Page 18 of Choosing Her
“But we’re not taking the same classes,” I said.
He shrugged and tapped his temple. “Doesn’t matter. It’s all about the mentality.”
“Uh…” I tried to think of a nice way to tell him hat I didn’t want to study with him, because I didn’t want him to ruin the peaceful nature of my study space. But how was I supposed to explain that to him without hurting his feelings. Not that I should have cared about him like that—he certainly hadn’t been thinking of my feelings when he started dating my sister.
“I’ll give you coffee,” he said. He picked up the iced coffee he’d put down on the coffee table and shook it in front of my face like he was trying to hypnotize me. “You know you want it.”
I wish I could say I was immune to what he was doing, but my eyes followed the coffee cup every time it moved. There was a coffee machine up here, but it only made hot coffee, when I preferred iced. And besides, the coffee from Heart’s Coffee was always way better than anything I could make with the crappy machine here.
“I don’t watch your germs,” I said, because it was the best excuse I could think of.
Crossy smirked and for a second, I thought he was going to make a joke about how I hadn’t cared about his germs when I kissed him on New Year’s Eve. But all he said was, “Don’t worry, I haven’t taken a sip. I brought it for you.”
That broke me out of my hypnosis. I blinked and looked at him, expecting to see that he was teasing. But his face looked completely genuine.
“For me?” I asked. “Why?”
He shrugged. “Never hurts to be a teacher’s pet. It’s caramel swirl flavor.” He held the coffee out to me. I hesitated, torn between wanting to take it and not wanting him to know that he could bribe me like this. Then again, he probably already knew, since he had to have noticed that I drank all the iced coffees he brought me in class. What could I say? It was my weakness—especially the caramel flavor.
“Okay.” I snatched the coffee from his hand before he could take it back. I covered the name on the side, CROSSY spelled in big blocky letters, with my thumb. I didn’t need a reminder that he as the one who bought it for me. “Just for today, you can stay with me.”
His smile was so wide and blinding that it actually made me feel good about saying yes, even though I should have let him convince me. What was it about Caleb Cross that made him so difficult to hate?
CHAPTER 12
saylor
“Areyour parents coming to family day?” Poppy asked. I bit down hard on my lip to stop myself from saying my automatic answer—of course not, they couldn’t care less about family day—and waited for Lilah to speak first. I tried to act extremely focused on painting Poppy’s nails, so she wouldn’t question my silence.
“Of course,” Lilah said. She was lying on the extra bed in my room—since I was supposed to have a roommate but didn’t, the bed sat empty there—which we had namedThe Couch, and was typing rapidly on her phone as she spoke. “And, of course, all my siblings are coming, too.”
Poppy looked at her over her shoulder. “Well, that’ll be fun, right? It’s hard for all four of you to get together.”
“Yeah,” Lilah said, but she sounded distracted. She let out a yell of frustration and dropped her phone on the bed. Through gritted teeth, she added, “I’m just trying to convince Jude not to invite the entire band.”
“I’m guessing it’s not going well,” I said, watching as she picked the phone up again and continued typing, this time eve more aggressively. It was a little funny to watch her type so hard on a touch-screen phone.
“Ivy mentioned that they were thinking of trying to get all the boys to come,” Poppy said. “I’m not sure Zach was for it, though, if that helps.”
Zach was Poppy's sister’s boyfriend who was in the same band as Lilah's brother, Jude. I guess Jude thought that two of them were coming anyway, all five of them might as well. But with them being part of the biggest boyband in the world right now, all of them showing up would probably cause mass chaos.
Lilah sighed and fell on her back, the mattress bouncing a little under her weight. “If the whole band comes, we’re not going to get to see any of them. They’ll just be surrounded all day.”
I wanted to tell her that if that happened, then she could hang out with me instead because I was going to be entirely alone all day, but saying that would bring attention to me and my sad predicament, which was exactly what I was trying to avoid.
I didn't really have any plans for what I was going to do while everyone else was spending time with their families. Studying would be impossible with so many people milling about and talking. And I couldn’t just sit around, being all pathetic. But Naomi would be off with her friends or her new boyfriend, pretending she was a part of their family instead of mine. She never seemed to mind sticking to people like that, but I hated to do it. I didn’t want to be that person who acted like a leech on someone’s side, taking away the limited time they had with their parents. Just because mine didn’t want to visit me didn’t mean I should take away from the fun day everyone else was getting.
“Are you almost done with Poppy’s nails?” Lilah asked, pulling me out of my concerns. She held her hands and wiggled her fingers. “I want you to do mine next.”
“Just need thirty seconds to put the finishing touches,” I said. I was on the last nail now, just doing the final touches. Poppyhad asked for purple nail polish to replace her old pink one, because she wanted to be wearing Hartwell’s colors at the family day this weekend. It worked out that purple was my favorite color so I always had it in stock.
“Done!” I said, pulling away. “But please don’t smudge them.”
Poppy laughed and awkwardly stood up without using her hands, then began flapping her arms in the air to help the paint dry. She looked a little silly, but hey, if it worked, it worked.
“All right, Lilah,” I said in an announcer’s voice. “You may come down to my nail salon.”
Lilah grinned at me as she hopped off The Couch and laid down on her stomach in front of me, placing her hands on the same newspapers Poppy had been using to protect my carpet from unintentional nail polish spills.
