Saturday, October 28
Cold.
I am so mad when the alarm clock goes off at five o’clock in the morning.
It’s cold.
Really cold.
I can’t even imagine how cold it’s going to be outside.
I look over at the bed that is still made on the other side of the room. Sander and I ended up in the same bed again last night—just to cuddle. And I like this habit that we’re both quickly developing.
“Morning,” Sander says, walking in the front door of the room.
“Morning,” I say, sitting up. “Where were you?”
“I ran a few miles,” he says.
“So, I don’t have to run?” I ask.
He grins. “Nice try. You were running eight miles in Miami, so I expect you to do just as many here.”
I groan, but get up.
Sander is way too energetic for this early in the morning.
I go to the bathroom and get ready as quickly as I can. It doesn’t really matter how I look because I’m going to get super sweaty during our work-out, and will have to shower afterwards, anyway.
Actually, will I sweat? Can it be too cold to sweat?
When I walk out of the bathroom, Sander is waiting for me, ready to go out on our morning run. He hands me something before we leave.
“Gloves?” I ask, gladly putting them on.
“It’s thirty something this morning. I figured you’d need them,” he says.
“Thank you.”
He’s so thoughtful.
And Sander thinks he’s not romantic. Honestly, buying me gloves when I’m cold is one of the most romantic things he could do. It means he wants to take care of me. It’s sweet and I am grateful.
Sander and I run. It’s a lot harder to run when it’s this cold out. My lungs hurt to breathe in the cold air and my legs are stiff from the cold, but I push through. I need to be able to run, no matter what the climate conditions are.
After the run, Sander informs me that we ran seven miles, which I am happy with and he seems to be, as well. We run through a few self-defense training exercises with Hunter and Jaxon. They’re teaching me more advanced stuff now, and I feel strong. I know I still have a long way to go, but I feel like I could put up enough of a fight that I could either knock somebody out or get away so I could run. Hopefully I never have to use my training to get out of a bad situation, and if Sander has anything to do with it, I won’t.
When I get back to the hotel, I take a shower. Since it’s so cold, I take the time to blow dry my hair, knowing I’ll be cold if I don’t. When I walk out, Sander has wet hair. I probably took too long, so he went to shower in Jax and Hunter’s room.
“Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to take that long. I just had to dry my hair.”
“You do have a lot of hair,” he says.
I don’t know why, but I’ve always liked to keep my hair long. Normally, I’m a no fuss kind of girl—I’ll just let my hair air dry. I usually only wash it a few times a week. But since we’ve been working out, I get sweaty and feel like I have to wash my hair every day, even though it’s probably bad to do that.
“It’s too cold to have wet hair,” I say.
He smiles. “Yeah, it is. Especially because we’re going to be out in the cold a little bit today.”
“We are?” I ask.
“Yep,” he says. “I figure that since you’re a California girl, you probably haven’t experienced all the fun things that the fall season brings.”
“Other than pumpkin spice latte’s in ninety-degree weather?” I ask. “Not really.”
I mean, I’m sure there are plenty of fall related activities in LA to do, I’ve just never done them.
“Have you ever been through a corn maze?” Sander asks.
I shake my head.
“Perfect,” he says.
“We’re doing a corn maze?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“That sounds fun, actually,” I say.
“We’re going to see who can get through it first. You and I, or Jax and Hunter.”
“We can’t let them win.”
“Don’t worry, I got this,” he says.
Something I have taken for granted from living in LA is that the weather stays pretty much the same year-round. I used to complain about not having fall and now I do get to experience it, but I’m not sure how I feel about it.
On TV, everything is all orange, yellow and red. Here, the trees are all dead and the leaves are brown and falling from the trees. Jaxon assures me that the leaves have already changed their colors for the season, that it doesn’t actually look like fall for very long before everything dies. I think it’s a rip off. The trees should stay pretty longer.
The corn maze is bigger than I thought. For some reason, I just imagined it would be small. Getting out might actually be a challenge. Well, it would be for me, but since I’m with Sander I am confident that we will find out way out of this maze quickly. In the meantime, I get to enjoy this time with him alone, seeing as Hunter and Jaxon turn the opposite way from us.
Sander grabs my hand as we walk through the maze and I love that he holds my hand now, not because he’s supposed to but because he wants to. It wasn’t that long ago that he was holding my hand because he was supposed to be my ‘fake boyfriend.’
Now that the sun is up, the temperature is a little warmer—the last I saw, it was in the mid-fifties, which isn’t so bad.
Sander pulls me through the maze a little farther before he pushes me into a corner and steps closer to me.
“Hi,” he says, grinning at me.
“Hi,” I say, looking at him curiously. “I thought we were supposed to beat Hunter and Jaxon to the end.”
“Nah, I just used that as an excuse to get you alone,” he says.
Ah.
I do like the way Sander thinks.
He reaches a hand up, pushing a piece of my hair out of my face. His fingers leave a warm trail and I lean into his touch.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, before gently pressing his lips against mine.
Sander is quite a bit taller than I am, so he has to lean over to kiss me while I stand on the tips of my toes. He wraps his arms around me, pulling me tightly against him.
I love the way my body fits perfectly against his, like I was made for him. And the way he teases my mouth with his tongue makes me think he would be good at other things too. But what really blows my mind is the fact that this boy is mine and I am his. Completely.
I don’t know how long we stay there kissing, all I know is that we could stay here all day and it would never be enough. He eventually does pull away, though he doesn’t seem happy about it.
“What?” I hear him yell.
I open my eyes and see that he’s on his phone.
He answered his phone?
In the middle of that?
“We’ll be right out,” he says, ending the call. “Sorry. They wouldn’t stop calling. Apparently, they’ve been waiting for us in the car for thirty minutes.”
I smile. “That was amazing and we should do that more often.”
Because I’m definitely not thinking about how cold I am right now. In fact, I feel a little flushed.
“I couldn’t agree more,” he says, grabbing my hand.
We continue to walk through the maze, but all I’m thinking about is when I can kiss this boy again.
Ten minutes later, Sander and I walk out of the corn maze. He finds his way out easily, of course. We both get in the backseat of the black SUV. Hunter and Jaxon are both looking bored in the front.
“We beat you, though I can see now that you were too busy making out with your girlfriend to even try,” Hunter says, then looks at me. “Your hair is a mess.”
My face grows warm as I try to flatten my hair.
“I’ve got to make out with my girlfriend when I can,” Sander says.
“You two share a hotel room,” Hunter says.
Sander doesn’t respond to that, but I understand why he doesn’t kiss me when we’re alone in a room. Because last time he did, things got pretty heated. And while I like that I can do that to Sander, I’m also not ready for more than just making out right now. He knows that and respects that.
“Making out in a hotel room isn’t romantic,” Jaxon says.
That’s also true.
“So, what are we doing now?” I ask, changing the subject.
“I have work to do,” Hunter says. “Which is why we have to go back.”
“So do you,” Sander says to me.
Oh, right. I forgot about all the homework that East Raven sent.
I groan, thinking about all the work.
“I’ll help you,” Jaxon says.
“Really?” I ask. “’Cause I could really use some help in math.”
“Sure thing,” he says.
“Awesome. You are my hero,” I say.
Because I hate math so much and I really do need help.
“You guys can do that while I help Hunter,” Sander says.
I wonder what ‘work’ they have to do, but I know better than to ask. I already know the answer—Spy School. Whatever they’re doing, they’re either not allowed to tell me or they just don’t want to tell me.
Someday, I hope I can be privy to this information, but for now I will just trust them.
Jaxon and I are sitting at a tiny table in the hotel room with my math book open in front of us. Jax has decided that we should do all my math homework in one sitting so I can get it done. While I appreciate his enthusiasm, I also am sick of math.
“When am I ever going to use this in real life?” I ask, as I do the formula on yet another problem.
“Most likely never,” he answers.
“Tell me why I have to do it again.”
“Because the United States of America deems it important,” he says.
“You don’t have to do this in the UK?” I ask.
“No. It’s optional,” he says. “At least at your age.”
“I’m moving,” I say.
“All because you don’t want to do math?”
I nod. “Yep.”
He just smiles. “Come on, only three pages left.”
Uh, he’s right. I am almost done and then I won’t have to do math again until I go back to East Raven, which won’t be for another couple of weeks... if I’m going back when the other students do. If not, who knows how long it will be.
Jaxon is actually really good at math. I feel like, after he’s done my homework with me, I have a better understanding. Like, he should be my math teacher.
When I finish the last problem, I sigh, leaning back in my chair.
“Done. Hallelujah,” I say.
He laughs. “Want to do English now?”
“No,” I answer, maybe a little too quickly because he laughs.
“I don’t blame you,” he says. “I hated doing work like this at school.”
“What was your favorite class?” I ask.
“Probably my fencing class,” he answers.
“Fencing? Like with swords?”
He nods.
“Ah, right,” I say. “You went to Spy School, so you got to do cool classes. I’m stuck with calculus.”
“I did calculus, too,” he says. “And my calculus teacher was really hard on us. Not once did I make anything above a ninety percent in his class. Actually, nobody did.”
“Yikes,” I say. “I’d probably fail if I had a teacher like that.”
“Nah. Mr. Brown wouldn’t fail us, even if we made F’s on every single test,” Jaxon says. “He would grade us on participation, whether we did our homework, and how hard we worked. Also, if somebody was failing, on whether or not they got a tutor and actually tried. Gage, this other guy on our team, couldn’t pass no matter how hard he tried. We always made fun of him because he’s part Asian. What kind of Asian can’t do math? We we’re joking, of course. But he still left that class with a B, which is the same as me.”
I’ve never met Gage. Actually, I haven’t met anybody else on their team. But I love that I get to hear about them and what they’re like. Hopefully, someday I’ll get to meet them all.
“That’s not so bad,” I say. “I like to do the minimum when it comes to school work, though. Like, I’ll do the work, but the least amount of work I possibly can.”
“There is nothing wrong with that,” he says.
I’m glad he says that. It makes me feel better about myself.
“So, what are Sander and Hunter doing?” I ask, noticing that it’s nearly six o’clock in the afternoon and I haven’t seen them since we got back from the corn maze.”
“They’ve got a few things to settle for tomorrow,” Jaxon says. “You’ll find out soon.”
I sigh. “That’s not frustrating at all.”
“I know,” he says. “I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you, but you’ll find out tomorrow. Sander just wants to make sure it’s actually fact before you know.”
“Did something bad happen?” I ask.
“No. Nothing bad. Actually, I think it’ll be a good thing. But I can’t say anything else.”
“Okay,” I say.
I can live with that.
“Maybe we can start on your English now?” Jax says, clearly wanting me to focus on my homework and not on Sander.
“Yeah, okay,” I say.
Might as well.