Page 26 of Notice Me, Jameson Hart
I squeeze my eyes shut, cheeks already burning. “Jameson Hart in Lycra.”
Rita squeals loud enough to wake the dead. I lower the volume on my laptop, not wanting my brothers, or worse, my dad overhearing us discussing the finer attributes of Jameson Hart.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help it. Why are football pants that tight? It’s scientifically unnecessary.”
Rita’s grin grows until it threatens to split her face. “For aerodynamics, maybe?”
I cover my face with one hand. “Every time he ran, I could see how it stretched…back there.”
She leans in, eyes wide. “Kevin, you are blushing so hard your cheeks could double as a heat lamp.”
We lapse into a comfortable silence, mainly because I hide under my covers until my cheeks return to their natural color. Rita’s cat, Persephone, steps into the frame and sniffs at her damp towel. Rita scratches her behind the ears, then returns her attention to me. “It’s more than just his ass, though, isn’t it?”
I nod. “Do you know how many people outside of the drama club know my name at school?”
“How many?”
“Maybe twenty, if I’m being generous.” I shift position, and my laptop slides slightly. I grab it before it can fall off the bed. “But Jameson knew it. He stared right at me and said my name as if it was nothing.”
Rita’s expression turns thoughtful. “Maybe it wasn’t ‘nothing’ to him.”
“We’ve been through this already, Rita. He was being polite. That’s all.”
“But what if?—”
“I’m the person you vaguely remember was in your class when you go through your yearbook ten years later.”
“You’re selling yourself short.”
I trace patterns on my comforter with my finger. “In my imagination, we strike up a conversation. He laughs at my jokes. Dances with me in the rain because he thinks my obsession with musical theater is endearing instead of weird. But that’s fantasy. In reality, I say nothing at all.”
I hear Adam’s bedroom door open and close. He’s probably heading to the kitchen for his usual Sunday morning cereal binge that he thinks none of us know about.
“You know what I think?” Rita says.
“What?”
“I think you use your imagination as armor. It’s safer to live in a world where everyone follows a script and there’s always a happy ending than to risk putting yourself out there with the rest of us.”
Her words hit closer to home than I care to admit.
“Seriously, Kevin. Maybe it’s time to come out of that fantasy world more often. You might be surprised by what you find.”
“Like the fact that my brother has been secretly taking care of my best friend and I never noticed?”
“Exactly.” Rita’s towel finally gives up and tumbles off her head. She catches it with one hand while keeping her eyes on me. “Speaking of which, why the sudden interest in what I think of Robbie?”
I debate how much to tell her. “I think he might have a crush on you.”
Rita’s eyes widen. “What? No way.”
“He all but admitted it yesterday. Said you terrify him, but that he likes badasses.”
“Robbie said that?” Her voice goes up an octave. “Your brother, who once put a frog in my lunchbox and made me scream, thinks I’m a badass?”
“We were ten. And he apologized for a month afterward. But yes.”
“That’s…unexpected.”
