“Anita?” He searched the front part of the house where the closet was, then went outside. He put his hands on his hips and frowned. She had left along with everyone else, and he hadn’t had a chance to see if she was okay or even tell her goodbye. She probably thought he was the biggest jerk on the planet. He sure felt like he was.
But a small part of him realized he owed Corey a favor. Because if Tanner hadn’t left the closet when he did, he might have kissed Anita Bedford again.
No, I definitely would have.
***
On Tuesday, Anita sat at her and Tanner’s usual table in the school library. She squeezed her hands together and made sure they stayed in her lap. She’d thought about canceling today’s session, but she would’ve had to come up with an excuse to tell her parents, who always wanted to know how her tutoring went. If she canceled today, they would want to know why. She was still so out of sorts, she knew she couldn’t come up with anything believable.
Her stomach twisted into a tight knot. All weekend andMonday she had remembered what Tanner said right after their amazing kiss:“I don’t want to be alone with her.”Those words had hit hard, and as soon as she’d heard them, she’d left his house and snuck back home. Her mother and father had no idea she’d been gone, and neither did her siblings. Not that she would have cared if she’d been caught. Nothing could compare to the pain her heart was going through right now. Her first kiss had knocked her off her feet, and she had felt Tanner pulling her closer right before Corey had interrupted them. But instead of savoring every second of their kiss, she wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear forever.
She glanced at the clock in the library. Almost three o’clock. Tanner would be here any minute. She looked around the room. Usually there were several other people here, including the librarian, but today the library stood empty. Great. He would probably bolt once he saw they were the only ones here.
“I don’t want to be alone with her.”No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force his words out of her mind.
Unable to sit still any longer, she yanked her math book out of her bag and opened the pages to the day’s homework assignment. Yuck, geometry. While she was in intervention classes for both math and reading, math was her worst subject. Today the teacher had talked about a coordinate plane, and she’d had no clue what it was. If Tanner did show up, he would think she was dumb as a bag of rocks, if he didn’t already.
“Hey.”
Anita looked up, and her breath caught. How was she supposed to keep her composure when he looked so hottoday? A navy blue V-neck T-shirt, bootcut jeans, and his ever-present leather jacket.
He smells good again.
“Looks like everyone else bailed.” Tanner sat next to her, putting his books across the table from her backpack. He took all AP courses, and his statistics and advanced chemistry books sat on top of a red spiral notebook.
Anita shrugged, unable to look at him. Instead she stared at the graph in her math book. She couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but she wasn’t thinking about math anyway. Somehow she had to get through this session, and then she would tell her parents she needed a different tutor. The only reason she hadn’t done so over the weekend was that her father was working a hospital shift and her mother was busy with Paisley at a cheerleading tournament. She was sure Tanner would be relieved.
“Um, before we get started, can we talk for a minute?” he asked.
She looked at him, surprised. “What about?”
“Friday night.” He glanced away and fidgeted with the metal spiral holding his notebook together. “I’m sorry about what happened at the party.”
She already knew he regretted the kiss, but it hurt even more to hear him say it. Fighting tears, she started to stand. “It’s all right,” she said quickly. “This will be our last session.”
His head jerked around. “What? Why?”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to tutor me. Or be around me.”
“Oh boy.” He ran his hand over his face. “You heard what I said, didn’t you?”
Nodding, she reached for her backpack. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to be alone with me anymore.”
He reached for her wrist, stopping her. “Can I at least explain before you leave?”
She looked at his hand on hers. He even had nice hands—long fingers, short, square fingernails, and lightly tanned skin due to his Spanish heritage. Her own hand was small underneath his, and her perpetually pale skin looked almost bleached next to his.
“I was really mad about the party,” he said, releasing his grip. “I didn’t want that bonehead Corey to get the wrong idea about us. That’s why I said what I did.”
Anita sat back down, already missing the warmth of his touch.I’m hopeless.
But he seemed genuinely distressed, so she had to hear him out.
“We’re friends, right?” His gaze met hers.
Anita hesitated. She wished they were more than friends, but obviously he didn’t feel the same way. Finally she nodded. “Right.”
“I don’t want to ruin that. Or our tutoring sessions. You got an A on your last test, and I think you can get one on the next test too.”
