Chapter 11
That night, Landon went out bowling with friends while Mom, Dad, and I stayed in.
After dinner, we all sat in the living room and watched some sports-centered movie Dad put in.
I sat on the couch with a skirt draped over my lap, a needle and thread between my fingers.
It was a bit too dark to see clearly, but I still worked on sewing the zipper on the back anyway.
It kept my fingers busy while my mind was elsewhere.
Mom sat on the other side of the couch of me while Dad was propped up in his recliner, and every so often, she’d glance over at me. “It’s looking a bit uneven there, can you tell?”
Before, I’d always apologize on impulse, wishing I could sink into the couch. Now, though, I didn’t look up. “I see.”
“Practice makes perfect,” she chirped, settling deeper against the cushions. “You’re not too far in. You could seam rip it and try again.”
I didn’t answer this time, sliding the needle into the fabric of my skirt and tugging it taut.
Careful not to put too much pressure on the stitch, I wound it around again.
“Mom,” I said slowly, hoping my voice sounded nonchalant.
The blood was pounding so heavily in my ears that it was hard to hear.
“I was wondering… Can my buddy and I go see a movie after school? At the theater in Jefferson?”
“Your buddy? You mean your mentee?”
“Yeah.” I shifted the material of my skirt closer, hoping the concentration could disguise my nerves. “They don’t, uh…they don’t have a lot of friends to hang out with, and I thought that’d be a fun little field trip for us.”
Mom parted her lips with a sigh. “How would you even get to a movie theater?”
I hadn’t thought that far, but my mind picked up its pace quickly. “I can see if Morgan can come with us. Her mom could drive us.”
“Morgan? Morgan Davies?” Her voice curled up on a question, but also with something that sounded like distaste. “Are you still hanging out with her?”
“It’s not like she didn’t vote for you for re-election.”
Dad paused the movie with a huff. “Was that a bit of attitude there, Gemma?”
My needle slid between my fingers, and it slipped through the fabric to pierce my finger.
Had that been attitude? For a moment, I floundered in what my response should be, or even how to form my facial expression.
It hadn’t felt like attitude when I said it, but then I realized—that wasn’t how I would normally have responded.
I would’ve heard Mom’s tone and altered course.
I would’ve yielded to that. Instead, I responded to it.
“Sorry.” I threaded the needle into the fabric to hold it in place and looked up between them. I hunched my shoulders a little. “Yes, I have still been hanging with Morgan at school. I…I thought it could be fun, doing something with my mentee.”
“Landon has a game tomorrow,” Dad pointed out. “Are you planning on missing it?”
“Of course not.” Missing a game in the Settler household was not allowed. I hadn’t been allowed to stay home on a Friday night since summer break. “Morgan’s mom should be able to drop me off before you leave for the game.
It was a strategic move, using Morgan as my alibi.
Since our moms were fighting, I knew Mom wouldn’t call Mrs. Davies up to make sure it was okay, and nor would she call to check in.
Even if Morgan did see my mom at the game tomorrow night, she’d avoid us like the plague—Morgan might’ve liked me, but she was loyal to her mom.
There was little chance it could go wrong.
Even still, I sat with my lie lingering in the air, wondering if it would suffocate me before my parents responded.
“I guess it would be okay,” Mom said, refocusing on the paused TV with her lips still lingering in a small frown.
It almost looked pouty. “I’ll be at the office late finishing up paperwork for a case, so I suppose it could be okay.
But make sure you’re home by six-thirty before your father leaves, okay? You can’t miss kickoff.”
For a moment, I stared at Mom, and it was a good thing she didn’t look over, because she would’ve seen my expression in its full, shellshocked glory.
She’d said yes. She’d actually said yes.
She hadn’t seen right through me. I wondered if it was because I was that good at lying or they just never expected me to tell one.
The refreshing pour of relief nearly had me slumping against the pillows, and I nodded eagerly, picking up my skirt and unsheathing the needle. “I’ll be home by then, I promise.”
My hands shook so badly that I pricked myself a few more times with the needle, but it didn’t erase the near giddiness that swelled within me.
I hugged my books tight to my chest as I walked down the upperclassmen hallway. It was much less chaotic than the underclassmen hallways after school, mostly because seniors hightailed it from the school building as soon as the bell rang, so I was able to move without much jostling.
A part of me hadn’t expected to find him here, the idea of lockers too mundane for the Grim Reaper, but there he was, standing in front of a bright yellow door that didn’t suit him at all.
Hudson stood with perfect posture as he loaded textbooks into his tattered backpack, head bent, focus on nothing else around him.
Like before in the halls, there was a bubble of space surrounding him, as if it was too dangerous to get close.
As people passed by him, they’d only shoot quick glances before hurrying away, not wanting to get caught staring. Through it all, Hudson didn’t notice.
Or he was just pretending not to notice.
I held my textbooks tighter, crossing the distance between us slowly.
It was like a moment from a dream, where the hallway felt longer and longer even though I kept walking, my brain’s way of telling me that this was my chance.
This was my out. I could turn around and hurry to the bus.
I could even text Landon and tell him to wait for me, since he didn’t have practice on game days.
It wasn’t too late to not go through with it.
Until Hudson lifted his head from his locker. He’d been oblivious to everyone else passing, but it was like he had a detector for sophomores named Gemma, because he zeroed in on me in an instant. The only indicator that he even recognized me was the small line that formed between his brows.
“Hey,” I said as I got close enough, stopping a few lockers’ lengths between him and me.
“Hey,” he returned slowly. “I thought we didn’t meet on Fridays.”
“We don’t.” I reached up and flicked my braid over my shoulder, itching my neck. “At least…not for the mentorship.”
Now one of Hudson’s eyebrows peaked. “Your list?”
“It’s the perfect opportunity. I was thinking we could go see a scary movie. There’s one playing at the theater over in Jefferson. I mean, if you don’t have anything else to do. If you wanted to.”
He leaned his arm against his locker door so that it brought himself closer to me. “What more would I have to do than to hang with Gemma Settler?”
Something about the teasing had me unable to fight a small smile, one that caused his to stretch wider.
A split-second thought fluttered through my mind.
Hudson Bishop is smiling at me. This time last week, I wasn’t even sure he could smile.
Now, though, there was no missing it. No missing how it was directed at me.
For no reason at all, I felt like smiling back.
Before I had a chance to say anything more, my gaze caught down the hallway past him and his open locker door to where two people had just turned the corner. One person wearing a blue and gold football jersey and one wearing cheerleading gear.
Landon and Madison.
Everything in me jolted.
Without thinking, I stepped into the space between Hudson’s body and his open locker, hiding behind the open door, using him as a wall between my brother and me.
I grabbed a fistful of Hudson’s black sweatshirt and tugged him to me, and with the way his arm was still propped on the locker door, it brought us close.
Closer than I’d ever been with a boy before.
The toes of his boots brushed my sneakers, and my nose nearly grazed the front of his chest.
Landon’s voice slowly came within earshot as he walked down the hall. “…know it’s sudden. But relationships always are, aren’t they?”
Hudson was close enough that I could feel his body stiffen, his gaze drifting from me to the side, as if he was listening in, too.
I clutched his sweatshirt tighter, knuckles grazing his chest in the process, willing him not to turn.
If he turned now, it would be game over—over before we’d even begun.
I drew in a deep breath, and it was the wrong move.
The warm scent of him from both his locker and his skin hit me like a wave, everywhere all at once, filling my head.
He smelled a whole lot better than any boy I’d come into contact with before, and something about it caused my stomach to turn hollow.
“When they make sense,” came Madison’s reply, closer. “You and her, though…”
And then I could see Landon directly over Hudson’s shoulder.
It was like he walked in slow-mo past us.
He was fully looking at Madison, head turned in the opposite direction, ignoring the fact that Hudson stood only a few feet away.
Unaware that I was tucked up against him.
My forehead brushed Hudson’s chest as I ducked down farther. Please don’t turn, please don’t turn.
“Ah, well.” Landon’s discomfort was clear in his voice, even as it grew farther away. “What happened at lunch wasn’t her fault.”
I risked a glance over to see the back of his jersey.
SETTLER 10. He didn’t glance at me at all before continuing down the hall with Madison at his side, both of them heading for the parking lot.
I let out a harsh breath of relief, but then remembered exactly the position I had myself in, and tipped my head up.