The Chemistry of Love(44)

Then Marco said something that made the entire group break into laughter, and I wanted so badly to know what he was saying.

I remembered how he’d said I was easy to talk to. It also seemed that it was easy for him to chat with a bunch of strangers, but that was beside the point at the moment. His declaration that I was easy and nonthreatening was right—men always saw me as their buddy. The buddy who would help them with their science homework. I wasn’t ever the girl they asked to the dance.

And here I’d gone and put myself in that position again. Marco had said he was too old for homework, but there was work he couldn’t get done without me. Another group project where I had to do all the heavy lifting. Marco was obviously helping, but it wouldn’t affect him the same way it had affected me. He didn’t have any feelings for anyone involved, so he wasn’t the one being hurt by having to pretend to like one man while in love with another.

Catalina joined the group a couple of minutes later and made a beeline for Marco. They were talking, and he had focused his attention from the rest of the group to her. He said something to make her laugh. She threw her head back as she laughed and touched his forearm.

Jealousy. Bright, red, sharp, flaring to life inside me.

How could I be jealous of my best friend? You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. There was nothing to be jealous about. She was just being friendly. And if he wanted to date her, he could. I didn’t have any claim on him.

My heart apparently didn’t get the message, because it lifted immediately when he got up from the group and came over to stand in front of me.

“Can I join you?” he asked.

“Sure.” I should have said no. There was no room, but my traitorous mouth had spoken before I’d gotten the chance to shut it down.

He accepted the invitation. It had been a tight squeeze with Catalina, and she was the size of a pixie. A giant beast of a man like Marco? He had to press up intimately against my side, squishing us both.

I found that I didn’t care, though. Some part of me felt victorious, like I’d just won something.

The rest of me was luxuriating in the feel of him, all tall and strong and warm. There were tiny fizzies that started in my gut and grew in size as they spread until my entire body felt like one giant tingling nerve.

I was having a hard time breathing steadily.

He seemed unaffected, though.

I needed to talk, a distraction so that I’d stop fixating on him next to me.

“You guys aren’t playing yet?” I asked, my voice sounding uneven. At least it was a valid question. It seemed to be taking a longer amount of time than I was accustomed to for them to start.

“Zhen is fighting with the group over his two-class character. Catalina’s the only one on his side, so they’re not starting until they come to an agreement. There may not be one, as far as I can tell.”

There was a long pause, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. I was just too aware of him. I started reciting the major laws of chemistry in my head so that I would stop thinking about him next to me. Conservation of mass. Dalton’s law. Faraday’s law. The second law of thermodynamics . . .

Whoops. That one made me think of Marco in my room and had me focusing on him being so close.

He spoke, and I was grateful for the interruption.

“Gum?” he asked, offering me a stick.

“You got me gum?” I asked, my breathing getting more labored as my heart fluttered up in my chest. It was such a sweet gesture that I felt a little overwhelmed.

“Yes. You said it would make tonight easier for you.”

I took the silver-wrapped gum from his hand, doing my best to not touch fingertips again, which was stupid given how close we were pressed together.

For just a second, I let myself imagine what it would be like if he kissed me. I figured it might be like a nuclear bomb exploding.

I didn’t think I could handle that kind of detonation.

Shaking off that impossible fantasy, I focused on the gum, slowly unwrapping it. I wanted this. Not the gum, but a man who was considerate and thoughtful and easy to spend time with.

I was determined to get it. “I can have the fairy tale.”

He looked at the gum as I put it in my mouth and then back at me. “You lost me.”

“Earlier. When you said I couldn’t be Cinderella? I can have that. I can find my perfect person and fall in love and have my own makeup kingdom and live happily ever after.”

His expression was odd, like he wasn’t convinced. “Have you been sitting over here thinking about this the whole time?”

Other than the parts where Catalina and I were waxing poetic over his physique? Sort of. “I even have woodland creatures living in my home. All they do now is swear and eat and poop, but maybe I could train them to help me clean. But that’s not even the point! I can have true love and a happy marriage.”

He frowned briefly in disbelief. “You might have lost me there. A happy marriage really is a fairy tale.”

“That’s not true,” I protested. “I’ve seen it. My parents were so in love and deliriously happy. My grandparents were made for each other. It’s real.”

“My father has never been faithful to a single woman. When he married Tracie, she was already pregnant with Craig. They had been having an affair the whole last year of my mother’s life. He’s cheating on Tracie now, but she stays for the perks. Marriage is a transaction of two people who usually end up hating each other.”