Blind Kiss(35)

He laughed. “You’re funny.”

“I wasn’t trying to be.”

“Will you stop this?” He took a step toward me again but I backed away.

“No. You hurt me and then ten minutes later I was reading the inscription in that damn journal. Man, you got over that sentiment really fast.”

“Can we go back to the way things were?”

“Are you going to address what I just said?”

It was bright out but freezing. His lime-green Wayfarer sunglasses were sitting crookedly on top of his head. He had a thick flannel jacket over a white T-shirt that read “Chubby, Single, and Ready for a Pringle.” The sun was making his pleading and beautiful eyes look impossibly green. He was perfect. I had told him to date other girls and now he was, and I was feeling exactly how he predicted I would.

“Are you gonna answer me?” he said.

“You didn’t answer me.”

“Can we please go back to the way things were?”

“You mean with or without Lottie?”

He shook his head. “I thought we were keeping it platonic instead of atomic. Isn’t that what you meant?”

He was right. I had meant it at the time because I was scared. Did I still mean it? “She’s pretty,” I said.

“She is.”

I wanted to crumble into a ball and freeze to death in the snow right at his feet. “I have to get to practice,” I told him.

“Do you want to study tomorrow?” he asked. Studying with Gavin usually involved lying around listening to music.

“I have conditioning until three.”

He looked away, somewhat frustrated. When he looked back, his expression was sincere. “I have to work at five but I can come over for an hour or whatever before . . . if you want. Just to talk.”

“Okay,” I said with little emotion. We would work things out tomorrow.

I turned around and noticed Ling talking animatedly to Lottie and Lance. She was keeping them occupied.

“Ling’s a good friend,” I said.

“Not your best friend, though.”

“No. I guess not. Though she doesn’t try to make moves on me, so that makes things easier.” I smirked.

“You liked it, but consider that part over.” He put out his fist like we were going to fist-bump. I hugged him instead, and he held me long enough for it to count.

I pulled away. “See you tomorrow.”

He nodded.

“Lots,” he called out.

Ew, he calls her Lots?

When I walked back over to Ling, she had her arms crossed over her chest. Lance looked oblivious.

“Hey, Lance, Ling and I are gonna walk to the studio now.”

“I’ll join you,” he said.

“That’s okay, Penny and I need to talk,” Ling said.

I felt my stomach sinking, wondering what she had to say. I waved to Lance, even though he looked like he was going to try to hug me. Instead he froze where he stood and waved back.

Afterward, as we walked up the pathway toward the dance hall, Ling finally said, “So are you sad?”

Fully expecting her to berate me, I was surprised she was sympathetic. “I’m not sad. We’re gonna hang out tomorrow.”

“But things are going to change between you and Gavin now that Lots is in the picture.” She shot me a wry smile.

“Ha. That won’t last long. He’ll get her name tattooed on his forehead and then be sitting in my driveway a week later.”

“You’re pretty confident about that.”

“We have something. I don’t what it is, but it’s something different.”

When we got to the dance hall, Ling gave me a stiff hug. That was just Ling. She wasn’t warm and fuzzy, but she cared.

Joey was more on top of things that day at practice. I guess Doug had made a serious threat. There were other potential dancers Joey could have been partnered with besides me. I knew Joey hated all the other girls in the program. He wasn’t particularly fond of me either, but I didn’t think he hated me. Even though he was able to pull off the lift he had been struggling with, he still wasn’t getting the timing on the grand jeté move. We had a few months to work on it before our spring finals performance on May 3. He knew we had to nail it. Our futures depended on it.


THE NEXT DAY, when Gavin showed up at my house, my mother immediately commandeered his attention by having him look at an oil leak under her car.

“It’s like the day after I got the oil changed, all of a sudden it started leaking,” she told him.

Gavin was on his back on his skateboard, looking underneath her car. “It’s not from the oil change,” he said. “Where’d you have it done?”

“I don’t know, one of those quickie places.”

“You should have asked me.”

I wanted to kick him. He didn’t need to be doing favors for my mom when she spent hundreds of dollars a month on Kiki’s pageants.

“Well, if it’s not from that, what’s it from? I mean, don’t you find it coincidental? I’ve never seen a drop of oil on the garage floor. I get the oil changed and then take it for a smog check and they say there’s an oil leak. Now there’s oil on the garage floor.”

“Anne, if you want to get under here with me, I can show you what it might be.” He rolled out from underneath the car, hands and arms covered in grease, and smirked at her. He was flirting. So shameless.