The One That I Want(16)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“The other thing my baton instructor told me was to ask myself, ‘Am I hungry? Or do I just want something to eat?’ The answer with cobbler is always going to be that you just want some cobbler. You’ve already had dinner, so there’s no way you can be hungry.”

“I could be hungry,” Max said.

“Really?” I looked at him beside me, his legs too long to sit comfortably on the concrete bench.

“Lately, yeah,” he said.

“You’re burning more calories playing football than I am twirling baton.”

“Probably.”

“I haven’t gone on a weird diet,” I said in my defense, because I always had to say this to Addison and Robert and everybody else who teased me. “I haven’t even stopped eating my mom’s cooking. I just eat less of it, and no cobbler, ever.”

He looked up at the skyscraper in front of us rather than at me as he asked, “How does your mom feel about that?”

“I really don’t care,” I grumbled. Total lie. I was afraid she felt like I had betrayed her. But I couldn’t dwell too much on that, because I absolutely refused to go back to my previous weight. “I exercised, too, but that was easy because there’s a gym at my house.”

“You mean, your mom buys a piece of exercise equipment, thinking she will use it every day, and it gathers dust, and eventually she makes you move it into the spare room? My mom does that too. There’s not much butter in Japan, and apparently she went hog wild when she first came to America. Butter, and then loaf bread, and then she discovered mayonnaise. She seemed to have gotten a handle on it, but then we moved to Atlanta and there were biscuits.”

I laughed and said, “Just keep her away from the cobbler.” But when I’d said there was a gym at my house, I hadn’t meant my mom bought exercise equipment. I’d meant that my house contained a gym. It was a big house.

He must have read my mind. As a truck rumbled by, he turned to me and asked loudly over the noise, “So, your dad used to own part of the Falcons? Like, the wide receiver and a couple of tight ends?”

“More like half the cheerleaders, knowing him.”

Instantly I wanted to take back that bitter joke. Max was making polite conversation while we waited for my mom. He probably regretted it now.

He played along, though, scooting closer on the bench like he was interested in what I was saying. “That’s why your parents got divorced?”

I nodded. “When I was ten. He and my mom were big on the country club, dinner party, charity ball scene, because it was good for his business. But then it got back to my mom that he had a girlfriend.”

Max nodded.

“So now—it’s kind of weird, if I think about it—they’re both doing half of what they used to do. My dad moved to Hilton Head with his girlfriend, but he still runs all his businesses and makes a lot of money from there. My mom got the house, so she still throws huge dinner parties for charity. They just don’t do it as a couple anymore.”

“Did you realize that when you talk about this, your breathing speeds up?”

I held my breath, looking at Max. I had not realized this. But yes, my chest felt tight and my head hurt, and I swayed a little on the bench, slightly dizzy.

He reached toward my chest, like he was going to touch me.

His hand stopped in midair.

Two bright spots of pink appeared on his cheeks, apparent even in the fading light of dusk, and I felt my face coloring too.

He put his hand over his own heart. “Do this,” he said.

I put my hand over my heart. It was racing. Talking about my dad made me anxious, but what made my heart race now was Max himself.

“There’s my mom,” I said quickly, recognizing her car at the intersection down the block. I did not add, Damn it! I wished she’d had something important to do and had been running late for once. I turned to Max to say good-bye.

He was staring at the car. Generally girls at my school thought it was a nice, expensive car, but boys knew exactly what it was and how much it had cost. Their faces showed admiration mixed with envy. Max wore the same expression as he asked, “Is that an Aston Martin?”

“Yeah,” I said as casually as I could, pretending I didn’t understand his astonishment. “It’s six years old. Before my dad left, he wanted to make sure my mom had a safe, reliable car so she and I didn’t get stuck somewhere with engine trouble, since he wouldn’t be around to help anymore.”

“He could have done that for a lot less money,” Max said, eyes still on the car. “That is not why your dad bought your mom a car that cost six figures.”

I glared at Max. I wasn’t stupid. He was right, of course. My dad had given my mom the house and bought her a ridiculously expensive car so she would feel special, could keep up her image, and would agree not to fight the pre-nup that prevented her from going after half of everything my dad had ever made. Sure. But just because it was true did not mean I wanted to discuss it with Max.

“I’m sorry,” he backtracked immediately. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” I said more loudly than I’d intended—loudly enough that I heard my words echoing against the concrete MARTA station curving around us. I was too angry to care. “You read people really well, Max, and I enjoy it up to a point, but you can’t just blurt out everything you see.”

He pointed at me. “Remember Addison asked me why I don’t have a girlfriend? This is why.”

I laughed shortly. “You do now.”

As my mom stopped in the pull-off, the engine rumbling at our feet, he gave me a hard look. “You are a very interesting person, Gemma. Very different, in a good way.” He stood, dragging his bag with him.

I tried to smile. “Do you want my mom to drop you off at your parking deck?”

He grinned. “Are you worried about my safety? That is really cute, Gemma.”

“I’m serious. You were worried about my safety. That’s why you’re here.”

His dark brows shot up. For the briefest moment, I wondered if that really was why he was here.

But of course it was. He shrugged. “Like you said, this is probably the safest place in Atlanta. And I look mean, don’t I?”

He didn’t look mean. His face was open and sweet, like the friendliest person I’d ever met. But he was at least six feet tall, which was probably what he meant.

If I admitted how daunting he’d look to a would-be attacker, I would sound like I liked him. I didn’t want to insult him, though. So I asked, “Are we back on the serial killer thing again?”