Page 51 of The Perfect Steal

I gave her a half-smile and nodded. “Yes. More than I’ve ever liked anyone.”

“Then go for it. Any girl who can inspire you to change for the better is worth the leap.”

I tapped on the screen in front of me, watching as the plane got closer to Pecan Flatts at a painfully slow pace. This was something I wanted to do in person, and I just hoped she’d reciprocate.

34

Brynn

We made it home. How are you?

The text message was something I’d been waiting for nearly all night. It had been rough to focus on practice when I kept wondering if Nate would walk through the door just to say hi. Okay, that was the product of my imagination, that he’d come running up and ask me to be his girlfriend.

If only.

I’m tired but so glad you’re back. Can you video chat?

It was close to ten at night, and I knew I’d have to keep my voice down so I didn’t get in trouble. My mom had gone to bed early again, but my dad and John were still up talking about something.

A ring sounded on my phone, and I picked up, unable to stop smiling when I saw him.“Hey, how are you? Is your sister okay? Is there something I can bring her?”

Nate shook his head. “Hey, beautiful. I’m good. Just exhausted and glad we’re home and not sleeping at the hospital again.”

I tried to contain my inner excitement. Had he just called me beautiful? Breathe in, breathe out. Just keep smiling.

“Sleeping at the hospital is the worst. I mean, I know because, um, yeah.” I couldn’t finish the sentence. The weeks had been creeping closer, another anniversary of the loss of my sister on the horizon, and I wasn’t sure how the rest of my family was going to cope with it.

He gave me a sympathetic look, his eyebrows cinched together and the corner of his mouth turned up. “We should plan a party for the day of her death. You’ll have to let me know when it gets closer, and we can do something fun, like all her favorite things.”

And there I went, swooning over Nate Everton. If I’d told myself back when Penny and Jake started dating that I’d be crushing on one of his friends, I would have laughed at that. Not only was he tall, but he was human, one who went through the same emotions I did and seemed to be coping with everything well.

“I would love that,” I choked out, trying to keep the tears at bay.

“What do we need to do for our next assignment? What did Mrs. Rhodes have to say?”

I laughed. “Look at you, getting all excited about homework.”

He shrugged, giving me that lopsided grin I was starting to love more and more. “It just means I get to spend more time with you.”

My brain may have stopped working for several seconds. Did I interpret that the right way? I could definitely go for some Nate hangout time.

The awkward part of me took over, and I pulled out my notebook, needing to keep myself going until my brain completely rebooted.

“Okay, so the next assignment is to teach each other a life skill that we know the other doesn’t have. It’s due Friday, December 18, the last day before Christmas break.”

He frowned. “That sounds pretty vague. Did she give examples?”

“Well, if you know how to cook, you can share that with your partner, or just about anything else, I think. Whatever we can argue is a life skill.”

“Hmmm…” Nate said, tapping his pointer finger against his lips. “Got any ideas of what we could teach each other?”

My eyes might have glanced down at his lips, but I wasn’t going to go there. How would I put that into words or show pictures to Mrs. Rhodes? Yeah, teaching me how to kiss was definitely not going to be part of the assignment.

“Do you know how to change the oil in your Hummer?” I asked, going through a mental checklist of the abilities I’d learned over my seventeen years of life.

Nate nodded. “That I do. It was one of the things I had to learn once I got it. Let’s see, you know how to write like a typewriter, so I can’t really help you there.” He smiled, and I shook my head.

“Like a typewriter? My handwriting isn’t that perfect.”

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