The Problem with Forever(48)

Keira grinned. “Hey, Jayden.”

“Yo,” he said, sitting sideways in the chair with his arm propped on the table. “You beautiful ladies looked lonely. Thought I’d come over and bless you with my presence.”

Jo snorted. “Looks like you just woke up and got to school.”

“Maybe I did.” Jayden went for my fries, ignoring Anna’s narrowed gaze. “Thanks, babe.”

“You two know each other?” Jo gestured between Jayden and me with her fork.

Before I could nod, he dropped an arm over my shoulders. “She’s my bae.”

I grinned.

“Bae?” Keira sighed. “I hate that word. Do you know what it really means?”

“Poop,” I answered without thinking. “In Danish.”

My eyes widened. Holy crap. I’d spoken without hesitation at lunch! Holy crap! No one recognized my internal freak-out over it, but I couldn’t believe it. I sat there and spoke with no problem.

I needed to give myself a cookie.

Anna giggled. “Oh, man. I know. I know. Still think it’s a cute word.”

Across from her, Keira rolled her eyes. “It literally means shit.”

“Mallory is the shit, though,” Jayden reasoned as he dropped his arm.

I raised a brow.

“Where’s your brother at?” Jo asked. “I’ll be his bae.”

Jayden snorted. “Why? He’s a loser. Me? I’m baby-faced fresh. He’s old, crusty news.”

Laughing, I brushed my hair over my shoulder as Jo wrinkled her nose. “Crusty?” she said. “That’s not a word I normally associate with Hector.”

“You should.”

Jayden went back and forth with the girls for the rest of the lunch period, and he was... He was something else. Hilarious. Oddly charming. In a few years, I bet he was going to be as much a handful as I imagined Hector was. I smiled so much listening to him that I wondered if I’d have premature wrinkles from it.

The smile didn’t go away when I ran into Rider in the stairwell as I was making my way to speech. It was the first time I’d seen him today. Wearing another faded shirt and worn jeans, his hair a little disheveled, he looked like he might’ve slept through his last class.

A lazy grin pulled at his lips. “I was just coming for you.”

My smile, unbelievably, kicked up a notch as I joined him on the landing. He wheeled around and walked beside me.

“I was thinking about the whole speech-practice thing,” he said. “You still want me to help you with that, right?”

A nervous flutter started deep in my belly. I wanted to practice with Rider, but after what happened this morning, that would not be wise. I took a deep breath. “You don’t have to do that. I mean, I’m sure...you have better things to do.”

“But I want to help you.” He caught the swinging door and held it open as he frowned. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have offered.”

I stepped through, forcing the words out. “I know, but...”

“I want to help you practice,” he repeated without a moment of hesitation, and that flutter in my stomach spread to my chest as we started down the stairs. “Why wouldn’t you want to practice?” He paused. “With me?”

Glancing up at him as we rounded the landing, I saw the confusion in his hazel gaze. I bit the inside of my lip. Dammit. “I just wanted to make sure...you didn’t feel like you had to.”

He grinned. “I’m free Thursday.”

Thursday? This week? My eyes widened. I’d drafted the speech over the weekend, so I could do it, but Thursday was not so far away.

“At least you’ll have a practice run in before you have to give your speech to Mr. Santos next week.” He nudged my arm with his. “I can come over after school.”

Thursday worked out perfectly, because Carl and Rosa were both at the hospital, and the likelihood of either of them stopping by the house was slim. Or I could just ask them if it were okay if Rider came over to help. I found myself nodding.

Class kicked off with us breaking into small groups of fours for practice runs of the speech, and I felt like hurling all over the place. Luckily I was paired up with Hector and Rider. Unluckily, I was also paired with Paige. There wasn’t a lot of relief...

Or a lot of practice.

Neither boy had their speech ready. I had a rough draft that I really did not need to read out loud. Paige had a speech, I guess, but she also had her cell phone in one hand, hidden in her lap, and her hand was on Rider’s leg. Anytime she looked in my direction, she smiled, which was a vast difference from this morning.

As Hector scribbled down something to practice, I watched Rider and Paige, but mostly Rider, because I...I kind of couldn’t help myself.

He’d sucked his lower lip between his teeth as he...sketched. No speech-writing going on there. I leaned over. His brows were lowered in concentration. His wrist flicked in varying degrees of motions, creating short strokes with his pen. Within seconds he had an entire strand of flowers drawn, complete with the beginnings of what appeared to be baby’s breath.

“You should be working on your speech instead of staring,” Rider said, never taking his eyes off his notebook.

Paige’s dark eyes flew to me and then narrowed.

Heat exploded across my cheeks.