I listened as my mom informed me that I needed to come home for dinner and that she wasn’t hanging up until I said that I’d be there. Then, she threatened to keep calling me back if I tried to hang up on her.
“I actually have an extra tutoring session that night,” I tried to inform her, but she was relentless, refusing to take no for an answer.
“Um”—I looked at Danika, who was watching me intently as my mom continued dishing out commands that I knew I’d obey—“we’ll see. I’m not sure. Listen, I’ve gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you later, I promise. Okay. Bye. Love you too,” I said before ending the call and pocketing my phone.
“You and your mom are close,” Danika announced like it was a foregone conclusion instead of a question she was wondering the answer to.
“Yeah. She’s the best. Harasses me like crazy, but all moms do that, right?”
“Only if they like you.” She offered a half-smile, but it felt like she was hiding something. “Is everything okay?” Danika asked, and I knew we were venturing back into friend-like territory.
I could have been a dick and reminded her that we were no longer friends, but it would have been bullshit. And my mom had put a solid crack in my armor when she insisted that I come home this weekend.
“She was threatening my life if I didn’t come to dinner on Sunday night.”
“But we have tutoring Sunday. You have your first test on Monday morning.”
“I know. She told me to bring you.”
Danika started choking. “She … what?”
“She said that you should come, too, and we could study there. I don’t make the rules. I just have to follow hers.”
“Chance, obviously, I can’t come home with you.” Danika fidgeted like crazy, her body restless.
“I tried to tell her the same thing, but she insisted.”
“I have a boyfriend,” she announced like I wasn’t aware of that fact. “This isn’t appropriate.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I adjusted the bill of my baseball cap before pressing back in my chair, lifting two of the legs into the air and balancing on the back two. “Look, I need the extra help before the test, but I promised my mom I’d come home. Just come with me, please. It will be painless, I assure you. My family is awesome, and my mom’s a great cook.” I gave her my best sales pitch because I honestly didn’t see a way out of this. I could have blown off Danika and gone home without her, but I really needed the extra study session. Failing my test on Monday was not an option. I refused to start this semester off with an F.
She groaned and stared at her feet, her lips pressing together in a straight line. “This is a really bad idea. But fine.”
“You’ll do it?” I found myself getting a little more excited than I had any right to be.
She nodded. “I’ll go … on one condition.”
My jaw clenched, and I wondered what she was going to ask of me. I leaned forward, my chair hitting the floor with a screech. “What is it?”
“We have to be friends, Chance. This”—she waved a finger between us—“up-and-down, emotional craziness between us has to stop.”
“I know,” I admitted before apologizing, “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just be normal.”
“I’ll try,” I said, and I meant it.
I had no idea how to be normal around her. She made me question what normal even meant. She made me feel things I didn’t want to feel.
“I’m going to need your number.”
Her face went blank. “What?”
“Your phone number, Danika. Type it in,” I said as I shoved my phone into her hands.
She frantically punched at the keys, adding her name and number in what seemed like record time before she handed it back to me like it was on fire.
“I’ll call you when I’m on my way to pick you up on Sunday.”
She looked nervous, and I knew that she was struggling internally the same way that I was. There was no way in hell these feelings were only one-sided. She felt them too.
“Okay.”
“It’s all good, Danika. Friends eat dinner together, right?”
“Sure.” She shrugged with one arm. “They just don’t usually do it at their parents’ house.”
“Why not?” I was being a smart-ass, but toying with her this way was fun. Seeing Danika flustered and knowing it was because of me gave me an ego boost I’d never known I needed.
She glared at me before answering, “Because meeting the parents is relationship material. Not friend material.”
“Says who?” I pushed again.
“Society? Everyone? I don’t know.” She was rattled, and it was cute as hell.
“Let’s break the rules then. Be different.”
“I already said I’d go with you.”
“Just don’t want you backing out. Getting cold feet or anything.”
Her back grew rigid, and I watched as her features steeled. I’d pushed her a little too far.
“This isn’t a date, Chance. No cold feet required.” She suddenly rose to her perfectly warm feet, and I followed suit, hovering over her frame.
“I’ll see you Sunday,” I said as I looked down at her, but her eyes kept moving from my face to the door behind me. My eyes stayed focus on one thing—hers.
“Yep. See you then.” She sounded unsure, and I couldn’t have her changing her mind.
“I really need to pass that test.”
“I know you do,” she said before walking out the door, no doubt wanting to be the first one of us to leave the room.
I knew in my guts that it took everything in her not to turn around and look at me one last time before she disappeared out of view. Little Spitfire. I’d let her have this small victory, but Sunday was mine … whatever the hell that meant.
I must have had a weird expression on my face because Mac called me out during dinner at the baseball house.
“Why do you look like a cartoon villain who just got away with something bad?”
My fork dropped to my plate with a clang. “Pretty sure I don’t look like a cartoon anything, dick.”
“You look”—Mac narrowed his eyes and tilted his head as he studied me, drawing way too much attention even if it was only from my teammates—“like you’re up to something.”
“He isn’t wrong, Carter,” Colin added from the other end of the table.
He was our starting shortstop, and before I could snap at him the same way I’d snapped at Mac, Dayton, one of our pitchers, chimed in as well.
“What are you up to, Chance?” he asked, dragging out the word are.
“You three are annoying. I’m not up to anything. What the hell would I be up to anyway?” I tried to argue, but Mac’s face lit up like a damn kid on Christmas morning.
“Something happened with Tutor Girl,” he said, looking at Colin and Dayton instead of at me.
Dayton let out a whistle. “I’d pay good money to have something happen with Tutor Girl,” he teased. Or maybe he wasn’t teasing because my blood started to boil in defense of his accusation.