Chapter 4 #2
so serene that Aubrey swore she’d been made privy to something extraordinary. With a backdrop of brick wall and packed bodies
as his canvas, the boy blurred across her vision, a living artwork of sinew and grace.
Her heart quit beating, then restarted again, double time. In another life, he would’ve been a warrior, she decided. Because
what she’d mistaken as fear in the hallway was instead a sort of smoldering poise—fury distilled into a purer, harder form.
And yet she couldn’t reconcile this with the boy who’d shunned her in English. Who’d stopped in the hallway to write in his
notebook. He was like an equation she couldn’t work out—too many variables, not enough data.
She wanted to know his name.
Gallant’s swings grew wilder. The boy responded with a few measured strikes, and as quickly as it had begun, it was over.
Gallant crashed to his knees on the frigid asphalt, trapped in some kind of chokehold, his face purpling. The new kid set
bloodied lips beside his ear.
“Leave me. The fuck. Alone.”
Aubrey heard, but couldn’t be sure anyone else had. The kid tossed Gallant aside like a sack of rotten potatoes. The crowd
rushed in, fawning over their fallen hero.
But she only had eyes for the boy. He snatched up his backpack and slipped through the surging crowd, vanishing around the
side of the cafeteria.
She pushed against the tide, curiosity like flames licking at her bones. Where had he learned to fight like that? And why had he refused to talk to her? What had he been writing in that notebook?
If only she could solve for X, she could solve for Y. And Z. And the dozen other variables she suddenly hungered to define.
She cleared the throng, then the cafeteria. The boy was already halfway across the parking lot, headed for the highway at
a pace she couldn’t match.
But she had a car, so she scrounged in her backpack for her keys. Two minutes later, she pulled alongside him in her hand-me-down
Subaru, the passenger window rolled down.
“Hey,” she called. “Do you want a ride?”
He flicked her a glance without slackening his pace. He walked in the same direction as traffic, right atop the white line,
heedless of danger.
Aubrey checked for oncoming cars, then edged across the double-yellow to give him room. “Come on, get in.”
“Go away,” he said.
She feathered the gas. “No. Town’s two miles away. You’ll get yourself killed, doing this.”
He snorted. “What do you care? Or did you just come to yell at me for punching your boyfriend?”
“Boyfriend? Gallant?” She scoffed. “Definitely not.”
“Whatever. Shouldn’t you be at cheerleading practice?”
She glanced down. She’d zipped her jacket to the neck, which meant he must’ve paid her more attention than she’d realized,
earlier. The knowledge only fueled her determination. “I’d rather skip it than let you get run over.”
He kept walking.
She changed her angle, trying for lightheartedness. Maybe humor could break through that icy wall. “Come on, you’re just lucky it’s not Friday. If it was, I’d let you turn yourself into roadkill.”
He grunted—ninety-eight percent fuck off, two percent grudging interest. “Why, what’s on Fridays?”
“Math club. Which I never skip.”
His stride faltered. “You’re a cheerleader who likes math?”
She smiled. Clearly, that had slid past his defenses, however much he wished it hadn’t. “No. I’m a cheerleader who loves math. Who lives and breathes it. Sees holiness in it.”
He stopped. “Okay. That’s . . . unexpected.”
She braked to a halt. “Yeah, well, so is you beating the shit out of Gallant Nobel. But here we are.”
He sighed, then looked up at the sky as if searching for guidance. After what seemed like an eternity, he laid his knobby
hands on the doorsill and stooped to look in.
Aubrey met his gaze squarely. Something about his regard made her heartbeat relocate to the roof of her mouth.
“Is that really his name?” His voice was rough. Sultry enough that she could practically feel its texture against her skin.
“Gallant Nobel?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” He rasped a graveled laugh, then spat a red gob onto the road. His bottom lip dribbled a fresh rivulet, which he swiped
at with the back of a hand. “That’s rich.”
“Rich? How so?”
“Come on, his parents were laying it on thick. Gallant Nobel? They were probably trying to compensate for what a dick he is.”
She cocked her head. “What’re you talking about?”
“Gallant? And noble? Two words that mean practically the same thing? Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed.”
She blinked. Then laughed, because she hadn’t noticed, which seemed unbelievable, now that he’d pointed it out. Gallant Nobel.
That really was absurd.
When her amusement had run its course, she said, “What’s your name?”
He considered her for a long, breathless moment. She’d never seen eyes that dark before, and found them both piercing and
impenetrable, like he could take her precise measure without giving away anything in return.
“Nick,” he finally said.
Nick. She turned the syllable over in her mind. So abrupt, like a punch. It suited him. “Well, hi, Nick. I’m—”
“Aubrey. Yeah. I know.”
A flush crept up her neck. “You heard me, then? In English? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because. I don’t like cheerleaders. And they definitely don’t like me.”
A normal person would have been stung by his dismissiveness. Maybe driven off and left him standing in the road. But his words
sparked all the opposite desires, because they sounded like a challenge.
And she’d never been much good at backing down. Not when there was a puzzle in need of solving.
“Cheerleading isn’t something I actually care about,” she said. “It was just to round out my college applications. It doesn’t
define me.”
He dipped his chin. “Mmm. I’m getting that.”
“Okay, well, good.” She tugged at her seat belt. “Does that mean you’ll get in the car now?”
The corner of his mouth curled. His lips were uniquely plush amid the ascetic lines of his face—the top one pouted out, fuller
than the bottom, and she stared at it while a long silence unraveled.
Abruptly, Nick withdrew from the window. Aubrey started to protest, but he didn’t walk off. Instead, he jerked the door open, flopped onto the passenger seat, and slammed the door with an arch of expectant black brows.
“There,” he said. “Happy?”
Surprise knotted her tongue. She sat there until the blare of a horn jolted her. When she glanced in her rearview mirror,
an impatient driver gesticulated.
Aubrey stomped the gas. What was wrong with her? She’d stopped in the middle of a two-lane highway. How stupid.
“Put your seat belt on,” she said.
Nick gave her an appraising look. “A cheerleader who likes math and safety? This is getting weirder by the second.”
Warmth stung her cheeks. “Well, I went to all this trouble to rescue you. I can’t have you dying on me now.”
He let out a scuffed laugh. “I don’t need rescuing. Not in the hallway, and not when dickhead jocks decide to punch me.”
“Clearly,” she murmured.
“You didn’t think Gallant would actually listen when you told him not to hit me, did you?”
“No. But it was worth a try.”
When Nick didn’t respond, Aubrey searched for another topic. “So . . . you just moved to Henderson?”
“Yeah,” he said.
“From?”
“Baltimore.”
“Did you get in a lot of fights there, or something?”
He gave a stiff shrug. “Some.”
Okay. He clearly had no interest in that subject either, so she tried another. “How come you moved four months before graduation?”
“Fuck if I know. Ask my dad. I learned not to question that asshole a long time ago, but you’re more than welcome to, if you
feel like trying to have a conversation with the wall.”
She weighed that, slotting it into her mental calculus of him.
Nick apparently had no interest in further conversation. He gazed out the window at the skeletal trees. Beyond them, the steel mill loomed against a crystalline winter sky.
“Where do you live?” she ventured, once they’d reached town.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m not going home.”
She paused. “Okay. Where to, then?”
“I don’t care. Just . . . not there.”
His clipped tone silenced her again. Definitely not a happy home life.
She drove on, stealing sideways glances, lingering on the contour of Nick’s cheekbones, which looked even more prominent with
his face angled away. Those, along with the upward tilt of his eyes, gave him a regal look, spoiled only mildly by the ruby
bead welling on his lip.
She should probably get him cleaned up. If he didn’t soak the blood from his sweatshirt soon, it would stain. The how didn’t pose much challenge—her parents would be at work for a few more hours, so she continued through Henderson and into
her neighborhood.
Nick finally roused from his ruminations when she killed the engine in her driveway. “Where are we?”
“My house.”
He leaned forward for a look through the windshield. “You brought me to your house?”
“Yeah. But don’t worry. No one’s home.”
“What? That’s even worse.” He twisted to look at her, his mouth a beautiful, bloodied slash. “I mean, I could be anybody.
I could be some psycho trying to take advantage of you.”
“I’m pretty sure you aren’t.”
His brows knitted. “No, you’re not. You don’t know the first thing about me.”
Her fingers twined in her lap. He sounded almost affronted that she’d dared to trust him. “Yeah, I do. You let Gallant hit you. On purpose, just so he’d be the one who started it, not you. That tells me more than you realize.”
He sat back, blinking. “No. I wasn’t being . . . honorable, or anything. I just know what happens when the broke-ass new kid
is the one who picks the fight. And it’s never good.”
She studied him. Spots of color battled for purchase on his cheeks, a betrayal.
“I think there was more to it than that,” she said. “I think you’re better than he is.”
“Not even a little.”
She chewed her lip and changed tack again. “Okay, fine, if not better, then more . . . gallant. More noble, if you will.”
That did the trick. His frigid standoffishness cracked. “You have to admit, that name is fucking ridiculous.”
A chuckle bubbled out. “It really is. Now come inside.”
She popped her door and climbed out. Nick stayed behind, frowning at her through the windshield, but eventually, he grabbed
his backpack and emerged into the bracing air. He followed her to the front door, where she fumbled with her keys. Normally,
she had the door open in seconds, but with those watchful dark eyes weighing her efforts, her fingers moved in slow motion.
When she eventually stepped into the entryway, he stayed on the stoop, first gazing up at the house, then at her. He seemed
to wrestle with something.
Finally, the slope of his shoulders lowered, and he came inside. But not before he muttered under his breath, words Aubrey
just barely caught.
“Why do I have the feeling I’m going to regret this?”