Page 3 of The Note
Gus made some kind of noise in his throat, but Alex wouldn’t let me turn to look at him. Instead,hesnapped at his brother, “Don’t just stand there, asshole. Get your stupid first aid kit and fix him!”
Gus huffed out a breath but complied. He sat me down at the table and took care of my hand without a word, feeling the bones and dabbing at the scrapes on my knuckles, wrapping the whole thing up with ointment and gauze.
“Is it broken?” Alex demanded, once Gus was done and had fetched me an ice pack from the freezer. “Does he need an x-ray?”
“Tyler will need to keep an eye on it,” Gus said in a low voice. “Sometimes there are fractures beneath the surface. But it’s not fatal.”
Alex huffed out a breath. “No thanks toyou.Be nice to Tyler, apologize to Tyler.Who got the guy so mad he punched the furniture?” Alex shook his head. “Over fuckingcalculus.”
Except it hadn’t been about calculus. Not really.
“Come sit down. Wanna slay zombies or watch a movie? Oh, or we could watch a movie about slaying zombies!” Alex guided me over to the sofa with his arm wrapped around my shoulder like I was his elderly grandmother or, you know,someone he was attracted to, which had me clutching my hand to my chest for other, far less painful, reasons.
I’d never really thought of Alex in that light before, but suddenly he wasright there. And God knew, he was fuckinghot, all stick-straight hair that wouldn’t lie flat, and big brown eyes, and that warm hand that felt so nice when he stroked my neck as he settled me on one side of the sofa and took his seat on the other.
We sat foot-to-foot in front of the TV for the longest time — until way after 28 Days Later was over and we turned on the evening news, not that I paid attention. Alex grabbed his homework and got to work, though I could tell he wasn’t paying attention to that, either, since he had to erase every third word and spent more time tapping his pencil on the paper than reading his book. Every once in a while, Alex’s foot would nudge my leg and I almost couldn’t be sad that I’d vomited my self-pitying bullshit all over the place because the looks he gave me made me blush.
I looked over at Gus only once and found him sitting at the kitchen table, drawing something in his sketch book, ignoring us.
When it was time to go home, I’d stood and turned to Alex, all embarrassed and apologetic.
“Look, I’m sorry I… you know,” I said inadequately, gesturing to my wrapped hand and the kitchen. “That was… intense.”
He nodded. “Very. And I know that’s not reallyyou. But it’s fine. The events of this day have gone in the vault of silence,” he declared solemnly, then he gave me a bright smile. “If asked at school tomorrow, I’ll tell everyone you hurt your hand wrestling piranhas and we will never speak of this day again.”
I smiled awkwardly, because in that moment my entire body was composed of nothing but awkwardness, thrumming through my veins and making my cheeks go hot.
I practically skipped around the couch and into the empty kitchen where I grabbed blindly for the backpack I’d thrown in the corner during my… piranha wrestling.
I’d been flirting with Alex Fletcher.
Alex, of all people on the planet, even though the Fletcher brother I’d always sort of had a thing for was…
“So, um… I’ll see you at school tomorrow?” Alex asked from behind me.
I whirled to face him. “Oh. Yeah.Yeah. Of course. Or I can give you a ride, if you want?”
“Yeah?Yeah. Cool.”
“Cool.” I slung my backpack strap over my shoulder, cleared my throat, and headed for the front door. I’d apparently expended all the words in my body that weren’tyeahandcool,and I had no idea where to take things from here, or even if I wanted to.
This wasAlex Fletcher. I couldn’t quite transcend my disbelief.
“Oh, uh, hey, Tyler?” Alex called. “This is yours.”
I turned and he held out a piece of paper — plain notebook paper, like the kind he’d been writing on back at the couch, folded into quarters, with my name scrawled in blue ballpoint pen on the top.
“What is it?”
“I dunno. You must’ve dropped it, I guess.” He cleared his throat and rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, staring at the crown molding like it was deeply fascinating. “So, tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah.” I grinned. “I think we covered that.”
“Right.” He blushed and tapped his fingers in an exaggerated drum riff on the counter. “Right.”
I frowned and stared down at the note.
Then I opened it.
