3. CHAPTER THREE #3
“Then you’ve got twenty-one families mad at you.”
I narrow my eyes because he’s right, which is irritating. “So do it over two games.”
He goes quiet for a second, actually thinking about it. His eyes shift somewhere over my shoulder before coming back to me.
“That’d work.”
I grin again. “See?”
“I didn’t say it wouldn’t.”
I lift a brow. “You were thinking it.”
He shakes his head. “I wasn’t.”
“You have a very judgmental face,” I say.
He laughs. “I’ve barely moved my face.”
“Exactly.”
Cole comes back around the shelving with Rowan’s skate. “Try that.”
Rowan takes it, holds it up, gets his finger against the inside of the boot, and pushes on the patch.
“Yeah. That’s good.”
“Don’t lace it dry. And if it goes again, that boot’s done, and you’re going to have three weeks of breaking in a new one in February, so.”
“Yeah.” Rowan tucks the skate under his arm and pushes off the counter. “Thanks.”
He looks at me on the way past. “See you.”
“Yeah.”
He goes out the door toward the locker room, and it swings shut behind him, and I pick up the next blade guard.
It’s about four minutes before Cole says anything.
“So, Laurens.”
I look over and ask, “What?”
He sets a pair of steel in the rack. “Did he say Donovan punched that eyelet?”
“He did.”
“I think he did it himself.” Cole shakes his head and starts the machine again. “They always do it themselves. Then they bring it to me in pieces.”
I don’t know why that bothers me. It’s not even important. It’s a skate eyelet.
But Rowan said Donovan fixed it. I was here when he said it, and Cole deciding that Rowan lied doesn’t sit right with me.
“No,” I say.
Cole looks over. “No what?”
“If Rowan said Donovan fixed it, then Donovan fixed it.”
Cole looks at me in disbelief.
I widen my eyes at him. “Hey, Mr. Donovan?”
“What is it?” Donovan says.
“Did Rowan Laurens bring in his skate and have you punch an eyelet in it?”
Donovan is quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Yeah, he did.”
I lift my eyebrows at Cole.
He rolls his eyes and turns back to the sharpener.
I go back to the blade guards, feeling significantly more satisfied than the situation deserves.
Cole doesn’t look at me for the rest of the day.
I had a crush on Rowan back in September. It lasted about two weeks, which is a respectable amount of time for me. Mara says I collect crushes like loyalty points, and I can’t even argue with her because most of them disappear the second a man does something mildly unattractive.
Rowan’s did too.
Or I thought it did.
The annoying thing is that talking to him just now was more interesting than looking at him ever was.
He also survived Schaefer and Ives, which currently makes him useful.
I finish the bin and think about how I could juice him for information. I wonder if he still has his notes and files from his event project.
I get home with my hair smelling like the room and drop my bag inside the door hard enough that Lucy looks up. She’s at the kitchen table with three textbooks open and a pencil in her mouth.
“Long one?” she asks.
I close the door behind me and drop my keys. “Nine pairs of socks are missing.”
“Where are they?”
“If I knew, Lucy, they would not be missing.”
She hides her smile, and her cheeks lightly turn red. “Right.” She goes back to her page.
I get water and eat two crackers standing at the counter. My phone goes off, and it’s Mara asking if we’re still hanging out tonight. I tell her yes, and she sends back four exclamation points.
I sit down at the other end of the table and get out the statistics book. I open it to chapter one. I look at it. I close it.
Lucy doesn’t lift her head. “Need help?”
“No, thanks.”
“Okay.” She turns a page.
“Hypothetically––”
Lucy starts laughing before I get the rest of it out. She puts her forehead down on her book and she is shaking.
“Frick you,” I say.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You were waiting.”
“I just knew since the day you registered for it, that I––”
I scowl. “Are you going to help me or not?”
“Yes. Obviously.” She points the pencil at me. “I’m free on Thursday. Bring the homework.”
“Don’t tell Benson.”
She smiles. “He’s my boyfriend, G.”
I argue, “He’s actually my brother.”
“He’s going to be so happy.”
“That’s exactly why you can’t tell him.”
I open my textbook. I get about four pages in before I stop and go back to my notebook from this morning and look at the list of five things with one crossed out. Then I grab my phone and scroll for five minutes. I look over at Lucy, who’s still reading her textbook.
“I’m moving into Hawthorne,” I say quietly.
She looks up.
“Since it’s the only place all of you people ever are, I decided I’m going to move in.”
She smiles. “Okay.” She starts packing up her things.
“Where are you going?”
“Hawthorne.”
I stare at her. “You literally have an apartment.”
“So do you.”
“That’s becoming less relevant every day.”
Lucy laughs and reaches for her coat. “Come on.”
I look at my statistics book, then at the event ideas in my notebook.
“Fine.”
Because apparently I can schedule girls’ night all I want.
Everybody still ends up at Hawthorne.