Now she’s the one waving me off. “It’s nothing. I’ve just had a shitty twenty-four hours.”
“Same,” I say, lifting my drink in a toast.
Claire just stares at me and I’m not sure if she’s horrified at my attempt at conversation or if she’s seeing what I just noticed. We have the exact same drink order.
“You have good taste in coffee,” I say, checking out both cups to see that one’s a little less full than the other. “I’m almost positive this one is mine, though.”
She nods and takes a sip of her drink before opening her to-go bag and pulling out an egg and cheese sandwich. She starts scrolling on her phone like we’re two strangers who are forced to share space in a crowded coffee shop, but we sure as hell aren’t strangers and an empty table just opened up.
“So, how’s your semester so far?” I ask. Maybe I’m being a dick. She’s obviously listening to music and trying to tune the world out, but there’s something that keeps drawing me back into her orbit. I want to know what’s going through her mind. I want to know if she felt a connection with me back in Florida because no matter what we called our brief time together, I can’t get her off my mind.
She pulls her earbud out of her left ear and blinks up at me, which is the universal sign ofugh,you’re interrupting me, but go ahead and speak. I have two younger brothers and I’ve done over a hundred observation hours in middle schoolclassrooms. I am well-versed in the fine art of interpreting facial expressions.
“You’re really asking me how my semester is so far?” she says with a mirthless laugh. “It’s been craptastic, Pete. A real shitshow, and it’s only just started.”
Claire will never be mistaken for a member of the Optimists Club, but this is extra surly, even for her. “Damn,” I say. “I hope it gets better. Maybe you’re just missing all that Florida sunshine?”
She looks at me like I’m too stupid to breathe and she has no idea how I’m keeping myself alive. “Lack of sunshine is not the problem.”
“O-kay,” I say, wishing for some inexplicable reason that I could wipe the look of defeat off her face. She’s as beautiful as always in a pair of leggings and a BU hoodie, but she looks like life has punched her in the dick. It’s a look I see on my face all too often and I hate that she’s going through something right now. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask her if she wants to hang out sometime. My brain must be scrambled from a lack of sleep because nothing about Claire’s demeanor tells me she wants more of this, and yet I can’t help but remember the look of utter contentment on her face when I held her in my arms.
“What?” she asks. “Why are you staring at me? If you have something to say to me, just say it.”
“We should hang out sometime.” Even before the words leave my mouth, I know they’re the wrong ones but sleep deprivation has robbed me of any kind of filter.
She squints at me and then grabs hold of my drink cup, as if to inspect it. “Did Theo lace this with something? Did you? Are you just being a dick?”
“What? No to all of that,” I say, taking my cup from her hand. Our fingers brush against each other and I kid you the fuck not, I feel a spark. A zing. Or maybe she’swearing one of those buzzer rings just so she can shock me. The set of her shoulders and the glare in her eyes tell me I might be onto something with that buzzer theory.
“Then what the fuck do you mean that you want to hang out? Is this a trap? Did your friends put you up to this?”
What the hell is she talking about? “Uh, it’s not a trap. It’s a date. Or a thing. Or whatever. We don’t even have to label it, but I don’t know, Claire, what we had in Florida was good, right? No,” I correct myself, “it was better than good. It was scorching.”
“What are you saying? You want to keep fucking me?”
I wince at her words because while I will never turn down the privilege of having Claire in my bed again, I wouldn’t say we were just fucking. “I want to see you again,” I say, because it’s the truth.
“Why, Pete? We’re not friends.”
She pops a bite of sandwich into her mouth and dusts her fingers off. Her casual dismissal triggers my frustration, even though she’s said those same words to me dozens of times. Maybe staying up all night has eaten up my store of patience or maybe I just can’t believe she’s this unaffected by the time we spent together.
“Right,” I say, rubbing my temples. “How could I forget? We’re not friends because you hate me for some reason, and you won’t tell me that reason because I should know it.” I ball my napkin up and shoot it into a nearby trashcan and mentally count backwards from ten. When I turn back to Claire, she’s studying me intently.
“You really don’t know?” she asks. “Even after yesterday, you have no idea why you are not my favorite person?”
I have no clue what yesterday has to do with anything,but I nod vigorously because I’m dying to know what the hell I ever did to piss her off.
“You cheated,” she says plainly before turning her attention back to her sandwich like she didn’t just drop a bomb on our conversation.
“I what? When?” I sputter. “I have never cheated on anyone. And you and I certainly never dated, so, what the hell?”
Claire shakes her head. “Not that kind of cheating. Way back when, before we were even freshmen here, we sat for the Legacy scholarship test.”
“Yeah, so?”
She sighs heavily. “So you beat me. By one point.”
I open my mouth, but she holds up a hand, so I shut my trap and listen. I’m curious as hell to where this is going. I get being pissed that she lost out on a full ride by one freaking point, but I’m not going to apologize because my score was higher than hers. And I for damn sure didn’t cheat.
