What was the hottie pitcher doing with me?
I wished I knew the answer. His sudden attention, his presence, the fact that he was in my life and getting to know me, letting me get to know him…
It was confusing.
It was alarming.
It was...exhilarating.
But mainly, it was confusing.
We ate the rest of our lunches in relative silence, for which I was grateful. I needed some time to sort through what I was feeling and my girl friends seemed to get that.
Jax, on the other hand…
“Seriously, Simone, what gives?” he asked on the car ride home from school.
“What do you mean?” Playing dumb. I’d never actually tried it before, but I’d seen Jax employ this tactic many times.
It pretty much never worked.
“Why weren’t you at lunch today?”
“I was,” I said. “I just sat with the girls.”
He shot me a sidelong look. “Why?”
“I had some things to discuss with them,” I said, looking out the window as the houses flew past.
“Uh huh.” He sighed loudly. “I think I know what’s going on here, and I have to tell you...I’m disappointed.”
That had me looking over so quickly my hair whipped into my face. “You’re...disappointed? In me?”
My voice went all high and shrill. But really...this was a first. I’d given him the whole “I’m disappointed in you” speech numerous times—mainly over the past month or so while he’d acted like a moron because he was in love with Rose and wouldn’t admit it. But I’d never once been on the receiving end of one and it made me feel even more like my whole world had been thrown out of whack.
“It’s not like you to avoid an issue,” he said. “You’re always so straightforward and honest, and—”
“I wasn’t avoiding,” I said slowly, but even I knew I was lying. Of course I’d been avoiding Andrew. I’d had a hard time facing him all day because this new friendship between us—or whatever this was—it was moving too quickly and messing with my head.
I knew he’d said he’d offer to be my stand-in date, or my dummy crush, or...whatever silly term you wanted to call it. But that made it even more confusing.
Was any of this real or was I just a distraction? He’d said himself that he was bored. The more I talked to him the more apparent it became that he truly did need a friend. The poor guy was lonely, that much I got. And I could understand that.
So maybe we were friends, in which case...what?
How did I feel about that? My gut did another nosedive toward the ground. What did that mean? How did I feel?
My thoughts were racing so quickly I almost missed Jax’s next statement. “It’s obvious that you’re avoiding me.”
I turned to him again, this time blinking stupidly as I tried to make sense of that. “Avoiding you?”
He turned to face me too. “Aren’t you?”
No! I’d been avoiding Andrew, not Jax. But he looked so worried, so...so confused…
I burst out in a laugh before I clapped a hand over my mouth.
“Hey,” he said, but his lips curved up a bit at the sight of me laughing.
“Sorry, it’s just…” I reached out and smacked his shoulder and he pretended that it hurt. “You are seriously self-absorbed.”
He nodded readily. “I know, I know. I’m working on it.”
I rolled my eyes but it was hard not to smile just a little because it was actually pretty sweet how he and Rose were trying to be better people, and help each other to be better in the process.
For the record, I thought they were both just great as they were, but I guess everyone had their baggage or whatever. Everyone had stuff they angsted over…and Jax wasn’t about to let up on one of mine.
“You were upset with me, though,” he said, his smile fading and mine dropping as well as I once again feigned interest in the outside world.
“Don’t try to deny it,” he said. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I had been upset earlier this week when he’d reacted so badly to me having a crush on his friend, but we’d both been ignoring the topic since then and I wasn’t in a rush to address it. But he was waiting for a response, and I hated to see him so worried.
“I wasn’t angry with you,” I said. “I was more...hurt.”
His fingers tapping on the steering wheel were a clear indication that he was upset by this.
Jax and I bickered constantly, but we rarely fought. And when we did...neither of us enjoyed it. Obviously. “Was Andrew right?” he asked suddenly.
Andrew’s name had my insides tightening and my muscles flexing. My entire body reacted as though I’d been jabbed with a cattle prod. “What?” There was that high-pitched squeak again. “What do you mean? What did he say?”
If Jax picked up on my weirdness, he didn’t let on. “Andrew said that you thought…” He exhaled loudly and tried again. “He seems to think that you might think that—”
“Jax,” I shouted. “Just spit it out.” In my head I was already coming up with every worst case scenario of how that sentence might end.
Andrew thinks that you think...that he likes you.
Andrew said that you thought...you might have a chance with him.
“Fine. Andrew said that you thought that I didn’t think you were good enough for Tony.” Jax spit it out in one quick burst and I...stared.
Tony. It took me a full second to register the name, another second to put a face to said name, and then another moment to understand what Jax had actually said.
I gulped. My heart was beating too fast as my brain tried to ignore a very compelling fact. The fact that...I hadn’t remembered who Tony was. Maybe not for long, but long enough.
More than that...I hadn’t given Tony a second thought in hours. Maybe days. I’d been too
