Especially since the heat is making her scent of vanilla honey even stronger.
I aim my left vent in her direction as much as it’ll go.
No chance the air conditioning will cool me off. She might as well have all of it.
She slides me a look.
She’s been different since she got a text message earlier.
Quieter.
More subdued.
I want to ask why, but after my attitude since I got home, I doubt she’d tell me.
Doesn’t stop me from wanting to know.
You could quit being a dumbass and be a human being who asks, Caden says in my head.
I ignore him and clear my throat. “Breakfast was good. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I feel better after my medicine.”
Shehmms as she brakes for the stop sign at the end of my block.
It’s anI told you soif ever there was one.
I’m getting a silent scolding from a librarian.
The kind of librarian who wears pencil skirts and glasses and keeps her hair tied up in a neat bun, but then dives into sweatpants and shakes her hair out as soon as?—
Knock it off, asshole, I tell myself.
Last thing I need is to pop a boner over her.
Again.
This time in front of her.
That would be the end of this.
Caden once coached me through flirting with a girl in high school.Tell her you like her backpack, he said.Ask if youcan sit with her at lunch. Pay one of the bullies to run into her so you can save the day and help her pick up her books like in the movies.
He was a fucking hilarious menace sometimes.
And I don’t need to flirt with Ziggy. She’s not interested.
“I’m not always an asshole,” I tell Ziggy.
She doesn’t look away from the road.
I’m still sweating. Not sure if it’s the temperature inside the car or the effect of the fear that I’m afraid to be alone and injured in my house.
In Caden’s house.
A house that’s already seen too much sickness and injury and death.
