Undecided(30)

Maybe I should feel outraged or embarrassed. Maybe I should feel manipulated or fooled. But I don’t. Because despite how much I wish I could be invisible at this very moment, I’ve been complaining about how easily overlooked I am all the time, and last night Crosbie did his very best to make sure I wasn’t.

I’m horrified when my sinuses tingle and my eyes start to sting; it must be my period. There’s no way I’m about to cry in the middle of Carters because someone made up a reason to hang out with me.

“Okay, man,” I hear Kellan saying as I struggle to compose myself. “I know, I know. Want me to pick up anything for the bus ride? Yeah? What flavor? Okay, will do. Bye.”

He hangs up and though my heart is still galloping around my chest, I’ve managed to head off the embarrassing crying jag. “What, uh, what bus ride is this?” I ask, trying to act like I didn’t just connect the dots about what I overheard.

“Huh?” Kellan tosses in another box of cereal and resumes pushing the cart. “Oh, we’re heading out tomorrow for a week of ‘mock meets.’” We round the corner where two girls in dresses and heels—at the grocery store! In the morning!—giggle and wave, and Kellan smiles and nods back. Before my mind can start coming up with its own definition of “mock meets,” Kellan explains. “It’s for track. Like, we’ll travel around to different colleges just to square off against their teams. It’s not official; it’s more like practice. And motivation. We see what they’ve got; they see our stuff. Then we all know what to work for.”

I think of Crosbie. “We means the track team?”

“Yep.”

An absolutely gorgeous blonde strolls down the baking aisle, shooting Kellan a dazzling smile. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he replies.

They smile at each other, just two beautiful people being beautiful.

I sigh.

And that’s when it hits me: I’m not jealous. And I don’t really care that Kellan’s leaving for a week. It’s Crosbie I’m going to miss. Which is totally contrary to my plan. I should be ecstatic that the track team’s schedule is lining up with my agenda to forget him, but I’m not.

“You all right?” Kellan peers at me with concern.

“Totally fine,” I lie. I smile at him, but I feel like a dim bulb compared to the blonde.

“I thought you’d be stoked.” He considers a bag of flour, then, for some reason, puts it in the cart. “You get the place to yourself all week.”

“You’re not there that much as it is.”

“No way!” He laughs. “I’m there. You’re the one who’s always gone. You go to class, you go to work, you go to the library. You’re go-go-go. When do you just kick back and have fun?”

“I have fun.”

“Yeah?” He looks interested. “When?”

I bite my lip. “Okay, fine. I had fun.”

He shakes his head. And I have to give the guy credit—half a dozen other women have walked past, and now that we’re talking, his attention is undivided. “Had fun? Like, in the distant past?”

I laugh a little, feeling like a moron. “It feels that way.” I study the back of a box of cake mix, hoping he’ll drop the subject, but when I next look up he’s just staring at me with a look that says, “I can wait all day.”

I sigh and put the box back on the shelf. “I don’t study so much because I love school,” I admit, tugging the cart around the corner into the dairy aisle. “I study because I have a scholarship and last year I didn’t study—like, at all—and nearly lost it. In fact, I lost half of it. So this year I have to buckle down and do better. A lot better.”

He looks surprised. “Me too.”

I grab yogurt and add it to the cart, then follow that up with some eggs. Plenty of breakfast options now. “And I don’t go out to party or whatever because I did too much of that last year, and I don’t really seem to have an off switch. It’s just all or nothing. All partying, no studying.” I’m not going to mention getting arrested. “And if I didn’t stop, it would be ‘all living with my parents, no job prospects.’”

“I totally hear you,” Kellan says, nodding. “That’s why this arrangement is perfect.” He gestures between us. “You’re like this awesome role model. I come home and see your door closed, and I know you’re in there studying so I’m like, ‘Better study, Kellan, if you want to graduate.’ And then you go to work and I think, ‘Time to work out.’”

I squint at him. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. That’s why I posted the ad that I did. I wanted somebody like you; I just never thought I’d find it.”

You found me at the May Madness frat party, I think. But what I say is, “I’m glad it worked out. For both of us.”

He grins. “I’ll keep up my end of the bargain from now on, too,” he says. “Now that I know why studying is so important to you. And I’ll tell Crosbie to stop dropping by unannounced—he totally could have played one of his own games last night. He didn’t need to bother you.”

Wrong game, Kellan.

“Crosbie’s not a problem.”

“You don’t have to be nice about it. He’s my best friend, but we can hang out at his place.”