Girl Code (2 page)

I heard the front door open and close, and then low murmurs and footsteps on the stairs. Leslie walked back in a moment later, followed closely by Leo.

I threw my pencil down on my bed and slammed my book shut.

“Are you kidding me?” I demanded.

Leo spun in a slow circle, taking in the posters and other decorations on my walls.

“Leslie,” I said her name between gritted teeth. It had been a few weeks since the incident in the hallway and I didn’t hate Leo Pesciano any less than I did that day. I had not taken my notebook back to school, but Leo still found reasons to invade my personal space and to make my blood boil.

Les looked at me with wide eyes and a smile too big for her face as she spoke too loudly. “Tabitha, isn’t it great to have Leo, the math wizard, here to help us? It’s great, right?”

Leo, the Math Wizard, rocked back on his heels with a smirk on his face as he watched and waited for my response. The truth was that Leo really was a wiz at math. It was like second nature for him. I watched him many times at the board, easily knocking out math problems that everyone else struggled with. Leslie had math at a different time of the day, so I had no idea how she knew about Leo’s mad math skills, but she was totally taking advantage of the situation to be in close proximity of him. She had been crushing on him pretty hard since that day he took my notebook.

“I hate Leo.”

“Tabitha!” Leslie admonished.

“She loves me,” he said to Leslie and had the nerve to flop his ass down on my bed.

“Get off of my bed.”

“Quit your bitching, Tacky,” Leo said, opening his book. “We have work to do.”

My arguments and objections fell on deaf ears as Leslie settled on the other side of my queen size bed. After a while, I realized I was wasting serious study time and I sounded pretty immature. Begrudgingly, I opened my book again. Leo handed me my pencil and winked at me. I swallowed back my usual
go to hell
retort and punched away on my calculator.

A few hours, many broken pencil points, a box of pizza, and a whole bottle of Pepsi later, I was stressed and pulling my chestnut brown hair out of my head trying to understand. Leo was like a whole different person while trying to help me. I expected him to lord his skills over me and to poke fun at me. Honestly, I didn’t even expect him to be serious for more than a few minutes, but he surprised me. Not only was he serious, but he was patient and didn’t make me feel any dumber than I already felt. By the time Leslie had to collect her things to make curfew, I had almost forgotten that this was the same Leo that I passionately hated.

“I’m almost fifteen years old and I still have an eight-thirty curfew,” Leslie said disgustedly as she slung her backpack over her shoulder.

“At least you understand what you’re doing for that test tomorrow,” I said tiredly. I rubbed my forehead with two fingers as I stared at a problem I had been struggling with for a long time.

“At least you have a cute teacher,” she said with a grin and a wink at Leo.

I stared absently for a moment and then said, “You think Mr. Harris is cute? Gross, Les, he’s like fifty.”

She frowned at me and smacked me with one of my bed pillows.

“Maybe she’s into balding guys.” Leo chuckled.

Leslie raised her hand to smack Leo’s arm, but he caught her hand and stood up. “I’ll walk you home, Mrs. Harris.”

Her face softened as she peered up at him through her lashes. How the hell did she do that and look so attractive doing it? I tried it once with a guy I had a crush on over the summer and I looked stupid.

“Really?” she asked in a soft voice.

“I can call Mr. Harris and see if he’s available instead,” Leo said with a shrug.

She smacked his chest lightly and tried to look angry, but failed. Leo laughed again and gestured for the door. “Let’s go, Loopy Leslie.”

She smiled at him before turning her gaze on me and wiggled her eyebrows conspiringly. I offered her a small smile. It seemed that her scheme of inviting Leo over for studying was paying off, at least for her. She seemed to be winning Leo over and she learned enough to pass her math test. I was still mathematically challenged and no closer to passing the test than I was before Leo walked into my bedroom.

“I’ll be back,” Leo said to me.

I stared up at him blankly. “What?”

“I’ll be back,” he repeated and looked at me like I was daft. “You still need a lot of help, right?”

I nodded.

“Then I’ll be back in a little bit.”

He tossed me his pencil. Leslie gave me a wave, and then the pair was out the door.

I had to admit, I was rather skeptical about Leo coming back to help me. I had no idea why he was so interested in helping me when he was usually only interested in making my life hell. I was very worried that it would somehow blow up in my face later, but I was desperate for the help. There was no way I was going to turn him away if he was willing to sit and work with me. I would have to deal with the consequences later.

Leo returned a little under twenty minutes later. I heard my mom let him in a few seconds before he reentered my room. He looked confused as he sat down across from me on the bed.

“Your mom just let me come up here like it was no big deal,” he whispered. “I half expected her to tell me to go home, or to at least make us go in the kitchen to work or something.”

I felt my brow crinkle, but couldn’t smooth it away. “It isn’t a big deal to her,” I said.

The confusion on Leo’s face deepened. “What—”

I cut him off to change the subject. “I’m still struggling with this problem, Pesciano. Please enlighten me.”

Leo stared at me with that befuddled expression for a moment, but when it was clear I wasn’t going to talk about my mom, especially to him, he cleared his throat and stood up with his books in his hands.

“Move over,” he commanded. “I can’t teach you upside down.”

I moved myself and my books over and made room for Leo. He sat down close beside me. To cover for the slight discomfort I felt at his nearness as he got situated, I pretended to be engrossed in the problem at hand until I heard a distinct crunching sound coming from him. I looked over just in time to see something colorful drop away from his mouth. He attempted to give me a blank look.

“What?” he asked innocently.

With my eyes narrowed in suspicion and curiosity and already forgetting about his close proximity, I yanked on the collar of his shirt. My eyes widened at what I saw against his neck.

“Seriously?” I asked, not sure if I should laugh or just ignore what I was seeing.

“What?” He pulled on the candy necklace.

“You know you’re not a four-year-old child, right?”

“Listen, sometimes you need a snack,” Leo explained with an ultra-serious face. “Maybe you don’t have pockets. Maybe you don’t have a fanny pack—which, by the way, is a big no-no—or maybe you just don’t feel like carrying anything with you. Maybe you’re just chilling and doing some algebra with a pretty girl or a cute guy—I’m the cute guy, by the way—and you just want your hands free. A candy necklace is the perfect, portable snack.”

To make a point, he took a bite of the candy jewelry. I shook my head in disbelief. I didn’t know what to say. All I could think about was how sticky his neck must be.

“Look, I knew you would covet my necklace.” Leo sighed, reaching into his pocket. “So, I got you one, too.” He handed me the small package that obviously came out of a bubblegum machine, probably at the small corner store a few streets away.

I stared again with incredulity. Finally, I shook my head, tossed the candy on the bed in front of us, and dove into the math. Working one on one without the distractions of the pretty girl that was crushing on Leo, we were able to push forward, and before long, I was actually beginning to understand the numbers. The numbers didn’t look like an unsolvable puzzle to me anymore when I looked at a problem. The only distraction was when Leo touched me. He sat so close that his arm often brushed against mine, making the fine hairs on my arm stand at attention as if a ball of static had just passed over my skin. When he felt the need to point something out to me in my notebook, he leaned over me, pressing his chest against my side. When he was that close, I couldn’t help but to breathe in his scent. Whatever cologne he wore and whatever he washed his hair with must have cost a fortune, because there was no way that anything cheap could make a guy smell that good.

I chastised myself every time my body reacted to Leo. I reminded myself that I hated him, that on a normal basis he was still a pain in my ass. It didn’t matter that he was being uncommonly kind and even a little sweet when I did a problem correctly. It was inconsequential that he was making me laugh sometimes, or that his smiles seemed genuinely benevolent and not mocking. None of that mattered. He was still the same Leo Pesciano that called me Tacky, invaded my privacy and personal space and teased me mercilessly. I played along for the time being, but I refused to be duped.

My brother Tack poked his head in a few times to check on us. The door was open, and he was well aware of how much I disliked Leo, but having a boy in my room at night made him automatically distrustful.

“Do you feel better about the test tomorrow?” Leo asked, yawning during the second half of his question. It was nearly eleven by the time we closed our books and tossed our pencils aside.

“Yes, I feel much better. Thank you for your help,” I said sincerely. I looked over at him. “Really, Leo. If I don’t get this now, I’ll fail all year. I didn’t know I was stupid until Advanced Algebra.”

He laughed softly. His head had been tilted back against my headboard and his eyes had been closed, but he opened them and looked at me.

“You’re not stupid, Tabitha. Our brains are just wired differently. Math is my thing. English and writing are yours.”

“I guess,” I said noncommittally.

We were quiet for a few moments. I was thinking of a polite way to kick Leo out so I could go to bed, but he wasn’t done talking.

“I have to tell you the truth,” he said quietly as he picked up my candy necklace. He ripped it open and instructed me to hold my hair out of the way. Absently, I did as he asked and he pulled it on over my head.

“Now you have the perfect, portable snack, too,” he said, lightly fingering the candy on my neck. His warm fingers lightly grazed my skin and I had to swallow several times before I was able to speak again.

“You have to tell me the truth about what?” I managed.

He smiled and spoke in a low, tired voice. “The day I found your precious notebook, I was supposed to be outside for football practice by three, but at the end of my last class, I got nosey and opened it to the first page. I expected notes between you and Leslie or class notes and all of that flowery doodle shit you girls do. I was not expecting basically a handwritten book. I don’t really like to read, nothing ever interests me, you know? But your first few words caught me right away, and I sat there long after class ended and the room cleared out, reading. Eventually, I had to close it and get to practice. I know I told you that I was going to return it to you when I saw you again, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon. I wanted more time to read it, and I was thinking about how I couldn’t wait to get home after practice so I could keep reading, but then you ran into me, and then you got your book back.”

I stared at him, floored, completely astounded. I knew he had read it, but I didn’t know he had
read it
read it, like got into it and didn’t want to give it back.

“But…” I opened my mouth and nothing came out for a few seconds. “But you could have walked away with it and I would have never known,” I said. “I didn’t know you had it until you opened your big mouth.”

Leo smiled sleepily, lazily, and it was the kind of smile that could knock a girl over, if I were any other girl.

“I like getting a rise out of you. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to see your head explode.”

“You are such a dickhead,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “It’s not funny, you know. You make me hate you.”

“You still hate me?” he asked incredulously. “Even after tonight?”

“I hate you even more for being better at something than me!”

Leo laughed. I tried to scowl, but I couldn’t hold that face for long before I grudgingly smiled.

“Leslie likes me,” Leo said after he had stopped laughing. It was such a sudden subject change that it took me a moment to catch up.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Yeah, she does, but a lot of girls like you.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

Why did my heart skip a beat? Why did my eyes flicker to his mouth?

“I thought we were clear on my feelings about you,” I said, looking away from his face. “I hate you.”

“Hate is a strong word,” he teased, bumping me lightly with his shoulder. “Come on, you don’t hate me.”

“I strongly dislike you.”

“How about…you don’t love me, instead?” Leo suggested.

I looked at him like he was insane. “I definitely do not love you. Don’t make me hurl.”

He laughed again and I rolled my eyes.