Page 68 of Personal Foul

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Studying with Charity is harder than I expected.

Mostly becauseI’mhard the whole time. Having her here means I’m too distracted to focus on my reading.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to have the same problem. Or if she does, she’s better at hiding it. Because she’s curled up in her corner of the couch, book in her lap, highlighters and pens close at hand. She occasionally opens and closes her highlighter cap as she reads, making a softpopeach time.

It’s mesmerizing, and I find myself staring at her more than at my book.

At one point she notices, startling when she glances at me. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I bothering you? I’ll stop.” Before I can answer, she sets the highlighter on the coffee table so she’s not tempted to fiddle with the cap anymore.

“You’re not bothering me,” I murmur. At least not like she means. Though, ‘bother’ isn’t the right word at all. Distracting me, though, definitely.

She glances at her phone, and her eyes widen. “Oh my god. It’s already been almost two hours. No wonder my eyes are burning.” She offers me a chagrined smile. “Isabelle needed comforting last night, so I didn’t get through all the reading I wanted last night, so it rolled over to today. Normally I would’ve done some of it earlier, but I ended up watching my niece for a while, and homework and tea parties don’t mix.”

The image of her having a tea party with a little kid makes me grin. “How old is your niece?”

“Three.” She tells me a little more about the kid—Grace—then bites her lip, stopping herself.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing. It’s just that you texted me while I was there, and Grace demanded that you join her for a tea party.”

My grin grows wider. “A tea party?”

Charity nods, offering me a lopsided smile. “They’re her favorite. Every time I come over, we have to have one. Mostly they’re just in her room with her plastic tea set and stuffed animals, but every once in a while we do a ‘real’ tea party”—she makes air quotes aroundrealwith her fingers—“in the kitchen with my sister’s china teacups and teapot. Though Grace doesn’t actually like tea, so it’s usually water or milk or juice, and we have cookies or tiny sandwiches, depending on if it’s dessert or just a snack.”

Her face lights up when she talks about her niece, and it’s clear she adores the kid. And listening to Charity talk about her niece shows me a whole new side to her.

Setting her book aside, she leans her head on her hand and looks me over. “What about you?” she asks.

“Me? I can’t say I’m overly fond of tea parties. I’ve been to a few high teas over the years, but it’s not my scene.”

She laughs at the look on my face, or maybe my answer. Either way, getting a laugh is its own reward. “Good to know. I’ll keep that in mind if I ever decide to throw a tea party of my own. That’s not what I meant, though. I was asking if you have any siblings or nieces or nephews.”

“Ohh, right. Yeah. I have an older sister, Victoria. She just got engaged. No kids yet, and probably not for a while.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she murmurs, looking away. “I sort of remember her. She’s only a few years older than you, right? Because she was at Skyline Academy our freshman year, wasn’t she?”

My eyebrows jump in surprise. “Yeah, she was. I’m surprised you’d remember that, though.”

She shrugs, glancing at me but still not holding my gaze. “You and your crew were a big deal. It paid to know who you were connected to so I could be sure to stay out of their way. You have the same last name, so …” She spreads her hands. “It wasn’t difficult to connect the dots.”

I shift in my seat, uncomfortable with the reminder that her high school experience ran so counter to mine, especially since we attended the same school and graduated the same year. “I’m sorry that my presence at Skyline made life so difficult for you.”

Finally meeting my eyes, she gives me a small smile. “It wasn’tyouso much as who you were around. But those girls were very protective of their guys, so steering clear of the whole lot of you was the best option altogether.”

I hum softly, as neutral a response as I can manage. Part of me wants to say I wish I’d gotten to know her then. That she didn’t try so hard to stay out of my way. That maybe if she had, things would’ve been different for her.

But I’ve been a self-absorbed asshole for too many years to think I would’ve been so altruistic as to help her when the girls I hung out with had already put a target on her back. If they hated someone, I tended to avoid them as well, to keep away from the drama as much as anything else. It was easier for me.

I can’t say I’ve changed a whole lot since then. Granted, I don’t let friend drama keep me from people like I did in high school, but I think that has more to do with my current group of friends than any big transformation on my part. The biggest source of potential drama would be Andrew’s treatment of Charity’s friend Isabelle, to be honest. But no one is laying that drama at my feet. Charity’s barely even brought it up other than her passing mention of comforting Isabelle keeping her from doing her homework.

Is it just part of growing up that people involve others in their drama less? Or is it that the people here are less dramatic overall?

Maybe a combination of both things?

Most of my teammates don’t circulate in the upper echelons of society like my family does, and that seems to be as drama-filled as high school. Or maybe my high school was more drama-filled than normal because we’re all the children of those people, where it’s all about appearances, gossip, and staying on the right side of people with more money and power than you. Which meant lots of people kissing up to me and my family, but also my family making sure I did and said all the right things to preserve my dad’s political career.

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