The Fragile Ordinary(44)

Of course I didn’t say that. Instead I swallowed past the massive lump of realization that was lodged in my throat, “No. But I don’t think you should be hanging around people you’re not comfortable with. You should try harder with Stevie, make him see he deserves better friends. Then maybe we can all be friends?”

If Tobias was surprised by my offer to be friends with Stevie, I was even more so. But Tobias saw something good in his cousin and I trusted Tobias.

He visibly relaxed. “Believe me, I’m working on it.”

I nodded, worried that Tobias was martyring himself for his cousin and hopeful that Stevie was worth the trouble.

*

Although things between Vicki, Steph and I were a little better, they weren’t anywhere close to perfect. My friends were still working hard together on the school show, growing closer to one another every day. I felt like an outsider in our little threesome, but I guessed it was karma because I’d never bothered to think how Steph must have felt when Vicki and I left her out of things.

Their preoccupation with the school show, however, was good in that I could hang out with Tobias as much as I wanted to without lying to them. I’d noticed that Tobias hadn’t really recommitted to school like I’d hoped he would. He was still spending a lot of his free time with Stevie doing who knew what.

So when he offered to try to make it up to me for being cold to me that day in the cafeteria I came up with a plan that would benefit us both. I made Tobias agree to come over to my place after dinner to work on his poetry assignment. Of course, my assignment was already done since I’d written a poem a while ago that fit the assignment perfectly. Our presentation on Hamlet went really well; we’d both gotten As, and I used this, along with his guilt, as leverage to get Tobias to agree to let me help with his poem.

That meant I got to enjoy his company while reading a book as he did his homework, only stopping to answer his questions when he had them.

To me that was the equivalent of being offered a free ticket to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal in Orlando.

Ah-mazing!

And it kicked off superbly.

I’d just let Tobias into the house when my dad happened to come out of the kitchen with a mug of coffee in his hand. He stopped abruptly at the sight of the tall, handsome boy standing next to me in the hallway.

“Comet?” he queried softly before taking a casual sip of his coffee.

“Kyle, this is Tobias, a friend from school.”

“Nice to meet you, Tobias.” Dad offered his hand.

Tobias stiffened beside me, his gaze dropping to the proffered hand, and I could almost hear him cursing out my father in his head for being a dipshit to me. He reluctantly shook my dad’s hand, but he didn’t return the platitude.

I loved him for being mad at my dad on my behalf.

“We’re going to study for English.” I pointed to my bedroom door.

Dad’s brows drew together. “Alone? In your room?”

Annoyed at the accusatory, concerned tone, I grabbed Tobias’s hand and led him toward my room. “Yes.”

Tobias followed me, squeezing my hand in solidarity as we disappeared into my bedroom and closed the door behind us. I dropped his hand to put both mine on my hips in irritation.

My friend grinned. “You showed him, huh.”

“It’s just hypocrisy,” I grumbled. “Pretending to care.”

“Maybe he does care.” Tobias kicked off his trainers and lay down on my bed as if he did it every day. “He seemed to care.”

“About me getting pregnant maybe. God forbid I add another unwanted mouth to feed into the household.”

Tension suddenly filled the air, most of it emanating from Tobias, and I understood by the flush high on his cheeks and the uncomfortable way he cleared his throat as he pulled his English homework out of his backpack that I’d said the wrong thing. I’d just suggested Tobias and I might be in here having sex.

Embarrassed, tingling in places I shouldn’t be, my lips feeling weirdly swollen considering no one had been near them, I turned away under the pretense of looking for a book to read.

As I scoured my bookshelves I changed the subject, hoping I hadn’t made Tobias too uncomfortable. “Do you have any idea what you want to write about?”

“Not a clue.”

I grabbed a book that caught my fancy and headed over to lie down beside him. We’d lain like this before on my bed and I didn’t want to not to do it, because that would just draw attention to the weirdness between us.

“Let me see.” I held out my hands to see what notes he’d written down in class today.

He handed them over, trusting me with them.

For the next ten minutes we talked about his poem, the style he could use, and then I left him to it to read my book. For a while I was perfectly content with Tobias’s warm body next to mine, slowly losing myself in an epic fantasy world about a female assassin.

In fact, I was so lost in my book that I didn’t hear Tobias say my name the first time. Not until he took the book right out of my hands.

“Hey!”

He grinned at me. “You were gone. I’ve been trying to get your attention for the last thirty seconds.”

I blushed. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I was saying, are you really going to lie there and read while I work?”