22
Jocks Can’t Play Video Games
Apparently, Owen got hungry after games, so he and Cass left soon after for the burger place next door. Cass said they’d be back for me in an hour.
“I like Owen,” I said.
“Me too,” Daniel said. “I don’t know him that well, but I’ve heard good things.” He looked down at his books. “We’d better get to this. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make sense of it in only an hour.”
We started going over his calculus. His test would be covering all the limits work he’d done in the last few weeks. After going over the principle of limits again, I gave him some practice questions I had prepared in advance. After he figured out the first couple of them, he gave me a proud smile.
“See?” I said. “I told you that you could do this.”
“Yeah. Let’s see if I can do it without you sitting next to me. I’m glad that I’ll never have to think about calculus again, soon.” He sighed. “I have to figure out how to tell my uncle that.”
I was still a little weirded out that his uncle hadn’t said hello to me outside the arena. “Does he still think you’re applying to that engineering program?”
Daniel nodded. I didn’t really understand it—if Daniel didn’t want to study engineering, then why not just tell his uncle that?
“How mad will he be when you tell him you want to apply to culinary school?” I asked.
Daniel sighed. “He’ll be pissed. I know I’ll need financial aid and student loans for school, but hopefully he’ll still let me live in his house. There’s no way I’ll be able to afford dorms without being in debt for the rest of my life.”
“Isn’t there some way of convincing him? Like, bake him a pie or something? No one can resist you with a pie in your hands.”
He shook his head. “Would you believe my uncle doesn’t like pie? Seriously. Never trust someone who doesn’t like baked goods.”
We did more practice questions until Daniel said his brain was shutting down from too much math. I could not relate. He seemed to be getting it, though. I asked him about hisDragon Arenaprogress as he packed up his stuff.
“I’m level twelve! I don’t know why I’ve never played these RPG games before. I can’t wait to play online.”
“Soon,” I said. You had to be level fifteen to play with others and do quests in parties.
“I wish I could catch up to you so I could come with you to that guy’s party,” Daniel said.
I shook my head. “Believe me, youdon’twant to go to Jayden’s. He’d be harder on you than Omar was at Hana’s. I don’t even want to go.” I picked up my frappé to take a sip.
Daniel tilted his head, looking at me curiously. “Do you ...likeyour friends? Not Cass, but the rest of your crowd. Like that Jayden guy and the guy who accused you of cheating.”
I paused, my iced drink frozen in midair.
“You don’t actually have to answer that,” Daniel said. “Remember, we don’t have to be open if we don’t want to be.”
That was the first time in a while he’d even mentioned our parameters. And he’d been open with me lately—he’d even introduced me to his mother. He’d just now talked about his uncle.
“I don’t mind answering. They’re not reallymyfriends. They’re Devin’s.”
“And Devin is not your boyfriend anymore. I guess I’m trying to understand why you hang out with them still. You don’t ever seem, I don’t know, excited to do anything social with them. Why do you hang out with them all?”
“I hang out with them because ...” Because we were a friend group at school—the smart kids. The gamer-nerds. Because when Devin and I were together, I’d felt like I belonged with them. And I had actually liked feeling like I belonged with them. I liked the feeling of them all respecting me.
But I wasn’t that same person I was when I was with Devin. I knew I didn’t like that crowd anymore. So why did I still care so much about what they thought of me?
I didn’t sleep well that night. The hockey game had left me with an unsettled feeling. Partially because watching Daniel play made me realize this crush wasn’t going anywhere. At the game, I couldn’t stop focusing on him—on his speed, on his amazing agility on the ice. And on his smile, which I swear I could see clear across the ice, even through his caged face mask.
He was magnetic. And I was in trouble. And maybe everything Cass had been saying was true, and despite his so-called boundaries, maybe Daniel’s feelings were heading in the same direction as mine. I mean, he told hismomabout me. And his teammates, who, as far as Icould tell, were his closest friends. That didn’t sound like a guy keeping a girl at arm’s length.
But the other thing messing with my mind was realizing I didn’t even really like my friends anymore. If I didn’t like anyone at school, why was I working so hard to make them respect me? Why did I care if Earl’s Whispers made me into a fool?
