’re going to take stabs at me.”

I put my hand on his back. His shirt was soaked with sweat. I kept my hand there. “Kidding. I didn’t mean it ugly. I wanted to go on that date you invited me on last week. I just . . .” The band was loud around us, milling into place in two long lines for the football team to run through on game night, but the silence between Will and me was louder.

“I’ll pick you up from the shop when you close,” he finally said. “I’ll take you to dinner, and you can show me around town.” He took my hand off his back and wiped it on his cargo shorts, which were dryer.

“More flirt germs,” I commented.

He gave me my hand back hastily and looked around to see if Ms. Nakamoto had noticed him rubbing my palm close to his crotch. Sometimes our flirting was innocent like this: We weren’t thinking dirty, and we realized how it looked to other people only after the fact.

Sometimes not.

He put the head of his drumstick on my drum and traced loud circles there, making the snares rattle. It was his way of touching me, I thought, without actually touching me and getting in trouble. As the circles he made got smaller, I started to wonder exactly what was going to happen on our fake date, and whether our facade would include feeling each other up like lusty pirates on shore leave. The heat was finally getting to me.

“One more thing, though,” he said, ending his solo on my drum with a loud tap. “I heard you were with Sawyer all last weekend.”

I countered, “I heard you and Angelica studied together at the library, and you licked her copy of Fahrenheit 451.”

“That is a lie,” he deadpanned. “The spine doesn’t count.” He turned to me as if to look into my eyes, which had no effect when we were both wearing shades. “Seriously,” he whispered, “even though we’re only fake-dating, I don’t want you with Sawyer. If you’re dating him, we won’t do this. If you’re just fooling around, I want you to stay away from him. That’s my one condition.”

I thought through it. Sawyer would be difficult to corral. “Can I flirt with him while I’m dating you, even if it doesn’t mean anything? A little tit for tat? No?”

Will lowered his chin so that I could see his blue eyes boring into me over the edge of his sunglasses.

“No!” I concluded. “Okay. Just let me dump my bike in the back of his truck after school and hitch a ride to work with him so I can explain.”

For the rest of practice, Will and I talked but didn’t really flirt. Suddenly we were acting reserved around each other, afraid to let ourselves go, like we were telling jokes at a funeral. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking, but I for one had a lot of anxiety about our evening together tomorrow. I tried not to get my hopes up. What could happen? It would be, after all, a Wednesday. But when we’d played around in band before, nothing had mattered. Now I felt like we had a lot at stake, and not all of it had to do with the drum challenge and Angelica.

Finally we ran through the pregame show, DeMarcus intoned the announcements, and Ms. Nakamoto dismissed us. As the band walked off the field and Will and I neared the gate, I called out to Kaye, who glowered at me but dropped her pompons to wait for me. I told Will to go ahead while I talked to her. I hoped he understood that I was really asking him to wait to change his shirt until I arrived at his trunk, but I wasn’t sure that message got across.

Then I walked right up to Kaye and eased my drum down onto the grass. Facing her with nothing between us, I wasn’t sure what to tell her. I’d meant everything I’d said to her in the lunchroom. I thought she was a hypocrite for letting a boy take over her life, then scolding me for doing the same. I just hadn’t meant to yell it.

She glared at me a moment more. Then she stuck out her bottom lip and opened her arms.

I walked into her embrace, slid my arms around her, and squeezed. We were going to argue about our issues again, obviously, but not today.

Softness enveloped me like a blanket. Sawyer had put his wings around both of us.

Kaye got the bad end of this deal. She was shorter than me and way shorter than Sawyer in his costume, so her head was down in a hot hole between us. Her voice sounded muffled as she called, “I love you, Tia, but for some mysterious reason, I find your friendship suffocating.” Sawyer let us go, but he got very close to patting her on the butt with his wing.

On our way up the stairs, Chelsea asked Kaye and me if we wanted to go to a chick flick that night with her and a couple of other girls from calculus. Kaye said she was going out with Aidan. Remembering that he was waiting for her in the parking lot, she skipped ahead of us on the steps. Then I told Chelsea I couldn’t go either, because of work. She asked if it would be better for me if we all went tomorrow night instead. “I would love to,” I said, “but it’s a school night, and I need to do my homework.”

“Do you think I’m a stupid fool?” Chelsea asked. “Don’t beat around the bush. Just go ahead and tell me, ‘Chelsea, I think you’re a stupid fool.’ ”