A remarkable thing, considering the fact that she’dnever really had friends in her life. But even that glimmer of light couldn’t help her shake the horrors that were currently closing in. Roan was now singing about getting eaten out in the passenger seat of a car. And for some reason, each time she sang it, Daisy’s face heated. She had to fight the urge to crack a window. To shift uncomfortably every five seconds, in a way he was definitely going to notice.
You got ants in your pants, she imagined him saying, and somehow blushed even harder. And all that wasbeforeshe noticed what he was doing. Her gaze skittered across to him, against her will, and there it was: those thick fingers of his, tapping the wheel. Rhythmically. Almost jauntily.
Definitely in time with the music.
Then even more astonishing, he muttered something under his breath.
Only it wasn’t muttering.Dear god, it wasn’t muttering at all. “Are yousinging?” she blurted out. Too much like an accusation, she knew. But the strangest part was, he took it like one. He took it like one, and looked affronted by this. Outraged, even—as if this were all normal.
“Don’t say it like it’s weird,” he had the nerve to say.
And really that was just the last straw in a series of many of them.
“Well, usually it wouldn’t be, but when you’re the one doing it there’s no other way to put it. You don’t even like reading out poetry. I once saw you threaten Professor Dunderson for trying to make you.”
“Oh, come on, that was hardly a threat.”
“You said,I will set fire to your whiteboard.”
“Yeah, and I could have saidset fire to your head, but I restrained myself.”
He nodded on the end of that. As if to say,There, that’s settled.
She had no idea why on earth he would think so, however.
“This is not making your claim that singing is normal for you any stronger.”
“Look. I just thought if I did it, you would feel more okay about doing it.”
What the fuck, her brain spat out.
She only managed to rein herself in by the skin of her teeth.
“Miller, that is even more inexplicable than you just doing it on your own. Last time I sung in front of you, you looked at me like I was the ghost of a girl you murdered for enjoying music too much.”
“Well,” he said. “It’s different now.”
“Howis it?”
“I’m trying to do bett— I mean, I have to show everyone that I’m better. Like I said last night. Like I said about being gentle with you. So everyone would be, you know. Fooled. Fooled into thinking I really want to be.”
She looked at him then. She had to, because the words he was saying made sense. They explained everything he had done that morning. Maybe even explained everything the night before. But there was something slightly off about them at the same time. Something she couldn’t place.
His face told her nothing, however.
He didn’t even glance back at her. His eyes stayed onthe road, steady and sure. No need to impress the truth of what he had said on her with a stern look. He even took a swig of his coffee halfway through her assessing look. Grimaced, as if his main concern was how shitty it was.
Not her. Not this.
She was reduced to picking holes in it.
“But there’s nobody here to see you,” she said.
And all she got was a lift of his shoulder.
“I told you, I need practice.”
“So that’s all this is, then.”
