When Jax got back in the car and I moved up to the front seat for the drive home, Jax was still wearing a dopey lovestruck grin. “You have a good night?” he asked.
I nodded and realized...it wasn’t a total lie.
You look beautiful tonight.
My lips quirked up in a stupid grin that probably matched Jax’s, and I hid it by looking out the window. All in all, it hadn’t been a bad night at all.
The weekend flew by like usual—some hangout time with Jax, some time on the couch listening to my dad critique the latest films that were streaming, and some time alone in my room working on my art or studying.
What can I say, I’m a wild child. No sleep till Brooklyn, am I right?
By Monday, I’d started to think that maybe I’d made a mistake going to Rose. I mean, up until now all it had gotten me was a few embarrassing interactions with one of the most popular guys in our school.
I was ready to just give up on the whole experiment, except my friends apparently had other plans. While I’d spent the weekend coming to grips with the fact that maybe girls like me just didn’t get hot rocker guys like Tony, Avery had apparently spent her weekend...studying.
Her bio class was in the same hall as my history class and she darted in right before the second bell rang. Other students were still filing in as she raced over to me, depositing a magazine on my desk that had several bright sticky notes jutting out of it in every direction. “I marked the best strategies for you,” she said, her voice breathless and her smile huge. She wiggled her fingers at me as she turned back the way she came. “I can’t be late for class. Read these and let me know what you think, ‘kay?”
She was gone before I could answer. I stared down at the image of a smiling, perfect supermodel. This was so stupid. I shouldn’t even bother….
Curiosity won out before I could finish that thought. I flipped open to the first sticky note. The headline at the top of the page read, “How to Catch Your Crush.”
I snorted in amusement. Catch a crush. They made it sound like deep sea fishing or something. So dumb. I should just shut it and stick it in my bag or—
“Please tell me you’re not really going to start copying your crush’s body language,” a familiar low voice said in my ear. “I don’t know which one was your guy but they all had terrible posture.”
I slammed the magazine shut, ignoring Andrew’s soft laughter beside me at my expense. I kept my head down and shut my eyes in complete and total humiliation.
“Aw, come on,” he said. “That was just getting good.”
I drew in a deep breath and let it out, sneaking a peek at him out of the corner of my eye. He was giving me that smile. The one girls everywhere swooned over.
Not me, obviously.
Sure, he was hot, but he might as well have lived in a different universe.
The only reason I didn’t burn alive with embarrassment was because his eyes were kind. He might have been laughing at me, but there was nothing cruel about Andrew. I’d give him that. He wasn’t a bully, just a hottie.
It was hard to dislike a guy just because he was too attractive for his own good and had more laid back charm than any one human being should ever possess.
Actually, no. Scratch that. I could totally dislike him for that. But it was getting harder by the minute. Especially when he gave me that warm look like he was doing right now as he leaned toward me. “You know you don’t need any of that garbage, right? You don’t need to change a thing to…” He eyed the magazine with a flicker of amusement. “To catch your crush.”
My lips did something weird as I fought a laugh and a wince. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the current status of my patheticness.
Luckily our teacher’s voice calling our attention solved the problem for me. I didn’t laugh or cry, I just ducked my head and opened my notebook, shoving the magazine into my bag at my side.
But if I thought that would be enough to make Andrew forget the idiotic magazine article I’d been caught reading, I was mistaken.
Later that day I was alone at our lunch table again, although this time I saw Jax coming. Despite their new status, Rose liked to have lunch with her best friend Hannah, and Jax and I still had our routine. But that didn’t mean he didn’t linger at their table. Again, like they would never see each other again.
“Please tell me you brought that magazine with you.” Andrew’s voice to my right made me jump. I hadn’t seen him sit down but there he was. Like always. Just… It normally seemed like we were at the same table but eating separately. Like one of those communal seating tables at a restaurant. You might technically be sharing the same space but everyone pretended that the other people didn’t exist. There was an invisible wall that separated them.
“Can I see it?” Andrew asked, his free hand reaching out to me in a ‘gimme’ move as he used his other to stab a piece of grilled chicken on his plate.
Andrew had officially broken the invisible barrier and I frowned at him. “No,” I said. “You’re just going to make fun of me.”
His brows hitched up in an expression that said ‘well, yeah. Obviously.’
“Hey, what did I miss?” Jax sounded out of breath as he dropped into the seat beside me, looking between me and Andrew with outright curiosity.
Finding me here talking to Andrew was definitely a first.
“Uh…”
I looked to Andrew and he gave me a wink that on anyone else would have
