Double Clutch - Реинхардт Лиз - Страница 6
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“Denmark,” I corrected, pasting a smile on my face. “I went to Denmark.”
Saxon looked at me with those almost-black eyes. I was so close I could see every gold fleck, but I took two very deliberate steps back.
“You went to Denmark?” he repeated a little dumbly.
“Yes. Denmark.”
“Class is going to start.” Kelsie breezed by, pulling me by the hand. “Bye Saxon. See you later.”
“Oh, I was going to see if tonight at seven was cool?” His eyes darted to me for a split second and were back on Kelsie so fast I wondered if I had imagined it all.
“That sounds great. Pick me up, okay?” Kelsie yanked me through the door, away from Saxon and into her embrace. She giggled and stamped her feet. “He’s so hot, isn’t he?” she gushed, leaning her head on me.
And I liked her head leaning on me, but I felt a need to tell myself at least that Saxon wasn’t all that. “He’s alright. I think he has a good idea of how hot girls think he is.”
“Yeah.” She giggled and waved her hand around. “But I like him anyway. Ooh, they have glass, Brenna! I can’t wait.”
I followed Kelsie to a display of glass crafts, but I couldn’t really pay much attention to them. Kelsie and Saxon were going out tonight. That was fine. I had known him for almost exactly forty-five minutes. It wasn’t real, what I felt. It was just a crush, an infatuation. Something I could very easily put out of my mind.
I half listened to the lecture on crafts. We would be doing some pottery, working with copper, glass, and macrame. I suppressed a groan. Maybe this had been a mistake. I just had a hard time picturing myself doing any kind of weaving. Most of the class I spent looking over at Kelsie. She was very pretty. And she was artistic. I heard her tell another girl about her beaded necklace and earrings, that she had made them herself. They were a complicated design and it was obvious you needed a good dose of pure talent to make them.
So I knew this wasn’t going to be one of those things where I liked a guy and then this awful girl liked him, and I got the guy in the end because I was so wholesome and right and good. This was real life.
And in real life Kelsie was awesome and gorgeous, and Saxon would be lucky to have her and they would be great together. In real life, I had to get a serious grip.
When the bell rang, I headed to the only thing on my schedule I was truly nervous about.
I had to take gym class.
New Jersey demanded physical education every single year. A total lack of coordination, poor reflexes, and difficulty understanding the rules of most games in general all triangulated to make me one of the suckiest gym students in middle school, and I was pretty sure all my hours on a bike hadn’t managed to blot the rest of my deficiencies out.
Besides my natural suckiness, I registered late. Since everyone picked their gym units at the end of the previous year, I got stuck with cross country.
Coach Dunn was a tan, muscled woman with a long, shiny, blonde ponytail and a killer stare. There was a huge track. She gave each of us a numbered placard to pin to our gym shirts. Each time we went around the track, she made a mark by our number. She was fairly quiet, as gym teachers go. No calls of encouragement, no hoots, no fist pumping or clapping. I was glad about that. I thought cross country might go fairly well when I looked to my right and saw a soccer game going on.
One of the guys was awesome, kicking the ball with incredible speed and agility. He was quick and arrogant, doing a back flip when he made a goal. He looked over at the track and even across that distance, we made eye contact, and I nearly tripped over my feet.
Saxon.
He gave me a wave, acknowledging that he had seen me. I waved back and my heart pattered in my chest. I ran faster, focusing on the rhythm of my breathing and the burn of my muscles. The cool air stung my lungs, and I gulped it down and ran harder. I ran to forget the way Saxon’s eyes looked, black with gold flecks, and his incredible laugh that twined right around my gut and pulled me in.
I wondered if Kelsie would make him laugh like that, and right away I felt like a traitor. Kelsie was funny and smart, and if Saxon didn’t laugh at her, he was the idiot. I gritted my teeth and ran harder, and I didn’t look back at the field, no matter how much yelling and cheering I heard. I didn’t want to think about him, I didn’t want to meet eyes again. My entire body focused on running; my arms pumped, my feet moved in time, my breath tore down my scratchy throat and filled my lungs while I ran away from all the confusion I had already managed to muck in on my first day of school.
“Number twelve!” Coach Dunn bellowed. “Number twelve!”
I looked around and realized the track was empty. I was the last one on.
“Sorry, coach!” I jogged to her and gasped. “I was in a zone or something.”
“Twelve, you did fourteen laps in one period,” Coach Dunn said, her arms crossed. I couldn’t tell if she wanted to congratulate me or spit on my shoes. “The best cross country student I’ve ever seen only did thirteen. What do you think of that?”
“Good?” I said, unsure what to say.
“I’ll say. I want you to consider trying out for cross country. I want you on the team.” She glowered at me when she said it, but I felt like it was probably as friendly a look as she gave.
“I’ll consider it.”
She nodded, and I turned to go change and gather in the hall with the other students jostling for a spot. We all collected outside the gym until the bell rang to release us.
I felt him before I even had to look. The smell of his aftershave slid into my nostrils and made my head spin.
“I heard you ran like Forrest Gump.” The smile came out in his voice.
“Fourteen laps.” I crossed my arms and glowered. “What do you think of that?”
“Holy crap.” Saxon laughed. “You look just like old Dunn. That’s damn good.” He punched my arm softly, a kind of manly congratulations. “So, you gonna do cross country or what?”
“I don’t know. I’m not here in the afternoon.” I opened and closed the zipper on my backpack frantically, waiting for the scarlet ‘T’ to appear on my forehead.
“Do you have one of those get-out-after-lunch schedules? You’re not even a junior yet.” He reached out and yanked the zipper shut, stopping the whine of the teeth opening and closing.
“No. I do Share Time.” The way everyone balked when I announced it made me dread this afternoon. What had I gotten myself into?
Even Saxon, resident Frankford High bad boy, looked just the tiniest bit shocked. “Share Time? You wanna give me a haircut?”
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