Definitely, Maybe in Love

I waved good night and hopped down the stairs.

“Hi, Alex.”

“Hey, you. Ready to go?” He was wearing that same attractive, carefree swagger from the party. “Looking good.”

Personally, I thought Alex was the good-looking one as he stood under the porch lamp. His light brown hair was a little damp and messy, and his face had a glow that looked liked he’d just come from the gym. His hooded blue eyes sparkled as I advanced toward him.

“Are you checking me out?” I asked, arching my eyebrows.

He knocked his shoulder against mine. “It’s any man’s natural instinct to check you out.”

“Try a little subtlety next time,” I suggested.

We strolled down the walkway toward his car. It was a modest little gray Accord.

“Sorry,” he said as he opened his door, “my, ahem, Bentley is being detailed.” He pointed across the street to where that odious black Viper was parked crooked in the driveway. Alex lifted his middle finger, making a universally known gesture in that car’s direction.

I smiled in agreement and climbed in the passenger seat.

“You two looked pretty cozy the other night,” he said after we’d pulled away from the curb. “I saw you talking.”

“Who?”

“Henry.”

“He was talking, not me,” I corrected. “Uninvited.”

“I wish I’d known that,” he said, watching the road. “I would’ve swept in and whisked you away with me. Far away.”

Obviously, Alex was a big flirt. Perhaps that was why we didn’t hook up freshman year. By going out with him now, I was breaking my rule about not dating past the second week of the school year. I smiled at him, already at peace with my justifications for accepting the date. Something about him was too charismatic to pass up.

“Don’t worry.” I patted his shoulder. “Your classes will get busy soon and you’ll forget about your obsession with me.”

“That’s what you think, gorgeous.” He downshifted and revved the engine. “I’ve never let a little thing like school get in the way of a good time. You’ll see.” He shot me a grin that I felt in my toes. “So, what’s the story with you two?”

“What two?”

“You and Henry.”

Him again?

“There’s no story,” I said. “I met him the night of the street party, we’re neighbors, that’s it.”

“Hmm.” Alex fingered the patch of hair on his chin. “Bet he’s the big cheese already?”

“Doubtful.” I rolled my eyes and gazed out the window. “But you know him, right?” I bit my bottom lip, wishing I could suck the words back down my throat. I shouldn’t have asked a question like that. By the way the guy had been glaring daggers at Alex the other night, it felt way too personal, and probably something Alex didn’t want to talk about.

My date turned to me. “I guess you caught what happened at the party?”

I nodded hesitantly, not wanting to make him feel uncomfortable, especially about something Knightly did. The guy and his Viper nearly ran me over this morning. Okay, so maybe I’d been walking too slowly through the crosswalk, and maybe I didn’t really have to tie my lace-less shoe in the middle of the street, but there was no need for him to lay on the horn like that. Was he trying to piss me off? Well, I was trying to piss him off, so I guess we’re even.

Alex turned his attention back to the road, staring forward. “The thing is, he and I go way, way back. But between you, me, and the bedpost, I’m probably the last person who should talk about him.”

That was fine with me—I didn’t care about gossip, even Henry Knightly gossip. Right now, I was only interested in Alex. He was a business major, that I did remember. Maybe he might know a thing or two about the economics of sustainability.

Hold on. Oh, buddy. How sweet would it be if the one person who could help me with research for my thesis, the one person whose brain I would have to pick clean, the one person who I was going to have to stick to like a conjoined twin for the next few months…was Alex Parks?

“We practically grew up together,” Alex continued. “But we haven’t spoken in years.”

I opened my mouth to ask who he was talking about, and then remembered. Knightly was already becoming a tired subject.

“Guy just won’t bury the hatchet,” Alex said. “Hopefully he’s changed, but there are some things a man can’t forgive. Live and learn, right? Like I said, I’m the last person who should be talking about him.”

Alex did talk, however. As we drove downtown, I learned that Knightly and Alex had attended the same prep school in Los Angeles. For two years they were “thick as thieves,” as Alex put it. But at the beginning of their senior year something happened.

“I got expelled, thanks to that guy.” His voice was harsher than I expected, his long fingers gripped tightly around the steering wheel.

I pictured the way Knightly had looked the other night. Part egotist, part sexy beast. It was easy for me to ignore the sexy part, harder to block out the jerk.

“How?” I couldn’t help asking.

“We were both on the soccer team. Same position. Henry was first string, I was bench. Which I didn’t mind,” he was quick to add. “I didn’t need the spotlight like he did, but when I started getting more time off the bench, he got pissed, and the next thing I know I’m being hauled into the dean’s office. A laundry list as long as my damn arm of bogus infractions thrown at me. The grapevine said it was Henry. ” He scratched his chin. “I was expelled the next day.”

“Why didn’t you protest?”

Alex didn’t speak for a few minutes; he was staring blankly through the windshield, as if remembering something unpleasant. I didn’t want to add to that.

“Because of his family and connections,” he said at last, “there was nothing I could do. He was the one born with a silver spoon in his mouth, not me. I’ve had to work like the effing devil for everything I’ve got.”

I understood this. I could also understand the bitterness he was harboring after four years. What I couldn’t understand was how he’d bent over and taken it, hadn’t fought the decision of his expulsion, hadn’t disputed it.

“But, ya know, I never owned up to the crimes.” Alex chuckled, but there was a bite of anger underneath. “Kicked out on my ass, anyway. It was a shame, too, because I actually liked the guy, thought of him as a brother. I know his family, his little sister.” He muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear while he ran a hand through his light hair. “But after a while, you gotta call a spade a spade, right?” After he pulled into a parking space, he turned to me with a sigh. “I guess money can buy you anything. It even bought him admission to Stanford Law. Guy hasn’t worked an honest day in his life.” He touched a finger to my chin. “Believe me.”

“Well, the bigger they are the harder they fall,” I offered, caught up in Alex’s rainfall of cliche sayings. “I mean, I do. I believe you.”

“Thanks,” he said. “Ready to eat?”

“I’m starving.”

The main drag of downtown Palo Alto was packed. Seemed all of campus was out attempting to savor one last bit of freedom before life as we knew it completely stopped. We had only a few blocks to walk, and once I was able to actually stroll beside him, Alex made it a point to laugh at whatever I said and touch me—my hand, my elbow, my shoulder. It was the usual repartee that goes along with a first date, when you don’t know much about the other person. I was an expert at the first-date routine because I seldom allowed myself a second.

“Have you ever heard of a movie called Annie Hall?” Alex asked as we stopped at a crosswalk.