9. Daisy
DAISY
My laptop is open in front of me, and I navigate from the English assignment I should be working on to my email. Jordan Thatcher’s name taunts me, but I don’t dare click on it again.
We haven’t talked since Friday night, but the humiliation is just as fresh two days later.
A dull ache presses behind my eyes, and I lean forward, head in hands.
“You looked at your email again, didn’t you?” Violet asks from across the table.
“Ugh.” I sit tall and take a long gulp of my energy drink. It isn’t helping. Neither is the soft laughter from Violet that follows.
“There should be a law against using your phone when drinking.”
“It was not that bad.” She smirks. “You sent a couple of sexy photos.”
A new flush creeps up my neck and my stomach rolls. Stupid technology. I groan and squeeze my eyes closed.
“Tame, sexy photos. It isn’t like you were naked,” she says.
I know she’s trying to help, but every word jabs into my confidence, deflating it a little more.
“Can we just study in silence?”
“Sure. Yeah.” She presses her lips together and sits back in the chair across from me. The grin on her face has been the same every time we’ve talked about… shudder. I can’t even say it.
“I have to say one more thing.” Violet clasps her hands together on the table.
We’re at the library studying, or I’m attempting to with little help from Violet.
“You were having fun Friday night. More fun than I’ve seen you have in, maybe ever.
Chalk it up to that. He’s probably already forgotten about the photos.
I mean, we’re talking about Jordan Thatcher.
He has no shortage of girls at his beck and call.
Honestly, that’s probably the least sexy photo he got from a girl all weekend. ”
That should make me feel better, but it doesn’t.
“I just can’t believe I have to face him in class.”
I look at my cousin for another dose of encouragement. Instead, her gaze is stuck behind me, eyes wide. “You might have to face him a little sooner than that.”
“What?”
I swivel around and spot him as he reaches the top of the stairs. He’s alone, backpack over one shoulder, hat backward, Powerade in hand. He scans the second floor until he spots whoever he’s looking for and juts his chin.
I follow his trek to a table with three other guys, including Liam.
“Did you know Liam was here?” she asks.
“No.” My Liam senses are all out of whack. Stupid emails. Oh my god, did Liam see the pictures? I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me until now, but of course, Jordan would show him. I bet they had a good laugh. Oh man, I’m going to have to drop out of physics. Maybe out of Valley U completely.
“We should go.” I close my laptop and shove it into my bag.
“No. Running away is admitting you’re embarrassed.”
“I am.”
She doesn’t budge. “Plus, there’s a better chance of them seeing you if you get up and walk around.”
That keeps me planted in my seat. I take one last covert glance at their table. Liam sits forward, smiling and nodding. Jordan leans back with a pencil behind one ear, staring at his phone. His phone. Double groan.
I have never concentrated harder on being invisible. I hunch over my laptop and focus on American literature. Every noise, every shadow behind me, sets me on edge, but I don’t turn back around.
“Okay, they’re leaving,” Violet says sometime later.
I slink down farther in the chair.
“And they’re walking, walking, almost to the stairs,” Violet provides the play-by-play. “Oh, they’re stopping to talk to someone.”
“Guy or girl.”
“Girl. Pretty. Really pretty.”
Of course, she is.
“Okay. I think she’s moving along. They’re walking again.”
My heart is racing, and I want to look so bad.
“Oh.” Violet’s voice squeaks, and she looks down at the table. “I think you’ve been spotted.”
“What?!”
“Oh my god. Uhh… act natural.”
“Violet.” My blood turns to ice. “Please tell me they’re not coming over here.”
She keeps her lips closed as she mumbles, “Sorry. Can’t.”
“Daisy?” Liam’s voice comes from behind me.
I turn slowly, shooting Violet a panicked look before I do.
“Hi!” I fake surprise as I look from Liam to Jordan, then back at Liam. “What are you guys doing here?”
“Studying,” Liam responds for the both of them.
“Right.” Duh.
“We have a killer Geotech test this week.” His gaze moves past me to Violet.
I wave in her direction. “This is my cousin, Violet.”
Liam takes two steps forward and extends a hand. “Liam. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
Her ability to play it cool is impressive. Then again, a year ago, she was partying with guys like Liam and Jordan.
“Liam and Jordan are my lab partners in physics.”
Jordan smiles and tips his head in greeting. “You must be the design major.”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
Oh, the mortification. My ears burn, and I’m certain my face is bright red.
“I saw some of your stuff. It’s good.” Jordan wears a smile that’s neither mocking nor fake.
“Fashion design, huh?” Liam asks. “What kind of stuff do you design?”
Jordan holds my gaze until I can’t take it anymore. He didn’t tell Liam. I’m both relieved and surprised.
“All kinds of stuff,” Violet says. “But dresses are my favorite.”
Liam’s phone lights up in his hand.
“That’s my mom,” he says, backing away. He looks at Jordan. “I’ll catch you back at the dorm.”
Jordan nods, and Liam waves at Violet and me. “Good to see you both.”
“Bye,” Violet and I say at the same time.
He hurries off, putting the phone to his ear as he reaches the stairs.
Jordan lingers, and when I turn my gaze back to him, he’s watching me.
“Looks like he’s in a better mood,” I say.
“The wins were good for him.”
“Yeah, it seems like it.”
Violet leans forward and points to an empty chair.
Shaking my head, I can’t get the words, I’m sure he has places to be, out of my mouth before he’s pulling out the chair and dropping his big, intimidating frame into it.
“Which was your favorite?” she asks.
“Uh…” He looks between us.
“She means the dresses,” I explain.
“Oh.” He grins. “They were all pretty awesome.”
Violet would never give up that easily. She keeps staring at him expectantly.
“The red one was my favorite.” He glances at me as he says it.
My stomach does a thousand somersaults. Rationally I tell myself it’s probably the only one he remembers, or he’s just guessing, but there’s something about the way he’s looking at me that makes my heart race.
“That is some of my best work.” Violet leans back, satisfied with his answer.
“How was the rest of your weekend?” he asks me.
“Fine. Yours?”
“Good. We got in last night and went out for a bit. Any more drinking and dressing up?” He smiles at me. Jordan Thatcher is freaking smiling at me.
I shake my head. I’m a mess, heart racing, palms sweaty, stomach still doing flips. And then there’s Jordan. He always looks so comfortable, so relaxed. Then again, he wasn’t the one that got drunk and sent sexy pictures.
To be fair, I wasn’t trying to be sexy. Or maybe I was. The dresses are sexy, and I felt good wearing them. Some part of me wanted his approval. I can’t quite wrap my brain around that. Sober, I can see how it came off, but drunk, I just wanted to be noticed. I wanted Jordan to notice me.
He sits forward. Violet’s gone back to her homework, or at least she’s pretending not to be listening as Jordan says, “I’m glad I ran into you.”
“You are?”
“I didn’t know how to say this over email, still don’t.” He rubs his jaw and looks more unsure than I’ve ever seen him. I didn’t know he was even capable of that look.
“O-kay.”
“Just say it,” Violet pipes in, still not looking up. “Because right now, she’s going through every worst-case scenario in her head.”
She’s absolutely right about that.
A small chuckle leaves his mouth. “Liam’s a good guy.”
Of all the places I thought this conversation was going, this wasn’t anywhere on the list. I wait for him to continue.
“He’s a little slow to pick up the vibe when someone’s into him.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
He gets to his feet and shoots a grin right at me. “I’m saying, if you like him, ask him out.”
Ask him out? Just like that. Is he crazy?
“But I don’t—” My voice breaks off. Denying seems stupid. And even if I could get up the courage, I’d never be able to face Liam again if he said no. Lab would be unbearable, and I joke, but I can’t drop it. I need that class.
Jordan takes a step away, and his smile gets softer. “He won’t say no. See you Tuesday.”
I spend the next two days thinking about the weird interaction with Jordan, and playing scenarios in my head where I do what he suggested. Even in my daydreams, I can’t say the words without blushing a hideous shade of red.
I hate that my crush on Liam was so easy for him to see. Okay, fine, he’d have to be an idiot not to notice. And Jordan isn’t an idiot. I haven’t totally figured him out, but an idiot he is not.
Tuesday afternoon during our lunch break, Violet corners me in the kitchen as I’m packing up for my final classes of the day.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
“I’m not asking him out.” I’ve told her as much the other ten times she’s asked.
“You heard Jordan; he won’t say no!”
My heart is galloping in my chest. “Oh, well, Jordan said it, so it must be true.”
“I don’t think he would steer you wrong. Which is odd because I never thought Jordan Thatcher would be the type of guy to come over and tell you to ask out a guy.” She shrugs. “There was something about the way he said it. He likes you.”
“Liam?”
“No, Jordan.”
“Oh yeah, that’s why he told me to ask out someone else. Why are you pushing me to go out with Liam anyway? You hate jocks.”
Violet fidgets. She doesn’t really hate Liam or Jordan or anyone that I know of, except maybe our neighbor Gavin (they have history), but she’d never approve of me dating a popular jock. When it was theoretical, she played along but now…
“It’s what you want, and at least Liam is a decent one.”
I grab my backpack off the chair and start for the door. “I will see you later.”
“He won’t say no,” she yells after me.
I’m usually the first person to physics lab, but today I walk so slowly that at three minutes until class starts, I realize at this rate I’m going to be late and have to book it the rest of the way across campus.
Professor Green is beginning his lecture when I open the classroom door. All eyes are on me as I slip inside.
“Sorry,” I tell him as I go to my table.
Liam pulls out the extra stool next to him.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
For the twenty-five minutes that Professor Green covers today’s lab, all I can do is focus on breathing.
Frantic energy flows through my veins, and as the seconds tick by, I recognize it as adrenaline.
The dangerous kind that makes you do things that shouldn’t be physically possible, like lift a car or ask out your crush.
“You may get started,” Professor Green says.
Liam angles his body toward me and smiles, then starts setting up the lab. I look at Jordan for reassurance. He meets my gaze with an intensity that makes my chest tighten. Oh god. He better be right.