Chapter 9
Seventeen years ago
Now that Aubrey had the new kid in her house, she didn’t know what to do with him.
She ran through her options, then settled on leading him to the living room, where she tucked herself onto the old blue-velvet
chesterfield her mom had once bought at an estate sale.
Nick set his backpack on the claw-footed coffee table and claimed the sofa’s opposite end, doing a slow perusal of the room.
“So. A cheerleader who likes math and safety. And lives in a mansion.”
Aubrey took in the dated furniture, the curling wallpaper, the hulking, ash-stained fireplace. “Mansion? This place is a hundred
years old and looks every minute of it.”
He snorted. “It’s a palace, compared to my place.”
She hesitated. His acerbic tone made her suspect he’d drawn a line between them on purpose. He seemed determined to maintain
a layer of prickly distance between himself and the world—already, he’d made a public enemy of Gallant, ensuring people would
shun him at school.
But beneath the bristly exterior, Aubrey had glimpsed something very different during the course of that fistfight. Something heated and vivid she couldn’t get out of her mind.
“If you’re trying to convince me you shouldn’t be here,” she said, “it won’t work.”
He cleared his throat and looked down, telling her she’d hit the mark.
“Anyway.” She gestured to his sweatshirt, where his blood had dried black. “Why don’t you take that off? If we scrub it with
soda water, it shouldn’t stain.”
“I’m not wearing anything underneath,” he said. “So . . . no.”
“Oh.” She flushed. “Well, how about some ice for your lip?”
“I don’t need any.”
“It looks painful.”
“I’ve had worse.” He sucked away the blood and braved her gaze again. “This’ll heal. Even if your friend with the stupid name
can throw a punch. And take one, surprisingly. Most people can’t.”
Aubrey didn’t protest the subject change. At least Nick was talking, which was more than she’d gotten in the car. “Gallant’s
not my friend.”
His look turned speculative. “You really don’t like him?”
“No. I mean, I don’t dislike him, he’s just not a person I think about. There’s nothing to discover about him, you know? Nothing to unravel.”
Those dark eyes sharpened, less opaque by the moment, and she forced herself to withstand the assessment. Nick looked like
he was trying to tally her up in his head, the same way she was doing with him.
“Is that a hobby of yours?” he said. “Unraveling people?”
She lingered over the potential double meaning. “Sometimes.”
“What if they don’t want to come unraveled?”
Oh, yes. He’d definitely sharpened the words on both sides on purpose. “I still try. It’s always worth going after what you want.”
His head tilted. “Is that really what you think?”
“Is that not what you think?”
“I think that’s something only someone who already has everything would believe.”
She hesitated, trying to tease out whether he’d insulted her, but there was no bite to the comment. Just a skeptical sort
of consideration, like he couldn’t decide whether he respected her philosophy or expected her to fall flat on her face because
of it.
Maybe both.
“It’s how my dad raised me,” she said carefully. “He has these sayings he’s drilled into my head since I was little. If life puts something in your way, go around it. If life knocks you down, get back up. If life sticks you between a rock
and a hard place, split the difference and aim straight down the middle. I used to think they were so cheesy, but the thing is, they work.”
He absorbed that. “So . . . you’re someone who doesn’t take no for an answer?”
“Not when there’s something I want.”
“Which is how you got me into your car.”
“See?” She risked a smile. “Maybe there’s something to it.”
Nick seemed to weigh her, turning his mental tape measure this way and that. “Explain something to me.” He expelled the statement
all in one breath, as if he’d tried to hold it back and failed. “About you.”
Aubrey’s chest fluttered. “Sure.”
“What you said earlier, about seeing holiness in math . . . what’d you mean by that?”
Warmth bloomed inside her. This, at least, she could talk about for hours, assuming he had any desire to listen. “Are you
sure you want to know? It’ll make me sound like such a dork.”
“Are you a dork?”
“Oh, yeah.” She grinned. “Definitely.”
He grinned back, then abruptly snuffed it out, as if the smile had been drawn from him against his will. “Then go for it.”
“Okay. Well, I’ve always loved numbers, the way they fit together. I don’t know if you’re into math, but—”
He jerked his head, a vehement denial.
“Right.” She laughed. “Most people aren’t. But only because they haven’t looked closely enough to find the grace in it. It’s
there, if you take the time. The way numbers weave together is so . . . pure. I mean, math exists outside of us. Beyond us.
It’s too flawless for any human to have invented. Like . . . have you ever done proofs? The first time I worked through the
laws of derivatives and understood how they work, I swear I saw god. Because only a perfect consciousness could’ve created
something that elegant out of thin air. Math is what makes our existence possible, and numbers have always made me feel like the divine,
or whatever’s out there, is whispering in my ear.”
He stared. Hard.
Her cheeks stung. Maybe that had been too much. “Does that make sense?”
“Yeah.” His voice grew even smokier. “And . . . this’ll sound weird, but I know that feeling exactly. Except for me, it’s
words. The universe whispers to me in language.”
She breathed a laugh. “As in . . . books? Writing?” That would explain the hallway notebook-scribbling.
“Yeah.”
“So you and I are opposites.”
He held her eyes. “Like I told you.”
“Okay. I’m still not kicking you out.”
A divot formed between his brows. “I honestly wish you would. It’d make this whole thing a hell of a lot easier.”
A pang twanged in her chest. What kind of life must he have led, that he didn’t feel comfortable sitting and just . . . talking? Sharing himself? “Would you rather we got in a fight, instead? I could always tell you how wrong you are, if that’d be easier.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “I do like fights.”
“Okay, great. Then you want to know what I think? Books are boring.”
“Jesus.” He gave a strained cough. “You philistine.”
Philistine? “I . . . don’t know what that means.”
“No? Maybe you should read more.” He paired the jibe with a smirk.
Aubrey’s blood hummed, stirred by the widening curve of that beautiful, pouty mouth. It was like he was coming to life before
her eyes. “No way. Books are made of words, which were invented by people. By definition, they’re just as flawed as we are.
Meanwhile, math is immaculate. Symmetrical. It existed long before humans did, and it’ll still be here long after we’re gone.
Language just dies with us. It’ll vanish someday, along with its creators.”
His eyes flared. “You know . . . I’ve honestly never thought about it that way. But damn. You’re actually kinda . . . right.”
She stuck a finger in the air, victorious. “So you admit I have a point.”
“I admit you haven’t looked at words closely enough to find the grace in them. But it’s there, if you take the time.”
Warmth jolted through her. He’d been listening. Meanwhile, her classmates’ eyes glazed over the moment she waxed poetic about math. Even her best friend Megan had an allergic
reaction to numbers.
“Books don’t have their elegance built in, though.” She pulled her legs up and crossed them. “Their grace isn’t inescapable.”
“Bullshit.” He blew a stray curl from his eyes and leaned in. “You’re telling me you’ve never read something that made you
stop and just . . . marvel?”
“No.”
He gave a sharp shake of his head. “Come on. You’ve never once wondered how something as enormous as ideas can be captured
with something as small as words? You’ve never felt kinship with someone who died hundreds of years before you were born,
because you recognized a piece of yourself in what they’d written?”
“No.” Aubrey’s breath sped. The more she protested, the more she drew him in, it seemed. “Whenever Mrs. Hayes assigns books
for English, I just read the CliffsNotes.”
“Oh, god.” He buried his face in his hands and peeked through his fingers. “You do not.”
“Oh, I do. If that. Sometimes, I just watch the movie.”
He shuddered. “That’s fucking sacrilege. This literally hurts to listen to. Next, you’re going to tell me you never write,
either.”
She couldn’t conceal her mounting delight. “God, no. I’d rather watch paint dry.”
He groaned. “You mean you’ve never once been so full of something, a feeling, or a need, that you felt like it would burn its way out of you if you didn’t get it
down on paper?”
“Never. Have you?”
“Are you kidding? All the time.”
A stupid grin claimed her face as the pattern of him took shape in her mind. His penchant for words made so much sense, because
hadn’t she already glimpsed poetry in the way he moved?
“What a fantastic fight.” Her breath came short and sharp. “Maybe my favorite I’ve ever had.”
Now that his eyes had latched onto hers, they refused to stray elsewhere. “I’ll admit, it didn’t suck.” He sounded half-winded,
too.
He stared into her. She swore if she’d lit a match, the span between them would have caught fire.
“Who are you?” he finally said. “I never talk to anyone about this shit. Ever.”
“Just a cheerleader.” She smiled. Clearly, people didn’t usually come at his defenses with guns blazing. “Who likes math and
safety and lives in a mansion.”
“I’m getting the sense there’s more to it than that,” he said.
“Maybe. Stick around, and you could find out.”
Nick held her eyes for longer than most people would have, but his gaze finally flickered away. He unfolded from the couch
and slid his hands into his scuffed pockets. “Um. Anyway. Where’s the kitchen? I think I’ll take you up on that soda water.”