She walks over to me. "Laney wasn't feeling well so she decided to end the day early." She looks past me to Dean. "I see you have company."
"Dean Sanders," he says, standing up. "Good to meet you."
"You too," she says, looking up at him. "You're very tall."
"Mom!" I say.
"What? It's true."
Dean chuckles. "I'm six-five."
She glances down at the rest of him. "Are you the football player she's always talking about?"
Dean looks at me, smiling. "You've been talking about me?"
"Only because I'm tutoring your brother. She wanted to know more about you before I went to your house."
"She hasn't told me much," my mom says. "And I know nothing about your parents. What do they do?"
"Mom, just forget it," I say, giving her a look to let it go.
"Honey, it's just a simple question."
"They don't live with me," Dean says. "My dad took off a few years ago and my mom left last spring. I took over custody of my younger brother."
"I'm sorry to hear that," my mom says, frowning. "That's a lot of responsibility for someone your age."
"We do all right." He glances at me. "I should get going."
"Yeah. I'll walk you out."
I feel my mom's eyes on us as we leave. I take the elevator down with Dean and walk him to the door.
"Thanks for taking me out today," I tell him. "I needed that. Maybe we could do it again sometime. As friends," I add, just to clarify. "And thanks for lunch."
He smiles. "It was a hotdog. You don't have to thank me."
"When should I could come over again? For tutoring?"
"I'll check with Jake. Maybe Wednesday. I'll let you know."
Wednesday seems really far away. I want to go over there sooner. I see Dean at school but we don't have time to talk, and I doubt he'd talk to me on the phone if I called him.
"See you tomorrow," he says.
"Yeah, bye."
When I get back to the apartment, my mom's in the kitchen, taking stuff out of the fridge.
"I already ate," I tell her.
"Oh." She looks down at the package of shredded cheese in her hand. "Then I guess I'll put this away and make a frozen dinner." She puts the cheese back in the fridge. "Did you and Dean go out?"
"We went to the park and got some hotdogs and chips."
She closes the fridge, giving me a serious look. "Does Chad know you were out with this boy?"
"Mom, it's not like that. Dean and I are just friends."
