Double Clutch - Реинхардт Лиз - Страница 8
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“Brenna Blixen.”
“Brenna Blixen.” He scanned his list. “You can sit with…Jake Kelly. He’s one of my best, and he’s in an advanced section, so he’s done this all before. If you have any questions, I’m sure he can help you out, or just give a holler in my direction.” He pointed to a table in the back.
I grabbed paper and a pencil from the pile Mr. Giles showed me and went to the back table. There was a boy there. He smiled sweetly, and I felt my heart thump in a wild staccato.
What kind of shameless hussy was I? I had just calmed my heart after riding away from Saxon, and here this boy gave me one smile, and I fell to pieces?
“Hey. I’m Jake.” His voice was so nice, deep but gentle. He held out his hand and I grabbed it. It was rough to my touch, like I could feel the work he did through all his calluses. “You’re Brenna?”
I shook and smiled back at him. “Yep. Brenna Blixen.”
“Nice to meet you, Brenna.” He had light brown hair and nice gray eyes, so shiny they were almost silver. He was tall and wiry, and I could see the definition of his muscles. He pointed to a group of wooden shapes in the center of the table. “Just doing some perspective drawing. You good?” he checked.
His gaze roamed up and down my body. It wasn’t a nasty thing; it was just like Jake was taking stock of me, getting a good look so he could reference for later.
“Yeah, thanks. Sorry I ruined your peace and quiet.”
He smiled down at his paper. One of his front teeth had a tiny chip and his left eyetooth was a little crooked. He had a great, warm, slow smile. “No need to apologize. You’re a lot nicer to look at than these wooden blocks.” His eyes came up for just one second. They looked just like liquid silver.
“Yeah,” I shot back breezily. “I get that all the time. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me I was prettier than a hunk of wood, I‘d be a rich, rich woman.”
His laugh was an easy sound that welled from deep in his throat, and shook his head. “Pretty and funny. I’m in big trouble. I better watch out, or I’ll be completely in love before the day is out.”
“Line up, then,” I joked, but my voice was a little rushed this time because I felt like all the blood was rushing from my head. “I get that a lot, too.”
I had to remind myself to breathe over and over. It was like Jake was sucking the oxygen out of the room.
“Yeah, but you never got it from anyone as persistent as me.” He pointed at me with his pencil and smiled. “When I see the perfect girl sitting across from me, I’m not about to just let a couple thousand suitors swipe her from me.”
“Like Penelope,” I said, without thinking. He wasn’t going to get a reference to The Odyssey. It wasn’t exactly Tech reading.
“Do you think I’m the one who can pull the bow back?” He made a muscle out of his bicep.
I laughed and salivated over his bicep and the fact that he knew The Odyssey. “I love that book.”
“Me too.”
And once again, I found myself taking a good hard look at a very attractive guy and feeling the prick of pins and needles all over my body.
Focus, I told myself. I was here to learn, not to drool over yet another guy. As if Saxon didn’t make things complicated enough, I now had Jake to contend with. Jake and I drew and erased and looked at each other now and then in friendly silence until the bell rang. I didn’t have Jake in my next two classes, which were drafting and still-life drawing, but the last class of the day was a project block and there he was, leaned back at a computer desk, his eyes following me when I came in.
It wasn’t even like I was really thinking about it. I just followed my feet and wound up sitting next to him.
“Hey.” He radiated happiness. “How were the other two classes?”
“Good.” I basked in his glow. “So do you do Share Time or do you stay at Tech all day?”
“I’m a full day Techie.” He drummed his fingers on the desk. “My grades were pretty crappy in middle school.”
“Really?” If someone asked what the first word I thought of when I thought of Jake was, I would say…well, hot. And sweet. But focused and hardworking would make the top five, no doubt.
“Yeah. I have dyslexia.” Jake moved his hand to the back of his neck and rubbed self-consciously. “I know a lot of people say that they have it, but it’s pretty rare.”
“Didn’t you get help for it?”
“Oh yeah. My teachers were really good. But it’s just a huge struggle for me to read. I kind of hate it.” He bumped the toe of his boot on the table leg absently.
“But The Odyssey?” I asked, confused.
He smiled. It was crooked. I loved it. “Some books on tape are really good. That one was.”
“That’s the same as reading,” I protested.
He looked at me and his crooked smile stretched out over his whole face. “Yeah, okay. Like drafting is the same as carpentry. I’m a dumbass, Brenna, whether you want to admit it or not.”
It took a minute for it to sink in that he was serious. “A dumbass doesn’t speak the way you do. I can tell just from talking to you that you’re smart.”
He blushed a little and we smiled shyly, then went back to work. I felt warm from the inside out every time I looked his way. When the bell rang, Jake followed me down the long hall and finally put a hand on my shoulder.
“Where are you going?” he asked. “The parking lot is over here.”
“I rode my bike in.”
He didn’t bat an eyelash. “Cool. Where do you live?”
“Augusta. I live on Dickerson. Off of Plains Road.”
“Oh. I live in the Lake.”
“The Lake” was Lake Neapolin, the butt of most of Sussex County’s jokes. It was rumored to be the dirtiest lake in the county, and no one ever swam there. Houses around the lake were typically dilapidated. Back in the 50’s they had been cute little summer homes, but in the 80’s people bought them up to live in permanently. So they were kind of summery and cute, but also prone to being kind of run-down and neglected.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow.” I gave him a friendly wave. Jake smiled his crooked smile and I felt my heart thud faster in my chest.
I couldn’t wipe the smile from my face.
Chapter 2
I remembered to call my mom before I biked home, and thought about stopping at Frankford to talk to Coach Dunn, but I changed my mind at the last minute. I wanted to ride as fast as possible because I knew Mom was timing me down to the second. If I took too long, she would make me get on the bus tomorrow. By the time I rode into the driveway, she was peering out the kitchen window.
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