Page 5 of All the Ways You Save Me
The best-slash-worst part is that she doesn’t seem to have any idea that she’s gorgeous. She’s down-to-earth, and funny, and showed a hint of vulnerability that gave me the courage to ask her to meet me for lunch. But now that she’s standing there, my nerves kick into overdrive.
Is she looking for me in the crowd? I don’t want to go over there and put her on the spot. It’s likely she got a dozen offers between her English and calculus classes. But she continues to gaze around the cafeteria, and my second thoughts start to havesecond thoughts. What if sheislooking for me and doesn’t remember where I said to meet?
“Hey, there’s Madeline.” Jason’s voice cuts into my indecision, and my heart drops to the sticky cafeteria floor. “She’s in my English class.”
Of course my best friend knows Madeline already. When I glanced at her schedule this morning, I saw she was enrolled in mostly AP classes, just like Jason. A brand-new girl in the senior class with the kind of long, copper hair you want to tangle your hands in and eyes that shine like the sun rippling through the forest? If she was in class with him, there’s a zero percent chance that he didn’t go out of his way to talk to her. And if Jason invited her to lunch, I’m sure that’s the offer she’d want to take.
Except those green eyes slide past the drink station and land directly on me. Her glossy pink lips curve into a smile, and she gives me a little wave. I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face as she starts across the crowded cafeteria.
“Oh, hey, she’s coming over here,” Jason says.
My confidence dips again but then rallies when I realize her eyes are still trained on me. I climb to my feet as she weaves past the theater kids and sidesteps a couple of football players carrying trays of pizza.
Jason stands just as Madeline arrives at our table.
“Hey, you’re here after all,” he says with the complete confidence of someone who is used to being chosen. “I knew you’d ditch your other lunch plans.”
Madeline blinks in his direction. “Jason, hi!” Flustered, her gaze flips back and forth between me and him. A pit opens up in my stomach. Did I read this wrong? Is she here for Jason?
Not a single thing about that would surprise me. Jason is the sort of guy most girls want to date. He’s good-looking, athletic without being a jock, definitely smarter than me, and a good guy, too. He’s been the best friend I could’ve asked for in theworst time of my life. Which is why, as soon as I spot Jason’s genuinely happy smile at Madeline’s presence, I know I should sit my ass down. Or back off and walk away entirely. I’ve never seen Jason look at a girl with the sort of interest he’s directing at Madeline. I owe it to him.
Except something comes over me, and I can’t do it. Maybe it’s because I’ve never felt this sort of immediate connection to a girl either. And something tells me that if I walk away, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. So, instead, I straighten my shoulders and draw myself up to my full height, a touch over two inches taller than Jason’s five-foot-eleven frame, a fact that drives him nuts and motivated him to round up to six feet on his driver’s license.
“Hey, Madeline,” I say. “I guess my directions to go past the drink station were okay?”
Jason’s gaze swings in my direction. “Wait, you two know each other?”
Madeline takes a step toward the chair next to mine, and my heart expands. “Adamwas my lunch plans, actually,” she says with a half-laugh.
Jason’s eyebrows rise as he takes in this new information. “Really?”
I yank the chair from under the table for Madeline. “Do you have lunch? Do you want me to grab you some food?”
Madeline shakes her head. “I brought a sandwich from home. Wasn’t sure about the cafeteria food situation.”
“Good thinking.” I wave at the table, where my PB&J sits on a paper bag. “I usually pack my own, too.” Though my bagged lunch has more to do with money than questionable pizza, I don’t plan to mention that, and I hope Jason won’t point it out either.
Jason flops in his chair behind his two hamburgers and bottle of Gatorade. “Well, I need more than carbs and sugar with my training schedule, so I brave the food poisoning.”
Madeline hangs her bag on the back of her chair and slides in next to me. “Thanks again for your help this morning.”
“I hope you were able to find the rest of your classes.”
“Once I got to English, it was pretty easy from there. I just struggled a little to find the gym.” She turns in her chair to open her bag, and her long hair shimmers across my forearm. I want to reach over and tuck it behind her ear. As she leans in close, I’m treated to a view of the freckles sprinkled across her nose. I never knew that a few spots of skin pigmentation could make my insides hum. As she spins back around with her lunch in hand, our eyes connect, and she gives me a sideways grin.
“So how did you two meet?” Jason leans back in his chair and takes a bite of his burger.
I study him across the table. Is there an edge to his voice, or am I still just processing the fact that Madeline chose to sit on this side of the table and direct her smiles at me? Jason and I have never been interested in the same girl before, mostly because he tends to be the center of attention and I’m happy in my role as wingman. But this is the first time I’ve met someone who makes me want to disrupt the balance.
“Madeline almost ran me down in the parking lot,” I say.
Jason leans in and gives Madeline a conspiratorial grin. “If I had a dollar for every time a girl tried to run over my friend Adam here?—”
“You’d have one dollar,” I cut in.
“You make it sound like I aimed my car at you and pressed on the gas.” Madeline gives me a playful slap on the arm, and that brief brush of her skin against mine has me wanting more.
“That’s about what it felt like from where I was standing,” I tease because I can’t tell Madeline the truth, which is that she may have missed me with her car, but she completely mowed me down. The minute I saw her through the open driver’s side window, a hand pressed to her lips, cheeks turning cardinal red, something shifted.
