Corbin’s hand goes to my shoulder, squeezing it once. “What are you guys talking about anyway?”
“She won’t come to the game.”
Corbin probably rolls his eyes, but I’m not really paying attention. “You’d have better luck asking her to give up sugar.”
My nose scrunches. “Not true.”
Zach smiles. “You’ll come then?”
“Nope.”
He frowns.
Corbin laughs and let’s go of me. “She’ll be busy, Russo.”
Now I do meet his eyes. “I will?”
His nod is terse. “I was going to ask you to run lines with me. Figured we’d talk about it on the way home.”
Part of me perks up, but another notices the weird pinch to his lips. Collecting my things, I stand up and give Zach a small smile. “I’ll consider going to a game … eventually.”
The friendly jock smirks. “Before I graduate?”
“Eh…” I try to look like I’m really contemplating it, then stick my tongue out at him. “We’ll see.”
He waves me off with an amused grin, with Corbin hot on my heels as we leave the library. “You know he likes you, right?”
I scrunch my nose. “What? Who?”
Corbin glares. “Who do you think?”
I shake my head, moving hair out of my face that keeps falling into my eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Zach and I are friends.”
He grumbles something under his breath that I can’t quite make out. “You down for running lines tomorrow? I think I have most of them memorized but wouldn’t mind somebody to go through them with me before the audition. My coach found another one to practice for too. The auditions are on the same day.”
My hand instantly goes to his wrist. “I’d love to help you! What is it for?”
“Commercial,” he evades.
When he doesn’t make a move to explain, my mind tries figuring out if I’ve seen any ads in the paper. Nothing comes to mind, so I jab his side to try getting something out of him.
“Is it embarrassing?” I laugh at the prospects that has him blushing right now. “Oh my God, it is! Are you representing a new hemorrhoid cream? Is it for an STD?”
He groans loudly and pushes me gently away from him. “Would you quit it? It isn’t for anything like that. I just don’t want to jinx it.”
“I’ll find out tomorrow,” I remind him.
“Good,” is all he replies with.
Frowning, we walk the rest of the way to our lockers in silence. It gives me a chance to think about what he said earlier. Zach doesn’t like me as anything more than a friend. Right? We tease each other a lot, but so do Corbin and me. It isn’t that out of the ordinary.
Shoulders dropping, I loosen a sigh. “Do you really think Zach likes me? Like … likes me likes me. Because I don’t get that vibe from him. Unless he said something to you…”
I lean against the locker next to his as he digs through his bag for who knows what. “Is that what you want?”
His tone is dry as he side eyes me.
“For him to like me? I don’t know.”
“You don’t know,” he murmurs, slamming his locker closed.
We stand face to face, him looking like he’s about to bust a vein in his head. “What’s your deal? It’s not like I said I want to date him. I just want to know why you think that.”
“It’s…” His nostrils twitch. “He just looks at you like he does, okay? I’m a dude, I know this shit. So, do you?”
Did I miss the question?
He sees the confusion on my face. “I know you’re not that familiar with guys liking you, but—”
“What is that supposed to mean?” It isn’t like he’s wrong, but his tone is making it sound like nobody could ever possibly like me as more than a friend.
He starts walking, leaving me to quicken my pace until I match his steps. “I’m just saying that you don’t have experience with guys. It isn’t surprising that you can’t see he’s flirting with you all the time.”
“He does not—” I stop myself, trying to think to all the conversations I’ve had with Zach over the past few months. “He asked if I was going to the game. I’d hardly call that flirting.”
Corbin halts and stares at me with distant eyes, as if to silently say, are you that dumb?
“Right?” My voice is tiny.
He swipes a palm across his face. “My bet is that he asked because he wants you there cheering him on. He never asks me if I’m going.”
“Yeah, but you…” Never go.
He nods slowly. “Exactly. He’s willing to get you to go because he wants to impress you. I don’t get hounded because he doesn’t want to get in my pants.”
My lips part. “Wow. Crude, much?”
“It’s true.”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“He does, Little Bird.”
We start walking again, and I soak up the information that he’s dealing me. I mean, it wouldn’t be the end of the world if Zach had a crush on me. Just … foreign. Despite the embarrassment of acknowledging that I have zero experience with guys, I don’t want to think I’m totally clueless.
But the more I think, the more I realize that’s exactly what I am. Zach never goes to the library because it’s the last place he’s interested in. There are two different computer labs he could have used to play computer games in, yet he came to the smallest lab the library has set up for typing classes after school.
“Huh,” I mutter, earning me a look from the corner of Corbin’s eye.
We remain silent the rest of the day.
My eyes go to the script in front of me.
“You’re kidding, right?”
He grumbles as I make myself comfortable on the edge of his bed. Fred is purring beside me, nuzzled up with one of Corbin’s hoodie drawstrings next to him. I scratch his head and coo at him while Corbin settles in his computer chair across from me.
“This is for a dating app.” I giggle, flipping through the few pages in front of me. “I don’t get why you’re even auditioning.”
His sigh is heavy. “Daniel told me it’d be a good idea to keep my options open at first. If the other audition doesn’t work out…”
“Hey, I get it.” I give him a reassuring smile and hold up the script. “It just seems weird that you’d want to do this kind of thing. Can’t he find other auditions for movies or something?”
“He said he would when I’m eighteen.”
“That sounds promising.”
“It’s also forever away.”
I deadpan. “You’ll be eighteen in July. That’s not even seven months from now. Plus, you mentioned anything helps with your portfolio, right?”
He just shrugs.
“If you get this part, everyone will want to use this dating app,” I inform him confidently.
It’s really no wonder his coach thinks he’d be perfect for it. He’s young, but doesn’t look like a teenager, and he’s attractive. Hot, even, not that I’d tell him.
One of his brows goes up. “Yeah?”