Page 5 of Ominous: Part 1
“What?” I blurt out, knowing now he’s, for some reason, manipulating his way into my good graces with his compliment. A small laugh escapes my lips, and he tilts his chin up, his smile even wider. “I suck at reading out loud.” The exam slips from my thoughts completely as Eli’s dark green eyes, circled with a thin line of black, light up. I feel strangely proud of myself, like I’m the reason for his newfound pep.
Then I’m promptly annoyed I’m allowing myself to be sucked in.
“No,” he tells me, dropping his gaze, those lashesfluttering.“You don’t.” He lifts his eyes then, and there’s something disarming about his expression. Like he’s nervous paying me a compliment. If this is an act, he’s an excellent artist.
I grip my pen tighter again, overcome with a need to be distracted so I don’t have to keep looking at him. It feels a little like looking at a lie. “Thanks,” I mutter, ducking down to swipe my phone from the side pocket of my backpack at my feet. I straighten but keep my eyes down, checking out the time.
Nine thirty, which means I have fifteen minutes left here. If I come home late, I’m grounded. Doesn’t mean much when I have few friends and fewer opportunities to socialize, but I don’t like disappointing Mom. I’ve already done too much to her heart.
“I mean it, Eden.”
It’s the first time Eli’s said my name, at least to me. I freeze, unable to avoid looking at his face any longer. As always, my gaze snags on his mouth. His lips are ridiculously full, pale pink, such a good color contrasted with his olive skin. I remember I shouldn’t stare at his mouth, though, and of course my body flushes hot all over again. I guess I shouldn’t be shocked he knows my name, considering he’s confessed to listening to me read aloud in class, but it just all feels strange. Why has he never talked to me before? But Iamalways the last one to leave, mainly sono onespeaks to me, and in the hallway, I have earbuds in my ears. I guess I’m unapproachable, and I like it that way. It keeps me out of trouble.
But how long has he been watching me? I shift a little in my seat.
I’ve studied you too,I want to tell him, but I clamp my mouth shut so I don’t say all the things I’m thinking.You have nice hands. Do you know everyone is drawn to you? Has it always been this way?
Come closer,he might say.
Tell me when to stop,I want to respond.
I look at my phone again, flat on the table. “I have to go.” I start gathering up my stuff, trying to force out a little poise, but I’m clumsy from my nerves, every movement awkward, nothing like the grace with which Eli slipped into that chair with. I close my notebook, nothing written in it about my Brit Lit essay at all, even though it’s the entire reason I stayed late tonight. I got caught up in the bully romance I’m reading on my Kindle, until I decided I should work on Chaucer after all.
So much for that.
I drop my pens in the top section of my backpack, tugging the zippers of both compartments closed. I grab the bag, stand up so fast I knock my chair over, and hastily turn, red-faced, to right it, my hands shaky. I pluck up my phone, gripping it tight enough my hand aches, worried I’ll drop it if I don’t, and I’m thinking of walking out of here without saying goodbye because this entire show of me packing up my stuff has gone horribly.
Two thumbs down, Eden.
But just as my pulse thumps so hard against my ribcage I think I may need a beta blocker tonight to sleep, Eli stands, and his shadow casts over the table and me, as he says, “Oh, yeah.”
Then he slides the book he’s been carrying around my way, a gentle gesture, even as it reaches me.
For the first time, I read the title, at the same time he says it out loud.
“The Canterbury Tales.”
A tingle of something runs down my spine. Nervousness? Unease? I can’t place it, but Eli isn’t even looking at me anymore. His gesture was casual, like it didn’t matter. As if it was pure coincidence as he pulls his own phone from his pocket, and I see nothing on his screen but the time, and a solid black background. I might find it odd no one has texted him, called, no social notifications for a boy so adored, save for the fact I’m still stuck on the book.
We only have Latin together. He isn’t in my English class, but this is the book I was originally looking for of Chaucer’s. The one I completely surrendered because my nerves were shot by being the focus of this boy. I told my Brit Lit teacher just today the topic of my essay.But Eli is not in there.
Gingerly, I reach for the book, my mind on high alert.Something is off about you, Eli Addison.
Blinking, I grab the thick volume, full of scholarly notes and dissections, and I tuck it under my arm, phone in my other hand.
When I look up, his back is to me.
I see the muscles along his shoulders flex through his T-shirt as he glances over his shoulder, and his expression is almost daring me to ask how he knew.
Come on,he says.Play with me.
But maybe I’m misreading him, because when he speaks, it’s not an encouragement to pick apart his motives, his actions with this book he shouldn’t know I needed. “Did you park in the senior lot?” He doesn’t even wait for me to answer, and I wonder if he already knows that too. “I’ll walk with you.”
I didn’t park there.
I don’t say it, because on some level, I’m worried he already knows. So, wanting to one-up him at this bizarre game, I simply answer, “Okay.”
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