“With you?” she asks, crumpling the paper her sandwich was wrapped in and putting it in the bag.
“Yeah. But not like a date or anything,” I tack on. I know her rules. Only studying. If she got any whiff that I wanted to ask her out, she’d shoot me down.
She doesn’t answer me, going back to look at my work.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to go. I know you’re not much of a partier.”
This time, when she looks back up at me, her face is bright.
“I guess I should go since you answered all of the problems correctly.”
“No way.” I grab it back from her to look and check my own work. “Shit. I did.”
“You’re smart, Troy. Practice makes perfect, right?”
“It’s because of you,” I tell her. “I wouldn’t have gotten this without you.”
“You’re doing the hard work.” She tucks her hair behind her ear, a blush creeping over her cheeks. God, what I wouldn’t give to see more of that.
“Back to the party. You said you guess you should go?”
“As long as it’s not a date…” she trails off then adds, “I’ll go.”
I throw my hands up in defense. “Not a date. Just going out with friends of ours that think I’m ditching them to study.”
Angie laughs, loud and sweet. “Harper thinks I’m ditching her to study too!”
“When really the two of them are glued together.”
“Harper is halfway in love with him by now.”
“So we’ll just go and support our friends falling in love. Nothing else.”
“Nothing else,” she agrees.
Because Marcus and Harper can have that future together. Not us.
Angie is only my tutor. Nothing else.
Even if I want her to be so much more.
Chapter Ten
ANGIE
“Do I look okay?” I ask Harper, not for the first time tonight.
“Why do you care so much? It’s not like you’re trying to impress anybody, right?” Harper quirks a perfectly manicured brow in my direction.
“I still want to look good.”
“Angie, you look hot. Troy won’t know what hit him.”
I try to quell the rising happiness in me at that statement, but it’s hard. Because every time I’m around Troy, this crush keeps becoming something more. These feelings keep growing.
Wiggly ones that keep trying to worm their way into my head and heart.
Tonight, I’m pushing all of that out of my head. Tonight we’re going to hang out together with our friends at the football party.
