Eighteen (18)(29)

I walk across the street smiling big at him and when I get close enough so I don’t have to shout over traffic, I say, “I know for a fact you didn’t see The Distillers in concert to get that shirt because the last time they toured the US was more than ten years ago.”

“Hey.” He laughs and beams that dangerous grin at me. Jesus, Danny Alexander is f*ck hot. “You caught me. But they stopped here in Anaheim on that last tour and Phil went. I stole it from him.”

“Hmm,” I say, pretending to think this over as we walk onto campus. “I guess second-hand concert shirts still count as authentic.”

“Whew,” he says, making a big deal of wiping his brow. “I thought I lost street cred with you for a second.”

“Were you waiting for me?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Mmmm, well, usually you park your car and start your little bromance with the boys in the lot. But today you are standing at the corner where I cross the street to school.”

“It’s that obvious, huh?”

“Pretty obvious, yeah.”

“Well, it’s Thursday, so I wanted to see if that ex of yours is an ex yet. And if so, maybe we can hang out tomorrow night?”

“Ah,” I say. “He’s still around. And I’m not going anywhere. I babysit my niece on Friday nights.”

“Too bad. I know of a good party.”

“Sorry to disappoint you. And I’m not much of a party girl these days anyway. I’d just slow you down.”

“I’d slow down for you, Shannon.”

I stop to look at him, taking a deep breath as I do it. “Are you hitting on me?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, I—”

“Hey.” He stops me with hands in the air. “I’m not making a move for real until you say you’re ready, so don’t worry about that. But I’m gonna wait it out, if that’s OK with you. And I’m gonna keep asking. I have staying power, Daydreams.” And then he gives me this little salute and turns and walks off.

I stare at his ass for a few seconds before turning in the opposite direction. Damn. Why is it that I have no one interested for a whole month, then on the same day I meet two guys who want to take me for a spin? It’s not fair. Why couldn’t Danny appear after I was done with night school with Mateo?

Maybe that’s what I should do? Just get that work done as fast as possible and put night school behind me? I know I can get that science credit in a couple weeks tops. There’s only like twelve tests. I might be able to knock out most of them over the weekend. Then I’d only have trig. There’s a lot more of those tests because it’s a full year’s worth of work. But I could take two a week and be done pretty fast.

I don’t know what to do about Mateo. I just don’t think I have the power it will take to stop this now. I’m caught in a web, right? The more I struggle against him, the harder he’ll try. And the harder he tries, the weaker I’ll become.

I can see it coming.

Yeah, I need to just get the f*ck out of night school. Then he won’t have anything to hold over me and I won’t have to see him anymore.

I walk into design class a few seconds after the bell rings and the teacher, Mrs. Sheridan, is handing out laptops from giant plastic tubs.

“Everyone,” she says. “Shannon”—she singles me out because I’m late—“get in line and sign out your laptop.”

I took a lot of graphic design classes, and this design class is senior level, so we’re going to make websites. I’m kind of excited about it as I sign out my laptop and take it back to my desk.

“You will be assigned a site where you can legally download images…” She goes on about all the stuff they’re providing for us in class. Each laptop is loaded with Adobe software, and we will be expected to deliver a fully functional personal website one week before the end of the semester.

“You need to come up with a domain name that is not already taken and we will register it for you. Treat this project as a resume…” she goes on.

I’m ten steps ahead of her. I’ve got Photoshop up and I’m already cruising for images from the stock art site. Personal website… I’ll have to think about that. I don’t have any idea what I want to do after graduation, so that makes it a lot more difficult to decide who my target audience might be.

I get lost in the project and the period flies by way too fast.

“Nice, Shannon,” Mrs. Sheridan says, looking over my shoulder at my notepad after the bell rings. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with.”

“Thanks,” I say, reluctantly packing up my stuff. I secretly hope Fowler is absent in PE so I can skip out for the period and continue working, but no such luck. When I get to the gym, he’s standing there with a clipboard just outside the locker room.

“So glad you could join us,” Fowler sarcastically says.

“Ditto, Fowler,” I say back. He’s one to talk. I’m like one minute late. He never showed on Wednesday. My phone buzzes in my pants as I walk to my locker to change into the shorts we are required to wear. I don’t have a gym uniform. Fuck that. I have better things to spend my money on than a stupid pair of shorts and a t-shirt from a school I don’t give a shit about. So I wear some oversized black cargos and a P!nk tank top.