Chapter 7 #2
I shoved his shoulder, and a shot of heat arced from my wrist into my chest. I hadn’t meant to touch him the other day or now, but something greater than my willpower took over my body sometimes. I fisted my fingers tightly to hold on to the phantom throb lingering there.
“Don’t act so innocent. Ty told me what you guys were planning.”
Cal ducked his chin to stare at his shoulder where I had touched him.
What was he thinking? Certainly, it wasn’t how sculpted that shoulder was or how much it had warmed my palm.
I already wanted my hand on him again. This whatever between us wasn’t good in the slightest and would only get worse if we were forced to be around each other as the school planned.
“I am innocent,” he bit through a clenched jaw. “You started this.”
“And I suppose you had no part in those pranks?”
Cal opened his mouth but only gaped at me for a long moment. At least he wasn’t going to lie about it. “Less of a part than you think,” he finally said. “Do you know how much trouble I’d be in if I got kicked out of school? I’m not that stupid.”
“That’s questionable at best.”
“You know what? Fuck this. I’m not required to talk to you right now.” Cal spun around and stalked off in the opposite direction of his first class, but was probably too angry to notice or course correct if he did.
He rounded a corner, head and shoulders slumped, but somehow with confidence surrounding him. Maybe it was the athlete in him, the steadiness in his own body.
Since my first crush, I’d never felt so lost. I’d confessed to Kenny within days of realizing how I felt. He'd been my first kiss. The next guy had been straight, and I read his shyness all wrong. It’d been live and learn since.
Now, I was that same kid again. Inexperienced in how to handle these emotions that kept me off-balance.
Cal wasn’t throwing off any gay vibes, and he definitely wasn’t like the shy-but-straight one. I had forced myself out of crushes before or just didn’t let them get off the ground to begin with. So why couldn’t I stop this? Without an answer in sight, I turned and headed for class.
Ty scanned me as soon as I was through the door, worried probably, and watched as I took my seat. Actually, everyone watched me. Notoriety sucked.
Five minutes later, Cal walked in.
We locked eyes over the head of every other student, as if we had no control, as if we couldn’t stop it.
Jaw tight, he twisted the grip he had on his backpack’s strap like he might rip it apart.
Ty kicked my foot under the desk, and Cal looked away at the same time I did, neither of us showing any signs of giving ground on this.
I filled Ty in on the cooked-up plan the faculty had concerning Cal and me over our lunch period.
“Maybe this could work,” Ty said.
“How? We can’t even breathe near each other without it sparking a fight.”
Ty laughed. “I can’t believe the school put you two in couples therapy.”
I had to snicker at the irony of that too.
When three rolled around, I made my way to Trent’s office for our first weekly session. Cal ducked into the room ahead of me and didn’t hold the door this time.
Keep calm, and get through it, I silently coached myself.
We settled across from Trent and stared at him, both of us silent, waiting for him to get this therapy going. No stranger to these types of sessions, I wasn’t at all surprised by Trent’s opener.
“Tell me how this started.” When neither of us said anything, he added, “Cal. Since you weren’t the new student this year, how about you go first.”
Cal wasn’t at all happy about that, if his frown was any indication. He inhaled deeply and, as he exhaled, flexed and fisted his hands on top of his quads.
“What do you wanna know?”
“Just what I said. What happened that made you two enemies?”
Cal glanced at me, then back at Trent, and shrugged.
“Jack?”
Here was the thing. I believed therapy was helpful, but I also believed it only worked when a person wanted it to. For this, neither of us wanted it to. So, in a show of solidarity, I shrugged too.
Trent sighed and leaned forward, placing his clasped hands on his desk. “What’s going on between you two?”
“There’s nothing between us,” Cal snapped.
“That’s a good start. Why not?” Trent said. “You two actually have a lot in common.”
“Not likely,” I muttered, thinking only of my crush and Cal’s bullheaded, backwoods country self.
“Did you know your dads are both in the medical field?”
I shook my head and didn’t bother to see how Cal answered. His family had money, and I only knew that because of the truck he drove and the neighborhood we lived in.
“At the same hospital,” Trent went on. “You’ve each got one sibling.
You’re both athletic and playing similar sports.
” I snorted at that, but Trent ignored it.
“And you’re both working hard to get into prestigious colleges.
Harvard,” Trent said, raising his brows at me. “MIT,” he added, motioning toward Cal.
Seriously? All this time, both of us wanted to end up moving to the same area for college? I glared at Cal, who was probably thinking the exact same thing. Fate hated us. At least Boston was too big to run into each other, unlike here.
“If you two can learn to work together without a squeak of complaint, I might be convinced to write a letter of recommendation for you.”
That … That would actually be kind of awesome. Would Cal go for it? Could we convince the school we were done with this rivalry if it meant helping our college aspirations?
Trent rambled on about his own high school years and college prep, as if any of it was relatable to us, and then jarred me back into the moment when he said, “We’ll start this with a little exercise. Exchange phone numbers.”
Um, what?
I blinked, then blinked at Cal, and we turned to Trent at the same time.
“Why?” Cal asked.
“Positive in, positive out,” Trent said with a creepy smile. “On our session days, you both will text something about yourselves to each other. And keep it friendly,” he quickly added at the end.
“Why?” I echoed Cal like a dumbass, but really, though, why?
“Because you’ll be surprised how simple acts of discourse can open you to new ideas, new emotions. With as much as you two have in common, I’m sure it will come about quickly, and you’ll see just how easily you could be friends instead of enemies.”
Trent sat back with a squeak of his chair and held his hands over his soft middle. “And you’ll show me your phones each session so I can check.”
“Whoa, not cool,” Cal said.
“Hella invasion of privacy,” I said at the same time.
Trent rolled his eyes. “Fine. But you’ll tell me what each of you learned about the other.” No one said anything for a moment. For me, it was because my jaw was still on the floor, and then Trent added, “Go on. Swap numbers right now and say hello.”
Neither of us reached for our phones. I frowned at Cal as if Trent’s idea was his fault, and I’d be damned if I’d be the one to make the first move. Cal probably thought the same. Even who got their phone out first was a fucking fight between us.
Finally, I rolled my eyes and dug into my pocket. Cal smirked, the stubborn asshole, and shoved a hand in his own. Jesus Christ, this guy. I rattled off my number, quickly so he’d have to ask me to repeat it, but the dipshit caught every single digit.
Unknown number
Fuck you.
Not in this fucking life.
“What did you say to each other?” Trent asked.
I lifted my phone and waved it. “He said, ‘Hey, it’s Cal,’”
“Did Jack respond, Cal?”
Cal stared at his phone as he supposedly read my message from his screen.
“‘Hey, Cal, it’s Jack. I’m glad we’re doing this, and I hope we can be friends.
’ Oh, and he mistyped friends.” Cal scrunched his nose in my direction, and with a friendly tone I’d never have imagined him having, he said, “Don’t feel bad. A lot of people typo that word.”
This prick. And I couldn’t even deny it because then we’d both get busted for lying.
God, I fucking hated Cal Winters!
When the hour was over, Cal jumped out of his chair and rushed from the room. I followed at a more leisurely pace, hoping he’d be finished changing for football practice and out on the field by the time I got to the parking lot.
He wasn’t.
He wasn’t in the locker room either.
I rounded a row of cars and came face-to-face with a bare-chested Cal.
Wearing grass-stained practice pants, he had just straightened from grabbing something off the ground before throwing it into his truck.
The blond, spiky tips of his bangs were in his eyes, and he flicked his head to move them as we stared.
Without trying to be obvious about it—not sure how much of that I pulled off—I checked out the intricate tattoo covering the left side of his chest. A treasure map of some sort, but I didn’t have time to study it before every muscle flexed and the design was covered by the sleeveless shirt he pulled over his head.
“Want a picture?” he sneered. “I might be convinced to sign it for you.”
I rolled my eyes and walked past but stopped at his tailgate. “You know, before school started, someone told me what a nice guy you were. How long did it take you to fool everyone?” I didn’t glance at him but waited in case he answered.
He mumbled something I couldn’t understand.
I half turned to find him staring at the ground, his back to me. Cal’s tanned triceps were nice and defined. Too bad he’d already covered everything else. Without another word, he slammed his door closed, hefted pads over one shoulder, and walked away.
This would never work between us. The faculty was kidding themselves. A massive obstruction sat between us, and we kept throwing ourselves against it, fortifying the stupid thing instead of tearing it down.
Counseling? Joint projects? More like gasoline.
The question now was, which one of us would drop a lit match first.