Undecided(76)

“Sorry, boss. What are you doing here?”

“We got the tree. I’m just coming in to grab Celestia a drink.”

Both Marcela and I roll our eyes.

“It’s not that bad,” he protests as we trail him out front. The shop is empty so we sit on the counter as he starts foaming low-fat milk.

“Why didn’t she come in?” I ask. “Afraid someone will steal your tree?”

His mouth quirks. “Hardly.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

He glances pointedly at Marcela. “You really have to ask?”

Marcela clutches her chest, offended. “Me? I’m nice to her!”

“No one anywhere, ever, would describe you as being ‘nice’ to Celestia,” he replies. “Barely contained seething resentment would be more accurate.”

“She wears fur year-round! It’s suspicious.”

“Or maybe…” He watches his hands as he pours the drink into a to-go cup. “Maybe she wants to wear fur, so she just wears fur.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

Nate doesn’t respond as he strides through the swinging door back into the kitchen, lifting a hand in acknowledgment.

Marcela turns to me. “He totally heard.”

“What are you talking about?”

“‘She just wears fur?’ That’s obviously a dig at me because I don’t ‘wear fur!’”

“Don’t you think you’re stretching things, just a little bit?”

The front door bangs open and the same group of catalogue models that have been frequenting the shop since Crosbie started spending time here filters in. They’re dressed in adorable pastel-colored pea coats and tiny hats with pompoms, and their convoluted drink orders put Celestia to shame. Even Marcela grumbles as she gets to work.

“It’s quiet in here,” one of the girls remarks. She’s got pin straight white-blond hair that gleams against her lemon yellow jacket.

“Slow day,” I agree, sliding her a half-sweet almond milk mocha.

“Where’s Crosbie?”

I pass her the change and she sticks a dollar in the tip jar. “I’m not sure.”

“Hmm.” She studies me for a moment, then turns to rejoin her group at the table in the corner.

“What was that about?” Marcela asks under her breath.

“It happens,” I say, trying not to sound bothered.

“What happens?”

“People. Ever since Crosbie and I started dating openly, it seems like people are watching, gossiping, whatever.”

“Does the Dean know?”

“We have a meeting next week. If my grades are good and I’m not arrested for anything, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Right. Until he shows you a picture of your name on the bathroom wall in the Student Union building and asks which part of the sex talk you misunderstood.”

My heart stops beating. “What are you talking about? My name—”

“Hey.” She holds up her hands in surrender. “That was a joke. I’m sorry.”

I take a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter,” I say firmly. “Because it’s different. We’re different. I’m not a Crosbabe.”

She pats my arm. “I know.”

But my protest sounds lame even to me, and the words are still ringing in my ears when we close up the shop at eight and I swear to myself I’m going to bike straight home, even as I take the route that will get me to the Student Union building in half the time.

I lock up my bike and speed walk through the mostly empty lobby, trying to appear casual. As I ride up in the elevator my pulse is throbbing in my temples and all I can think about is seeing my name on a list I would have been stupidly proud of last year and horrified by now. Because that statement was true: I am different. We’re different.

The bathroom is empty when I push through the door, striding right to the stall that houses the track team lists. My fervent prayers that the walls have been painted are not answered, and the stall is as I remember it.

I exhale as I force my eyes to Crosbie’s list, trailing down the names until I reach the bottom. No Nora Kincaid.

Then I look again.

My name may not be on there, but the last time I visited Crosbie’s list ended at twenty-five. Now it ends at twenty-eight. And all of the dates are during the week of the mock meet road trip.

I stumble back, staring at the list in shock. Part of me thinks there’s no way he would do this, and part of me thinks he most definitely would. Especially after my emotional explosion two days before he’d left. I think back to the night he’d returned, showing me that “trick”—was it an apology?

My lower lip trembles and I fight back tears. He wouldn’t do this, I tell myself as I storm out of the bathroom and stomp my way down the steps, too angry and confused to wait for an elevator. I think about how he reacted the night he walked in on Kellan and I sitting down to dinner—he wouldn’t do something to make me feel that way. He wouldn’t. We’re not in love, but we’re not casual, either.

We are—or we were—on the road to something better.

Once again my brain tries to direct me toward home, but my heart and my feet steer me straight to the Frat Farm. I drop my bike on the front lawn and jog up the steps, knocking loudly. Without the sun to moderate, the night is dark and cold and I shiver as I wait, shifting from foot to foot. Finally Dane opens the door, smiling when he sees me. I’ve never spent the night here but I’ve been back a few times since Crosbie and I got together, and the guys seem more amused by our relationship than bothered by it.