Page 29 of Isabella and the Slipper

He took her hand and pulled her into his room. “I didn’t put anything together yet. I just laid it all out and coiled the wire like in the online instructions.”

His mother walked by and stopped at his doorway. “Chase. You know what we talked about.”

His ears turned red. “Yeah, Mom.”

“Okay. Just wanted to make sure.”

His mother left, and Isabella turned to Chase, the redness now spreading to his face.

“What was that about?”

“Mom freaked out over the whole horsing around thing last night. She made me promise no girls on the bed, and to keep the door open at all times.” He rolled his eyes. “She thought we were making out.”

Isabella suddenly had a coughing attack.

He pointed to the second chair. “She also pulled in another desk chair.”

She stopped coughing and cleared her throat. Heat crept up her neck. She hadn’t meant to fall on top of him yesterday, it had just happened. Chase was right. They were only horsing around. She took a seat on one of the chairs, too embarrassed to say anything.

“So ...” he said, changing the subject. “The first step is to secure the battery to the board.” He sat down next to her, and they used some metal fittings to hold the battery in place, then used screws to attach it to the board.

His fingers brushed against hers when they both went to pick up the wire. Tingles shot through her, and breathing became difficult.

This crush was getting stupid.

“I don’t think these metal fittings are going to be tight enough to hold the wire onto the ends of the battery. We need to secure it with something else. Any ideas?”

Chase looked at her with his blue eyes, and she got lost in the depths of them. Her heart beat loudly in her ears.

“Um ...” she said, her voice breathy. Why was she having trouble answering him? She knew the answer. If only it would connect with her brain. “Electrical tape?”

“Brilliant. As always.” He put his hand on her back, and goose bumps rose on her skin.

She looked at him. “Thanks.”

After they assembled everything, Chase pointed to her. “Do you want to do the honors?”

“Sure.” She gave the coiled wire a spin. It kept spinning without any sign of slowing down. Isabella grinned. “I think we did it. Now the hard part: writing the paper. We can get started on that tomorrow evening.”

“That won’t work. I have an audition tomorrow after school.”

A surge of disappointment rose in her chest. She swallowed it down. “That’s fine. We can work on it Friday.”

He gave her a strange look. “That’s the game. You’d rather write a paper than go to the game?”

“Oh, I forgot. Football.” She smiled. “We can work on it Monday, then.”

He laughed. “Not a sports fan, I take it?”

That was the simple answer. “Not really.”

“How about we get together Saturday night?”

“I thought maybe you’d have a hot date or something.” The words were out before she could think about them.

“I wish.” He hesitated a moment, like he wanted to say more, but didn’t.

“Girl problems?” Why did she say that? She really didn’t want to know about his girl problems. If she could have snatched those words back into her mouth, she would gladly have done so.

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