Page 20 of Choosing Her
The next message in the group chat was Poppy sending a photo of her outfit, asking if it looked good for a date. I was about to respond that it looked perfect, when I got distracted by a piece of paper being slid under my door. I dropped my phone on my bed and walked over to check what it was, unsurprised to see a photo of Italy staring back at me.
I sighed and crouched down to pick up the postcard. This was the one instance where Naomi never walked into my room—postcards didn’t get passed in person, they got slipped under the door, like she couldn’t bear to face me when she handed them over. It was probably just as well right now, because I didn’t really want to face Naomi either. I’d been actively avoiding her since I agreed to tutor Crossy, because I hated having to keep it a secret.
It wasn’t like she and I spent that much time together at school, anyway. We hung out during the summer becauseneither of us knew many people around town, what with only living there for only two months of the year, and our parents were almost always away. But at school, it was a completely different beast. She had her friends and I had mine, and our paths only crossed when she needed something from me.
I read over the postcard as I walked downstairs, to where I told Crossy we could meet outside. The message wasn’t anything special, just once again going on about how great it was to travel and that they’d met some great people. Whoopee for them. I stuck it in my bag as I stepped outside in the cool autumn air to wait for Crossy. The sun was already setting, taking most of the warmth from the day with it. I hated that it was already getting to mid-October, meaning that winter would be upon us soon and I had to make the most of fall while it was here. I pulled the sleeves of knitted sweater over my hands to keep them warm, telling myself again that it was too early to pull out my gloves. I refused to give in to the cold weather yet.
Since I was at the dorms today, Crossy suggested we could meet here and walk to the stables together. When I told him that Naomi might get suspicious, Crossy pointed out that we had the perfect excuse of our best friends dating as a cover—if Naomi did happen to see us, we could just say that we were both going to meet up with Poppy and Bear and happened to run in to each other. I wasn’t totally convinced by his reasoning but I’d also been very over the discussion so I agreed. I was wishing I hadn’t, though, as I waited there five minutes past the time we were supposed to meet, trying not to freeze and cursing him under my breath.
When he did finally start up the path from the hockey arena, he was walking alongside Mako and Tino. I was surprised Bear wasn’t with them, but then I realized he was probably taking a little extra time to get ready since he was going on a date with Poppy, while the other boys had nobody to impress.
As they came up the path, Tino looked like he was planning to come and talk to me, but when he was only a few feet away, Mako grabbed him harshly by the neck and pulled him toward the boys’ dorm. I smirked as I watched Mako drag him away, while Tino yelled about how he wasn’t going to say anything. I was curious what he meant by that, since he was clearly coming up to talk to me, but I didn’t get to learn as Mako shoved Tino through the door of the boys’ dorm.
“See something you like?”
I jumped as I felt Crossy’s breath tickling my neck. Somehow, I’d completely missed him coming up right beside me while I was watching Mako and Tino. The smirk immediately dropped off my face again as I turned to face him. His hair was wet, like he’d stepped straight out of the shower before coming here, making the curls in his hair more pronounced, and instead of his uniform, he was wearing a long-sleeve workout shirt with the school crest of the chest and a pair of black sweatpants that said Hartwell Academy on the hip.
“You’re like a walking advertisement for the school, aren’t you?” I asked. I pushed away from the wall I’d been leaning against and started up the path to the stables.
“I should get paid modelling credits,” Crossy said, walking alongside me. “Maybe I could convince them to put me on some of the brochures."
I snorted. “Right, like anybody would see your face and go, ‘Oh yeah, I do want to send my kid there.’”
“I don’t know,” Crossy mused. “I think it would convince you—after all, you were the one who wanted to talk to me on New Year’s Eve.”
I stopped so suddenly that Crossy’s shoulder knocked straight into mine. I swung around to glare at him.
“Excuse me, but I seem to remember being perfectly happy to sit by myself on New Year’s eve whenyou,” I jabbed a finger intohis chest, “showed up and started a conversation with me. Not the other way around.”
Crossy just smiled at me, then dropped his gaze to where my finger was pressed against his chest. His very hard, muscular chest. I flushed and dropped my hand, but didn’t stop glaring.
“Understood?” I asked.
“Yes ma’am,” he said with a salute. I rolled my eyes and spun around, continuing toward the stable at the fastest pace I could manage. I was annoyed to see that he could keep up with me easily. Why did he have to be so much taller than me?
“Do we really have to study in the stable every single time?” Crossy asked as we made our way toward the stairs.
“Why?” I asked. “Is it not good enough for you?”
First, he forced me to walk here with him. Then, he was late to show up. And now he was complaining about the location I chose? I was starting to relate to Lilah’s text about killing her group members.
“I never said anything about it not being good enough!” Crossy said. I took the stairs up two at a time, wanting to put some distance between us, even though I knew the finish was the tiny room we’d be locked in for the next hour. At least once we got into the actual tutoring, I he would probably stop talking so much. I would be happy to talk about math with him. “It’s just…”
“What?” I asked, whirling around as I got to the top. “What’s so wrong with this place? Do you not like it because I picked it? Or is your ego so fragile that you can’t handle the reminder that horseback riding if a female-dominated sport?”
Crossy stared at me with wide eyes. “Wow, you just made a lot of assumptions in there.”
I crossed my arms and stared at him. Sure, I’d made some leaps, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t heard before. And I didn’t appreciate him complaining about where we were studying, when I was doing this as a favor to him. I got next to nothing outof tutoring—other than not making my parents angry—while he got everything.
“I was just going to say,” Crossy continued, “that maybe one day, we could go into town and get dinner while we study.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Have you forgotten that we’re avoiding Naomi?”
“We wouldn’t run into her.”
“You don’t know that.” I dropped my bag on the floor and fell into my favorite chair, suddenly feeling exhausted. Something about spending time with Crossy did that to me. “And if she sees her sister and her ex-boyfriend having dinner alone, she’ll probably have a lot of questions, don’t you think?”
Crossy looked thoughtful as he sat down in his own spot. I was grateful to see that he started pulling out math-related things, so we could start to do what we actually came here for instead of just arguing. He handed over some papers that I realized were the old tests I’d asked for. As I looked them over, making mental notes of what he struggled with, Crossy asked, “Why do you care so much that she doesn’t find out?”
