5. Reese
5
REESE
“What did Dane want?” Caleb asks as I make my way back to him.
“Dane?” My cheeks are still burning with embarrassment.
Why did I ask him to give me advice on how to ask Caleb out? That is so unlike me. I usually keep my mouth shut about my crushes, so nobody can tease me about it. I don’t even want help from Lilian, so why would I want help from a complete stranger?
“Dane Kingsley,” Caleb clarifies. Am I supposed to recognize that name? Go oh my God, that’s Dane Kingsley ? The only thing I recognize is that I finally have the name of the guy I helped out.
“His keys,” I explain. “He wanted his keys back.” Which I’m super thankful about. For a while, I was dreading the idea of accidentally losing his keys before he came back for them.
Caleb cocks a brow. “Why do you have them?”
“It’s a long story.” I don’t want to see if he’d react similarly to my sister over letting Dane crash at my place, so I tactically ask, “How far have you gotten with the book?”
He winces, letting out a slow exhale. “I’ve been slammed with homework and practice.”
“Oof.” My eyes crease with sympathy. I know he’s not exaggerating. If anything, he’s definitely understating it.
Caleb’s majoring in music, and I know it’s time-consuming. He will most likely spend at least five years here at Belford just to complete his degree.
“And you?” he asks. “How far did you get?”
“I haven’t gotten far, either,” I admit as I head toward the tutoring center.
I’ve done two interviews today instead of reading the book during my free time. The sorority girls have been blowing up my phone all morning, wishing me luck.
“Hey, listen,” he says, falling into step beside me. My pulse quickens again, just like it did earlier when he asked if he could walk me here on his way to French. “Do you want to do something this weekend?”
Like a date ? I want to ask.
Instead, I just stare at him with wide eyes, my heart thumping sporadically. I can’t tell if asking that is going to make me sound awkward or clueless, or perhaps even both.
“Okay,” I squeak out. Inwardly, I wince. Outwardly, I bite my lip to stop myself from physically wincing.
“Great.”
Easy for him to say. Great is not how I’d describe it. The end is nigh . Doom is upon us . Clearly, there are better phrases for him to choose from. I’ll even settle for mayday, mayday .
Since I don’t want to freak him out, I force myself to chuckle and put on the biggest smile I can muster. My brain doesn’t stop screaming the entire time.
“He asked you out?” Lilian stops her skincare routine to slide a curious glance at me.
“Well,” I hedge, “I don’t know if he technically did, so let’s not jump that far ahead of ourselves.”
She rolls her eyes and cocks her hips. “Is it just the two of you?”
“Well, yes?—”
“ Date .” She returns her attention to her mud mask. “How exciting.”
“It’s not exciting,” I stammer, picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of my sweater. “I’m freaking out.”
She lets out an exasperated groan. “Reese.” I can feel her gaze boring a hole through the side of my head. “Just be yourself.”
Be myself? I can already imagine myself freezing like I’ve got a bad case of stage fright and making a fool of myself that I’m mentally preparing for how self-conscious I’m going to be.
Unlike Lilian, who’s ready to take on the world and tackle whatever challenges come her way, I’ve always been the one who second-guesses everything and freaks out accordingly. And then there’s the whole scar issue I don’t even want to address.
“You’ll be fine,” she insists.
Ha. Doubt it.
The date isn’t happening for a few more days, yet my nerves are shot already. If I’m this nervous now, how bad will I be the day of? My face scrunches at the thought.
Trying to distract myself by any means necessary, I tidy up the toiletries on the edge of my bathtub. “Oh. Before I forget. I know who I helped that night at The Little Roast. This guy named Dane Kingsley?—”
“ Ow !”
My breath catches in my chest at her sudden outburst, and I look up to see my sister quickly splashing her left eye.
“Shit, that burns,” Lilian swears. It takes a minute before she finally stops, and then she spins around after she turns the faucet off. “ Who did you help that night?”
“Dane Kingsley?” I repeat slowly.
“Reese.” She gapes at me like I just announced I’m about to join a pyramid scheme and want her to sign up with me. “ No . Tell me you didn’t.”
My body goes stock-still from the level of focus in her gaze, from the terror trembling in her voice. I swallow roughly as she barrels on.
“Reese, he’s dangerous . Unhinged. He’s involved in a lot of shady things.”
“ What ?” I gasp. That does explain why I witnessed two men beating him up that night.
Kind of. Not really.
He was more their punching bag than punching them , I think. And that doesn’t scream dangerous. That just screams victim.
“He’s not a good guy,” my sister adds. “He beat the crap out of Travis Walker?—”
“Who?”
“This frat guy I know,” she clarifies, waving her hand dismissively before she sternly points her index finger at me. “Dane beat the hell out of him my freshman year, and everyone thought he got expelled. He got away with it because of who his mom is and because his family paid Travis off.”
“I…” I exhale slowly, bewildered. I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this. All I can picture is him lying on the ground, face bloodied, body bruised. Something acidic rises in my throat. My pulse ratchets up a notch.
“You don’t want to get dragged into his business. He gets away with everything because of his family’s connections,” my sister adds, genuine worry tightening her eyebrows. “He’s a total skeeze. He fucks anything in a skirt. He drinks a lot. Smokes a lot. Gambles. And he has a really bad temper.”
Oh my God. I don’t have any regrets about helping him out, but I don’t see myself jumping at the chance to interact with him any further after today.
Lilian and I grew up in a nightmare household. Our family’s trailer always reeked of stale beer and cigarettes, no matter how hard my sister and I tried to get rid of it in any way we could.
Mom’s on-and-off boyfriend gambled away every paycheck he managed to scrounge, and then he’d blame it on us. He always blamed everything on us.
Mom was no better. Her favorite pastime was taking out her resentment on us—physically, emotionally, mentally—whenever she was home. If she was ever home.
Sometimes, I wonder how Lilian and I made it out of there alive. I’m so thankful we both escaped that suffocating trailer, leaving behind the white trash moniker that seemed destined to follow us around the rest of our lives.
“You don’t have to worry,” I tell my sister, flashing her a reassuring smile. “I’m never going to see him again, anyway.”
“Good,” she says, a sudden tide of relief washing across her features. She parks her hip against the bathroom counter, planting her hand on the other. “I don’t want you to end up hurt because of him.”
“Me neither,” I reply without missing a beat. “Or for you to get hurt as well.”
We smile at each other for a drawn-out moment before she returns her attention to my bathroom mirror and resumes her skincare routine.
“Any idea what you’re going to do on your date with Caleb?” she asks, and while I appreciate the tactical shift in conversation, I don’t like the current topic, either.
“I think we’re going to see a movie,” I say, pulling out my phone for confirmation. I spot my second most recent text conversation and blanch when I remember I have Dane’s number. More importantly, he has mine.
Swiping my finger over his message, I delete it and quietly hope we never run into each other ever again.