The door swings open and I startle when I see him, that roller coaster thing happening again. The fast heartbeat. The stomach flutter. Why does that keep happening whenever I'm around him?
"Hey." Dean smiles, which surprises me because he almost never smiles. He's got a really nice smile. It fills his face and makes his eyes look brighter. He has on a white t-shirt shirt, which makes his tan skin look even darker. He's wearing the jeans he had on at school today. They fit tight on his legs but the guy's got big legs. I bet it's hard to find clothes that fit you when you have muscles like his. His shirt's really tight on his chest and arms but looser around his middle. I've never met anyone with a body like Dean's. I keep finding myself staring at him.
"Brook?"
"Hi." I glance up at him, then back at the street. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah." He steps aside. "Everything okay?"
"Um, yeah," I say, setting my backpack down.
"Any problem finding the place?"
"No, but I didn't like these guys who were out there."
"What guys?" Dean asks, sounding concerned.
"Just some guys sitting on their porch. They yelled something at me and it made me uncomfortable."
Dean rubs his hand over his jaw. "I should've met you at the bus stop. Next time I will."
"That'd be good. Thanks." I look around at his house. It's small—just a tiny living room with the kitchen attached. There's a hallway that looks like it leads to a bedroom and probably a bathroom. The furniture is old and really beat up. The couch is ripped in a few places and the coffee table is covered in scratches. The carpet is stained and the walls have dents and holes in them.
"It's not great," Dean says, noticing me looking around the room. "But it's somewhere to live."
"Yeah." I smile at him. "You guys play ball in the house?"
"No. Why?"
"The walls." I point to them. "I thought maybe they got that way from you guys playing ball in the house."
"No." Dean's jaw tightens. "We'd get our asses kicked for playing ball in the house."
If that's not what damaged the walls, what did? Dean doesn't seem to want to tell me so I leave it alone and change topics.
"Is your brother around?"
"He's in his room. He'll be out in a minute. You want something to drink?"
"What do you have?"
"Water and maybe some milk, unless Jacob drank it. I'd have to check."
"I'm okay. I don't need anything."
"You want to sit down?" He points to the couch.
The old me wouldn't dare sit on that couch. It has stains on it and cigarette burns, and who knows what might be living in those cushions? But after getting off a dirty bus, sitting next to mothball lady, this is nothing.
I sit down on the couch. "How was football practice?"
Dean sits on the other side of the couch and my eyes drift over his biceps, noticing how his shirt strains around them.
"It was okay," he says.
"Did you get hurt?" I ask, pointing to the scrape on his arm.
He looks down at it. "No, that was from messing with the window. The one in the bedroom kept getting stuck. I fixed it but the damn thing scraped my arm."
