Chapter 4

“I’ve lost my appetite! You have no idea how awkward I feel around him! I thought Bruce wouldn’t even want to say hi to me, and he came over himself. So now I absolutely have to find out how it all happened!”

Amber leaves, Jake shakes his head, and Zachary smirks when he sees Matthew’s hand on my shoulder:

“Interesting lunch today, don’t you think? You were right, Palmer. Salt didn’t help.”

***

The next hour passes in a blur, because Matthew and I have English on our schedule, and for the first time, we go there together.

To leave the cafeteria, we have to pass the central table where Sean, Kate, and their mutual friends are sitting, and the group goes noticeably quiet when we walk by holding hands. After our kiss, Palmer doesn’t let go of me again, and I decide I’ve had enough of being embarrassed by curious looks. A relationship is either for two people or for no one. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Because I think I really do have a boyfriend!

Matthew

I can’t remember now the exact moment in my past when I learned to wake before dawn. It didn’t happen often, and definitely not after night shifts in my father’s garage, when all of us were dead on our feet from exhaustion and the adrenaline crash. But it definitely began when I first started feeling irritation with my own life, and more importantly, my inability to change anything about it.

“…Turning your nose up again, Matthew? Eat, I said!”

“I don’t want it! It’s burned and it tastes bad!”

“Mario, I’m not your cook! Your youngest son is an ungrateful little asshole!”

“Eat!”

“I won’t!”

A slap cracks out, and not for the first time, I jump up from the table.

“What, you don’t like how my woman cooks? Then make your own damn food!”

“Fine, I will!”

I didn’t like it. There were a lot of things I didn’t like in our house, especially the unfamiliar women who appeared in the kitchen out of nowhere, but this was the first protest I managed to defend. And my first personal victory, when I realized I was capable of something. That I could do something better than other people.

At first my brothers laughed at my attempts to cook my own lunch. Before then, Dad only entered the kitchen to grab another beer from the fridge, and my brothers to eat anything that could be called food. And the first pasta I boiled with my own hands flew around the kitchen, sticking to the walls, while Lucas and Christian howled with laughter.

I got offended, fought, told my brothers to go to hell, and mouthed off to Dad until I figured out I could wake up earlier. In the morning, no one stopped me from being myself. It was the quietest time in our house, and I learned to sharpen a knife, use the stove, and fix my own mistakes.

Funny? Probably. But when you’ve spent years eating cheap frozen food, padded out with chips, soda, and fast food on weekends, a pan of honey-glazed ribs with fluffy potatoes will wipe smiles off faces faster than a solid punch, and keep them from wanting to laugh for a long time. So my brothers’ jokes dried up very quickly once I really started getting things right.

No one forced me anymore to eat food I didn’t want to eat, and no one mocked my experiments. I was no longer embarrassed to spend my own money on something that woke interest in me and turned out not to be a cheap set of groceries from the nearest supermarket, but an entire world of flavors and smells, a road into it like a clean breath of knowledge, something I wanted to reach for.

Yes, I was lucky to see the road to that world, but that didn’t mean anyone would give me permission to become different. To become myself. Not like all the Palmers.

In the end, my brothers knew I was capable not only of understanding machines, sobering our father up, and keeping the family accounts, but also of taking care of dinner—when I was in the mood. But no one knew about my dream.

It had always been so distant and unreachable that it didn’t even seem impossible. It was impossible. As impossible as me going to college.

I don’t know why I still let that hope live in my soul. Probably only because of a conversation with Coach Hurley and Secretary Moran in the local sheriff’s office, and because I know someone else is still capable of believing in me.

So waking up early today cost me nothing. Especially not to bake a few muffins for Ashley. If a person can come down with someone like an illness, then I’ve been sick with this girl for a long time, and I don’t want to recover.

She sits at the desk in front of me, writing something with her head bent over her notebook. The back of her neck is open to my gaze, dark-red hair lying on her shoulder, and I feel like I could see her even with my eyes closed.

Ashley feels my gaze and carefully looks back so the teacher won’t notice. She smiles, and her smile is as sincere as she is. Now, when she looks at me, there is no more caution or distrust in her dark-gray eyes. Joy burns in them, and I like that too.

She turns away, and my hand reaches for her on its own and touches her back. I run my fingers over her shoulder blade and up to her neck, just to touch her skin. Ashley’s skin is as tender as her lips, and I immediately want more. The things I try not to think about so I won’t go insane. So I won’t think about her and Renton, and won’t give jealousy a chance to stand between us. There is already a beautiful woman living inside this girl, and thoughts of her fill my head anyway…

Damn it. I need to give both of us a chance to take part in class, but this feels like a need—to keep touching Ash all the time and seeing her near me.

This morning, I didn’t even think about what I wanted. I simply found her so I could meet her eyes again, catch her wide smile, and convince myself all over again that everything between us wasn’t a dream.

I barely manage to let Ashley go to her next class, and I hang around in the hall by her locker until the last second, distracting her with conversation and keeping her from packing her backpack. Catching a dark-red strand of hair, I run my fingers down her slim shoulder to her elbow, drawing curious looks our way.

She is still embarrassed when I leave the cardboard box of muffins in her locker, take her backpack from her, and promise to walk her to the right classroom myself. She laughs softly, pointing out that I’ll be late to class that way and scare off all my fangirls.

Screw it. I like this girl, and I don’t want to forbid myself anything.

***

Evening lacrosse practice turns out pretty brutal, even though on Friday we had a successful game against Lincoln and a lot of the guys still haven’t come down from the rush of winning. Today is nice out, and beside us on the sports field, the Red Foxes are practicing. Their coach is unhappy with her cheerleaders’ performance at the last game and is tearing into her squad, demanding they learn team spirit from us and finally start living up to the Golden Eagles.

Kate Harding is here too, but Renton doesn’t seem happy to see his girlfriend, and it’s not like he pays attention to her. But when Ashley appears at the stadium with her camera and her journalist friend, Renton misses the ball twice, glancing toward the pretty girls.