The Promise of Amazing (12 page)

Maddie studied my face. “Oh, yeah it is soooooooo like that. It’s the way you say his name. That’s why you weren’t into Caleb. That’s why Queen Bitch got to you. I thought you said you thought he was a bit of a jerk after he gave you a ride home. Why didn’t you just say you changed your mind?”

“I don’t know what I’m feeling, okay?” I answered. This budding friendship with Grayson, his explosive entrance into my life—it was mine and mine alone. Something apart from school, my family, Jazz and Maddie, the Trevor hump-and-dump. I didn’t feel like analyzing it; I was enjoying just letting it happen.

Maddie swayed into me as we continued to walk the tree-lined driveway toward the street.

“Hey, he has a shitty ride, but otherwise you have my blessing, Wren.”

“Mads, is that stuff so important?” I asked.

“Not when a guy is that scorching,” she said.

I exhaled deliberately, lowering my gaze to the ground. “I don’t know if he’s just being friendly or if there’s more to it. We only—”

“Well, you’d better figure it out fast, because he’s right there,” she said.

Grayson was perched on the rear bumper of his car, reading
The Republic
. Pretty much the sexiest model of literacy awareness I’d ever seen. I smiled as a jolt of recognition pulsed through my body. He was there for
me
.

“Bet you wouldn’t mind if
he
licked you like a Great Dane,” Maddie whispered.

“Mads!” I shrieked. Grayson grinned as we walked up to him. I slowed my pace, trying to calm my heart rate, which was racing for reasons that had nothing to do with exertion.

“Hey,” I said. Maddie waved and continued to walk past.

“Maddie, want a ride?” Grayson asked, over his shoulder.

She walked backward in the crosswalk for a moment. “No, thanks,” she called, mischief in her tone. “I think Wren wants you all to herself.”

I bit my tongue and held my breath as I watched her walk toward the bus stop.

“Still reading Plato . . . any good?”

“Kind of heavy. Some of it I can get behind, but I’m too much of a hedonist to relate to most of it,” he answered with a wink.

I nodded, pretending to understand.

His smile faded a bit as he waved to someone behind me. I peered over my shoulder to see Ava in sweats and a tee, opening the gymnasium door. She stood stock-still, eyebrows practically up to her hairline. This was fun. I waved too.

“See you bright and early tomorrow!”

Ava said nothing, her ponytail swaying behind her as she walked back inside.

“So how do you know Ava?” I asked.

“She kind of stalked me last year,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “She had this on-again, off-again thing with a friend of mine. She’s, um, a bit much.”

“When you say she ‘stalked’ you, you mean she was strategically putting herself in your path to be friends?” I asked, touching the tip of his sneaker with the tip of my ballet flat.

He laughed this infectious belly laugh that made the unpleasant events after school evaporate.
I
made him laugh. God, it felt great.

“Well, when the attention is unwanted, it crosses the stalking line,” he said, shoving the book in his jacket pocket and bouncing on his toes. “I hope I’m not crossing that line.”

I chewed my lip. By answering that question, I’d be admitting that I liked having him around. Which I did. A lot.

“No, no line crossed.”

“Good. Feel like getting a coffee?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you hate coffee?”

It was too cold for our usual (could you claim a usual spot if you only visited it once?) boat pond/coffee outing, so we ended up at the Starlight Diner. A place whose claim to fame
was the World’s Best Pies, which were displayed in a six-foot glass case with shelves that rotated slowly to make sure each dessert had its moment in the spotlight.

“I don’t know, you seemed so passionate about it . . .
I don’t do pretty coffee
and all that,” I teased, taking a sip of my hot chocolate. He laughed.

“Don’t remind me what an asshat I was that day.”

“You weren’t,” I said, tucking some loose hair behind my ear. He leaned forward, eyes on mine, lips parted like he had something to say. My mind went blank.
Breathe, Wren
. There was no discomfort, no squirmy feeling, no wanting to fill the silence. I could have sat that way, looking at him, for hours.

“Here you go.” A redheaded waitress placed Grayson’s second slab of Boston cream pie in front of him. I finally looked away, smiled at her.

“Thanks,” I said.

Grayson grabbed his fork and tucked in. “That day in the park . . . what did you mean you were screwing up your semester?” he asked, before shoveling the pie into his mouth.

“You remember that?”

He chewed quickly, wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I remember everything.”

Now
that
made me squirmy. “I suck at math. It’s just not my thing, you know. I study, or at least I think I do, but then I just freeze on the tests.”

“You’re in luck. Math
is
my thing.”

“And that would help me . . . how?”

“I can tutor you.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure that would work,” I said, seriously doubting I could focus on anything with him so close.

“Totally legit,” he said, raising his hands. “I used to tutor at an after-school program once a week. I’m good.”

Oh, God, of course he is
.

I cleared my throat. “And you could tutor me in algebra and trig?”

He was about to take a sip of his coffee, but he paused, the side of his mouth curling up, eyebrows arcing slightly. The gleam in his eyes made me blush.

“I could tutor you in anything you want,” he answered, voice low.

Holy crap, I walked right into that one.

“I might be interested. I’ll think about it,” I said. “But why the offer? Aren’t you busy with your own stuff? College applications and everything?”

He took his fork and played with the whipped cream left on his plate, making four little rows, then crisscrossing again. “The sort of schools that were on my wish list frown upon academic fraud.”

“Like where?”

He pressed his lips together, smiling slightly. “Harvard.”

I put down my cup and covered my eyes with my hands. “Oh, wow.”

He laughed. “It was a reach, but I figured why not? Penn was my top. NYU. Columbia . . .”

“But would they even find out?”

“Technically no, but the transfer after three years might make them wonder. And I’m too embarrassed to ask my old teachers for letters of rec. Besides,
I
would know. At one point that didn’t bother me, but now . . . it does. I’m thinking of going somewhere local, get a strong year in, figure stuff out, then transfer. I’m not even sure I want to go into finance anymore.”

“You still have more of a plan than I do.”

“I want to help you. That day in the park . . . what you said . . . I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”

I puzzled for a moment, trying to remember what else I could have said that made an impression.

“About being a number. What bullshit it is. You’re right. And I used to be so into that. Christ, I built my whole term-paper business around it.”

“But it is important,” I said. “It’s what they look at, isn’t it? I should take it more seriously. At least I’m trying to. In the meantime I’m ramping up my extracurriculars just in case my average number doesn’t measure up.”

He put his hand over mine, sending a charge through my body that made it hard to sit still. “You’re one of the most genuine people I’ve met. You’re not average, Wren. Not even close.”

I moved my thumb out from underneath his fingers and ran it across the top of his hand, forcing myself to lock eyes with him.

“Okay, tutor me,” I said.

He breathed out, squeezed my hand. He was about to say something when his phone went off, “Flight of the Bumblebee” sounding furiously from his pocket. He rolled his eyes and pulled his hand away.

“Sorry, I’ve got to take this. Hey, Tiff,” Grayson answered, eyes still on mine. I turned away to give him privacy. “I don’t understand. What?”

The waitress placed the check on the table. Grayson put his hand over it before I could grab it. I was about to protest but stopped. His eyes were dark, his face serious. Something was wrong.

“Yeah. okay. I’ll be there as fast as I can. Bye.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“My father was rushed to the hospital.”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

TEN

GRAYSON

“
MY FATHER WAS RUSHED TO THE HOSPITAL
.”

The words came out of my mouth, but they felt foreign. I slid out of the booth and stood up, hoping it would help me make more sense of the conversation.

Wren sat bolt-upright, shock in her eyes. “What happened?”

I rubbed my face, stumbling through my thoughts, trying to remember what Tiff told me.

“They think he had a heart attack. He’s at Bergen Point Memorial. I need to get there,” I said, raking my hand through my hair.
The check, I need to pay the check
. I moved toward the cashier. Front of the diner. One foot in front of the other. Wren came up behind me and grabbed the check out of my hand.

“Just go. I’ll take care of this,” she said, waving her hand toward the door.

A blast of icy wind greeted me as I rushed out the door into the parking lot. I jammed my hands into my front pockets for warmth.

Pop was in the hospital.

Heart attack.

Why hadn’t I answered the phone earlier? It wasn’t like Tiff called after school every day. I tortured myself, milling around the parking lot, blind to where I’d parked my car. My teeth chattered as I searched the lot and finally located the mud-brown soft-top of the Chrysler. I fumbled for my keys and realized I’d left my jacket inside. I turned back toward the diner to see Wren coming down the stairs, my jacket draped over her arm. Her hair fanned away from her face as she trotted toward me.

“You forgot this,” she said, handing me the jacket.

Thank you, I thought, though the words never quite made it to my lips. I shivered as I pushed my arms through the sleeves. Wren dropped her bag by her feet and unwound the blue knit scarf from her neck.

“Here,” she said, her breath disappearing in a puff of white. She reached up, on tiptoe, and tossed the scarf over my shoulders, winding it around my neck twice. The wool was still warm from her body.

My teeth chattered as I stuffed the fringy ends of the scarf inside my jacket.

“You’ll be okay?” she asked.

Mute, I nodded.

“I can walk from here,” she said, staring down the expanse of Broadway.

“I c-c-can give you a ride,” I stuttered. When did it get so ball-shrinking cold?

“No, you need to get to your dad,” she answered, slinging her bag over her shoulder. I nodded again and watched her walk away, the word
good-bye
forming a lump in my throat. She was right, I needed to get to the hospital, but my feet wouldn’t move.

Wren came back.

“I’ll drive,” she said, eyes sweeping the parking lot.

“What?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be behind the wheel right now. Hand over the keys.”

No one had ever driven the Chrysler but me and Pop. It wasn’t a sweet ride, but it was mine. The guys had always given me shit about how neat I kept it. How I practically made them take their shoes off before they set foot in it. Without protest I dropped the keys into her open palm.

Getting into the passenger side was alien. Wren tossed her messenger bag into the back and slid into the driver’s side. Her plaid skirt hiked up to reveal another two inches of milky white thigh that I couldn’t tear my eyes from. The sight of her bare skin sent a current of desire through me.

Grayson Matthew, you filthy horndog
. My conscience took
on Tiff’s voice.
Your father could be dying, and you’re thinking with your prick
.

Wren put the car into Drive. We lurched forward out of the spot as she lead-footed the brake to let another car back up out of a space directly across from us. The near miss wiped my brain of pervy thoughts.

“Sorry, I’m used to driving my dad’s car,” she explained, tucking a few strands of static-charged hair behind her ear. I cranked up the heat, then reached across her to switch on the headlights.

“It’s dusk. You’ll need those,” I said, leaning back into the passenger seat.

Gripping the wheel in the perfect ten and two o’clock position, Wren maneuvered out of the spot as if the car were the size of a boat. In the time it took her to get out of the parking lot, I could have been to Bergen Point Memorial and back.

Once we hit Broadway, she visibly relaxed. She kept doing all those things new drivers do—checking the side mirror and rearview, slowing down as the light changed to yellow. Conscientious. Adorable, even. But fucking three-toed-sloth slow. My knee bounced up and down with pent-up energy. I chewed on my thumbnail as we stopped for our third red light in what seemed like two minutes.

“This is a bit of a shock?” she asked, her voice unsure as she stepped on the gas again.

“Yes,” I answered quickly, but then thought about it. “No,
I guess not really. Pop doesn’t take care of himself. Tiff’s been trying to get him to eat better for years. And he smokes. Maybe not as much as he used to, but probably more than he lets us know. So not a total shock. But. I didn’t really think this is how I’d be spending my day.”

“You call your mother ‘Tiff’?” she asked, clicking on the directional. A few cars sped by before she could make the left turn onto the same block as the hospital.

“Tiff’s my stepmom. Five years. My mom lives in Connecticut. I don’t see her that much. There’s a spot,” I said, almost ready to jump on her lap and take over the wheel.

I was out the door before she killed the ignition. She caught up to me halfway down the street. Then I felt the warmth of her hand wrapping around mine. Surprised, I glanced at her. She gave my hand a gentle squeeze. I held on, and she took the lead.