Whatever It Takes (Bad Reputation Duet #1)(77)

“It’s tempting, but I have to go to Loren’s neighborhood thing.” It’s Lo, Willow. Right. Lo. Lo. Lo.

“Yeah, I heard about that on Yik-Yak.”

Garrison snorts from my rug. “Someone yakked about it?” He returns to the video game, eyes glued to the screen as he plays.

Maya squeezes a little further into my room but stays in the doorway. “I think the yak was something like ‘my dream is to party with Loren Hale on his birthday’—not at all detailed.” She casts sly glances from Garrison to me, back and forth, but she’s not as worried as when I first brought him over.

As the Superheroes & Scones manager, she finds his attitude troubling. She was worried he’d steal the comics and sell them online.

The fact that I brought him to our apartment—that he’s grown closer to me—made her a bit more protective and apprehensive too. I think she thought maybe this all might be a trick. Get close to the geek for other reasons.

Burn her. Make fun of her. Humiliate her.

Like classic teen movies. He’d try to change me, so that I’d become popular like him. Or he’d pull some cruel prank in the very end.

Neither has happened.

Outside of lacrosse, he spends nearly all his free time with me. He’ll message me on Tumblr first. (We still haven’t exchanged phone numbers.) Sometimes, he’s already in the parking lot before he asks if he can come up. Sometimes I wonder if a tree was outside my apartment complex, if he’d climb it and knock on the window.

I think he would.

Garrison might not be up-to-date on comics like the other Superhero & Scones employees, but he has a geeky side that he’s repressed and hidden from his friends.

He loves computers.

He loves video games. Retro things like Lion King on Sega and Pokémon. We spent three whole days playing Mario Party on N64, and if he asked, I’d waste another three weeks doing the same thing with him.

That doesn’t feel like someone tricking me.

And so far, he’s proven trustworthy at the store. No theft. No vandalism.

“Garrison,” Maya says, catching his attention from the video game. “Just a heads up, I’ll be quizzing you about Cable’s history on your next shift. Two wrong answers”—she holds up two fingers—“and you have toilet duty.”

“Shit,” he mutters and mouths to me, who’s Cable?

I try to restrain a smile. “I’ll help you.” Cable is in X-Men and has a complex history, tangled with Scott Summers, so it might go over his head at first, but he’s caught on with other superheroes before.

Garrison swings his head back to Maya. “Should I take this heads up as you partially liking me?”

Maya wears a great poker face and then says something in Korean, knowing he can’t understand. She grips the door, about to leave.

“One day I’m going to learn Korean!” Garrison calls after her. “And then what are you going to do about it?”

She pops her head back in. “That’ll be the day.” She slips out, just as quickly. Then she pops her head in one more time. “Friendly reminder: I’m to report back to Loren if anything R-rated is happening in Willow’s room. I don’t like being a spy, so don’t make me be one.”

I go rigid. “We’re just friends,” I emphasize for probably the millionth time to Maya, to Lily, to even Lo.

I haven’t even hugged Garrison. I don’t want to ruin what we have by turning it into something more. I can’t imagine…I can’t imagine losing his friendship.

Garrison nods in agreement. “She’s just my girl.”

I pale and then begin to smile impulsively. I hide it by busying myself with my hair.

Maya’s eyes dart between us again, but they land on me. “Be sure to lock up after you leave. A lot of bodies will be roaming the halls tonight.”

“I will.”

She gives me the Vulcan Salute, and I return it before she disappears for good this time.

Garrison sets down his controller, pausing the game one more time. He rises from the rug, and I situate a mirror on my mattress. When it’s settled, I remove my glasses, grab my eyeliner and mascara and tuck my legs under my butt.

I don’t wear much makeup, except for costumes.

Garrison paces in front of my bed, running his fingers through his brown hair. At least that’s what I think he’s doing. Without my glasses, he appears mostly blurry. I can’t see him all that well, and I’m debating about wearing contacts tonight. I don’t like them, but my character for Halloween doesn’t wear glasses like me.

“So…” Garrison draws the word out. “I have a question, and you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

I freeze, the mascara wand only halfway out of its tube. “What is it?”

“You know that questionnaire you made me take a month ago? I mean, you didn’t make me take it. But you know…that one?”

How could I forget? It’s what kind of started our friendship. When he told me that he read mine, he only mentioned how he was surprised that I hadn’t traveled. He never explained his other feelings on it or if he had any.

And I didn’t ask.

Maybe because I never probed him about his own questionnaire.

About why his relationship status was hiatus.