He looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know. Why, are you jealous? I saw that you two were all over each other at that party.”
“No.”Oh God.I could feel my face turning red. “Matt’s a jerk. He and Charlotte deserve each other.”
Rob laughed. “No one deserves to be with Charlotte. And Matt’s not that big of an asshole once you get to know him. He saved you from being teamed up with her, after all.”
“Pretty sure the teams were randomly assigned,” I said.
“Everyone knows that nothing in Mr. Hill’s class is random.”
What the hell did that mean? Before I could ask, Rob started talking again.
“So about this project.” He rubbed his hands together. “I was thinking we could do something fitness related.”
“That would be really great.” This project could end up being a breeze. Rob and I were completely on the same page. Plus he seemed fine talking to me, unlike his friend.
He laughed. “I was joking. I thought that would be the last thing you wanted to do.”
“Why?”
“I heard Cupcake nailed you in the face with a dodgeball in gym today.”
“Oh.” I laughed. I guess everyone did call that kid Cupcake. “I didn’t realize there were rumors spreading around about me.”Besides the fact that I don’t have a lot of money and am not as cool as a student nicknamed Cupcake.
“Everyone’s always fascinated by the new kid. You also have a tiny little bruise right there.” He pointed to the inside of his left eye.
I mirrored him and reached up and touched the spot on my face.
“Other side,” he said with a laugh.
I touched the left side of my nose and flinched.Ow.
“Sorry about that,” Matt said and sat down in his chair facing me. He had a huge smile on his face and was looking directly at me.
Wait, was he talking to me? I looked over my shoulder even though I was in the back of the classroom.Nope, just me.Maybe I really did have a concussion.
“I heard about dodgeball,” Matt said. “Are you okay?”
Caring? Again?I just stared at him. He stared back like he was acting completely normal. Nothing about this was normal. It was the first time he’d spoken to me in school for weeks. He’d literally never spoken to me in this class before. I figured we’d have to do our project in hotel bathrooms and drunken parties or cut him out entirely.
“It looks like it hurts,” he continued, even though I hadn’t acknowledged the fact that he was speaking to me.
You know what hurts? You pretending I’m invisible.“No, it doesn’t hurt,” I lied. I didn’t need Matthew Caldwell to fake care about me.You hurt. You hurt me.
He lowered his eyebrows slightly like he could read my mind.
“We were just talking about her dodgeball incident,” Rob said, breaking the awkward silence. “She wants our project to be fitness related.”
Matt smiled and rested his elbows on my desk. “Even after today?”
“Just because I’m not super coordinated like the two of you doesn’t mean I don’t take fitness seriously. I prefer running.”
“I feel the passion,” Rob said.
Matt locked eyes with me. “Me too.”
They were both acting weird. I grabbed my notebook and wrote down “fitness” at the top. “We could do something health food related if you’d rather,” I said without looking up.
“Yeah, yeah, that would be fine,” Matt said. “Whatever you want to do is fine with us. I’m glad you got home safely on Friday. I was worried about you.”
