Chapter 1 #2
He lifted his hand and daintily twinkled his fingers like he was shooing me away.
That probably should have been the point where I gave up and stared quietly into my cubicle until Sister Thorpe explained what I was supposed to be doing.
Unfortunately, my mouth moved on autopilot most of the time.
Add in my jittery nerves and the stress of not knowing anyone, and it was a recipe for unfiltered chaos.
I couldn’t have stopped myself if I tried.
“Daddy’s raising sheep. Says he can sell off their hair.
I didn’t know people bought sheep hair. Did you?
Momma says he ain’t got any business running a farm after the way he ran the dealership into the ground back home.
They were fighting a lot before we moved.
She said this would be like a fresh start.
Back to the way things used to be—but I don’t know. ”
He groaned again, pressing his forehead even deeper into the crook of his elbow.
“I like your hair,” I said, just trying to get some sort of reaction. An acknowledgment. A nod. Maybe even a smile. “Do you always talk so much?”
“Listen,” he said without looking up, “I’m sure you’re a fantastic guy, and I’m more than happy to listen to you ramble about things I don’t particularly care about, but I’m going to need you to take it down about twenty-seven notches.
It is far too early, and I’m absolutely useless before noon.
” He sat up in his chair and turned toward me.
His mouth was open, like he was getting ready to unload more of that sass on me, but when our eyes met, he took in a quick breath.
His eyes widened like he’d just learned all the secrets of the universe.
I wanted him to share each and every one of them with me.
“Sorry. I know—I mean, I can be …” I cleared my throat. Gosh, his eyes sure were brown. Little orbs of chocolatey goodness.
“No! I’m sorry,” he said with more force than the situation called for.
His head was shaking back and forth so fast I thought it might just spin around in a circle.
“I wasn’t trying to be rude.” He raked his fingers through the mound of dark brown curls on his head.
“I’m Kent. Hey—yeah—Kent. Hi there. You said your name was Gray?
” He shoved his hand forward, and for a second, I thought he was going to slap me, but he just held it there.
His cheeks were a little redder than they had been when he first sat up, but I chalked that up to the fact that it was triple digits outside, and whoever was in charge of the air conditioning must have been frugal as all get out, because it wasn’t much cooler inside than it was out.
I just sat there with a funny feeling inside of me, my heart racing as he scooted closer and took my hand in his, giving it a shake.
Gosh. This guy. Pale skin, a light dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks. He was so fascinating! I felt like I could have studied it for years and still find new details, years down the line.
I licked my lips because they were feeling a little too dry for my liking.
“Hey there. Gray. Gray Collins. Hi, Kent. Hey.” For a moment, I worried that I might be having one of those strokes like Nana Collins had a few years back.
Momma had said she’d started talking gibberish and her eye had been twitching ‘like a son of a gun’ before Nana passed out.
Are strokes contagious? Can you catch them years after the fact? And what the heck is the deal with this kid’s eyes? Gosh, they’re neat.
“Hey,” he said again, still stuck in the relentless whirlpool of words we’d both been swept up in. The girl in the seat behind Kent leaned back in her chair and stared at me, one eyebrow lifted in accusation.
“Are you two okay?” She cocked her head to the side and stared at me like I was diseased.
Her eyes shifted back and forth between my hand and my face.
She rolled her eyes and turned back around in her chair.
Kent, though . . . He must have thought I was going in for a hug, because he gasped, and then his arms were around me, his hand patting me on the back, offering me a side-hug.
Explosions. That’s what his hug held. Little bursts of sunshine and sparkles.
“Go to Hell, Kate,” he growled, not taking his eyes off me. “Have you ever gone to a private school before, Gray?” Kent asked, leaning back in his chair.
“No, Momma said I’d probably fare better in one. Said the kids might be a little nicer if they were being raised right. I didn’t have a lot of friends back in Arkansas.”
He laughed, light and low. Shame flooded my cheeks, because it felt like he was laughing at me.
Like I’d just made some big blunder, ruining any chance of a possible friendship.
I clasped my hands together, leaning forward, putting my weight on my arms against my knees, unable to look him in the eyes.
“Hey,” he said, rolling his chair toward me. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. I just … I have a habit of embarrassing myself.” I peeked up at him, trying to force a smile. “I probably shouldn’t have told you about me not having any friends.”
“I wasn’t laughing because you didn’t have any friends, goofy.
” He reached forward, tussling my hair. I flinched at the uninvited touch, but the smile he was giving me melted away all the ice running through my veins.
“I just thought it was cute that you call your mother 'Momma'.” Our eyes locked, and we stared at each other long enough that I started to get a little uncomfortable.
He must have sensed it, because he sat up straight and wheeled his chair closer, pointing at something on the desk.
I turned to see what he was trying to show me.
The desk was a confusing mess of trinkets and booklets. There was a small black flag stand with two flags poking out of it. A miniature Christian flag, and a mini-Old Faithful. Next to the desk-sized flags, there was a stack of four workbooks. Kent reached for them, spreading them across the table.
“Nice,” he said with a grin. The books weren’t very big.
Maybe sixty or seventy pages each. There were ones for Math, English, Social Studies, and Science.
Fanning the Math book’s pages, Kent said, “We work at your own pace. You read through the workbooks, and then there are little quizzes. When you’re done with the quizzes, you raise your flag. ”
“Raise my flag?”
He nodded, pointing at the flag stand. “The Christian flag is for when you’re stuck on a question and you need Sister Thorpe’s help.
” He peered back at the doorway. Momma and Sister Thorpe still hadn’t come back, and Kent breathed out like he was relieved.
“If you have a question, you should probably just ask me. Sister Thorpe’s nice enough, but she doesn’t know the first thing about Math or English. Science neither.”
“But she’s our teacher, isn’t she?”
He laughed so hard he snorted, slapping his hand against his thigh. When he composed himself, he just sat there smiling at me. “Supervisor. She’s our supervisor.”
“Like at a job?”
“If sitting in a little cubicle and pretending to do your work is a job, then yeah. Like at a job.”
“But what if someone doesn’t understand something? They can’t all just come to you looking for help.”
The girl poked her head out from behind Kent.
“We all help each other out. If Kent doesn’t know something, he’ll ask me.
If I don’t know something, I’ll ask Kyle.
” She turned around and stared at a portly boy on the other side of the room.
“Don’t ask him though. That’s Tommy. He’s a real jerk sometimes. ”
“It’s true,” Kent said. When I turned back toward him, his eyes were still locked on me.
Heat flooded my cheeks, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I kept feeling so embarrassed in front of him.
“And thank you, Kate,” he said without looking back.
“I don’t remember asking for your input, but it sure is nice to know you’re hanging onto my every word. ”
She snorted. “Screw you, dude.”
My eyes must have doubled in size. I hadn’t expected her to start talking like a sailor.
“Anyway,” he said, pointing at the flags. “When you finish a quiz, you raise your American flag. That’s to let Sister Thorpe know you’re ready to grade your work.”
“And she just comes over and takes the book?”
He shook his head. Swiveling his chair around, he turned and pointed at the big, long desk behind us.
It was the same kind as the one the kid was using in the other room.
“There’s answer keys in the drawers there, and they’re all labeled.
You just take that booklet and match it up with your work book and grade yourself.
If you get something wrong, you gotta mark it with one of those red ink pens so you can bring your book back to your desk and fix it. ”
How the heck was that considered teaching?
“So, she doesn’t actually teach us anything?”
Kent shook his head. “Work at your own pace, like I said.”
“What’s to stop me from taking one of those answer keys back to my desk and just filling it out for myself?”
Kent reached back toward his desk, pulling out a small, black and white booklet from under his mountain of workbooks. It was a Math book, and across the top it said, ANSWER KEY.
My jaw almost hit the floor. “But that’s cheating!”
He bumped his shoulder against mine and wiggled his eyebrows.
“You catch on quick, Gray Collins.” Leaning in even closer, he whispered, “I’ll have you cheating right along with me, just you wait and see.
” His fingers threaded through my hair again, and he tapped the back of my head, right at the top, for some reason. “Can’t wait to dirty you up.”