Chapter Two #2
She laughs. “Oh, is that why? To assuage your guilt? One kindness cancels out the havoc you’ve wreaked on the men of Northwest Portland?”
“Christ, I haven’t wreaked havoc on the men of anywhere! I’m here because the flyer made me laugh and I had the time.” And I wish I’d had something like this, he doesn’t add.
“I still don’t understand how you, of all people, saw it,” Yael mutters.
Ravi scoffs. “If you wanted it to be someone you’d never met before, maybe you shouldn’t have advertised four feet from your home.”
“That’s not—”
“Hey, Ms. Koenig! Is it time yet?” A voice comes from behind Ravi.
Ravi follows Yael’s line of sight to a clock on the wall, watches her cheeks round and her eyes crinkle with a smile. “On the dot,” she says. “Come on in.”
YAEL TAKES A seat in her chair circle, reminding herself that she is bound by district rules to have a second adult chaperone for a group of this size after hours. Beggars truly cannot be choosers, and bedroom guy—Ravi—clearly got past the background check. And, more impressively, Sherine.
And, okay, he has a point with the fact that he’s here.
Yael hadn’t even been able to rope in any of the other queer faculty members, despite weeks of pleading.
Alan, the drama teacher, has the fall play.
Ilana of IB Calculus said, “Only if you agree to help with Math Club,” and then when Yael did, in fact, agree, they said, “I didn’t think you’d actually take me up on it.
” Gina, who teaches art, didn’t give a reason, and Ms. Watson (Yael still can’t mentally refer to her as Jean; she’s been the IB Bio teacher since Yael was a student) flat out laughed at the idea of reading more than one book a year.
So, objectively, it’s a nice thing for Ravi to do.
It doesn’t mean he wasn’t a dick to Charlie—he definitely was—but people are complex.
She knows that. Even so, she can’t exactly not express her displeasure.
What is she going to do? Go home, tell Charlie who the saving grace from Sherine’s email turned out to be, and when he asks how it went, say, “Well, I was perfectly pleasant to the man who lied to you and snuck out of my bedroom while you were making him post-sex breakfast?” God, no.
“I think we should read through Chuck Tingle’s back catalog next semester,” Zoe says, sitting in the chair farthest from Yael. Students always do that. Yael would take offense if she didn’t know she’d always done that herself.
“I love the enthusiasm,” Yael says, “but I’m pretty certain I’ll get a cease and desist from Oregon Republicans if I let you guys read erotica. We can do Camp Damascus or Bury Your Gays when we get to horror, though.”
“Why is horror okay but erotica isn’t?” Zoe pouts.
“I’m just trying to avoid being part of the next outrage bait! Take it up with Fox News.”
Ravi chooses the seat that bisects the arc of chairs between Yael and Zoe, laughing softly as he sits but averting his eyes when Yael looks at him.
Admit it—you think I’m funny, she wants to say, but he already did that, didn’t he? He specifically told her so—the flyer that Sanaa said would work on “abso-fucking-lutely nobody.”
“What book are we doing today?” Ravi directs the question to Zoe, not to Yael. She watches a blush suffuse her face at the attention. Zoe likes to describe herself as a Kinsey five, and Yael takes it that Ravi is in the small sliver of boys/men keeping her from a six. Which, yeah, Yael understands.
“Are you from New Zealand?” Zoe asks, blinking.
Ravi chuckles, shaking his head. “That’s a new one for me. Trinidad. It’s in the Caribbean, right by Venezuela.”
“I know where it is,” she mumbles, and Yael is certain she did not until this very moment.
“The book?” Ravi gestures—Zoe’s clutching it tightly to her chest.
“Oh! Felix Ever After. We just finished. I died when he was shouting at Ezra over the barricade at Pride.”
“Spoilers!” Ravi protests. Other students filter in around them, all eyeing him curiously.
“Ms. Koenig said it only counts as a spoiler if it’s past the point we were supposed to read to. That’s on you, man,” JQ says.
“My bad,” Ravi says. When Yael meets his gaze, she finds a glint of humor in it. “I was unaware there was coursework assigned to me, but I’ll come prepared next time.”
She purses her lips to keep from smiling. Ravi’s lips twitch, and Yael swears she can hear him thinking, Admit it, you think I’m funny.
Ravi handles the group admirably. Yael wasn’t really ever in a position to refuse his help, and even if she were, she hopes she wouldn’t be so petty.
It’s a true shame she knows just a bit too much about him.
Had he waltzed in here a total unknown and fielded the blunt questions about his identity (volunteer, on a trial basis, said pointedly in Yael’s direction) and accent (definitely not British) and age (thirty) and reading habits (he supposes he’ll do fiction again now), Yael would’ve thought she’d made her first new friend in, like, five years.
But he hadn’t. He’d made Charlie pretend he wasn’t crying over French toast, and Yael will always sort of hate Ravi for that.
After the club ends, Ravi lingers, fitting the chairs with the tables that Yael drags back into place. Yael doesn’t say anything, partly because she’s sure that for the first five or so minutes post-club, Eli and Jaxon are either flirting or making out in the hallway just outside.
So, Yael is quiet in a room that isn’t empty—perhaps a genuine first for her—and all the while she can feel Ravi’s eyes on her. She tries not to stare back.
“You never answered my question,” Ravi says, slotting in the final chair.
Yael folds her arms across her chest. “What question?”
“Should I leave?”
“Well, the book club is over,” she says. “Thank you for putting my library back together.”
Ravi does not restrain his eye roll. “I’ll rephrase: Am I fired from volunteering?”
Yael gives him a once-over, mostly to let him simmer in the pause. The chambray overshirt he’d shown up in now hangs from the back of a chair and, yeah, that white T-shirt fits him really well. “I don’t think I have the authority to do that,” she says.
“And if you did?”
She clucks her tongue. “Probably still wouldn’t.”
Ravi nods, and now Yael has to wait for his casual perusal. It’s a quick flick of his gaze, but she swears she can feel his eyes pass over each and every one of her sixty-six inches. He pulls the shirt off the chair and slips his arms into it. “Okay, then,” he says. “See you Thursday.”