Chapter Seven
Gordon
Zoey stared at me like I’d grown an extra head, so I pushed the bottle into her hand and closed her fingers around it. “You prefer cider, right?” I asked, wondering if I’d gotten it wrong.
She blinked a few times, glancing from me to the bottle and back again. “Yes,” she said. “How did you know that?”
I snorted. “Seriously?”
She nodded.
“I’ve known you since kindergarten.” Could she really think I was that oblivious?
“It’s not like we’ve ever been…best friends,” she said, and I flinched at the way she said the words.
“Kind of hard to be when we’re always going after the same things.” I straightened, smiling at her. “But that’s in the past now, right? I mean, after the internship it’ll all be over.”
And she’d asked for a fresh start today. Even though I hated that she hadn’t told me why she’d gone after the scholarship when she said she wouldn’t, I didn’t press the issue. It didn’t matter now. She’d forgiven me, and I could forgive her…if not forget. It was a tangled mess, but with the shop in jeopardy and my college status wavering, I couldn’t muster up enough of a fight to care about something that was out of my control to change.
She took a quick drink. “Right,” she said. “And it’s not like we’ll be fighting for things at Stanford. You’re Economics, right?”
My heart twisted like someone was wringing out a dirty washrag. “Right.”
“Whoa,” she said, reaching out to touch my arm again, and that same damned force of heat shot through my blood under her fingers. “Did I say something wrong?”
I shook my head, forcing out a breath. “Not at all. We may have to discuss the custody of Branch. I was planning on giving him to you this morning, but since you beat me this time…” I finished the water in my hand and tossed the bottle into a trashcan nearby, burying the anger that had returned over her lying to me. “I only came here to apologize. Thanks for understanding, Zoey.” I pressed my lips together. Why did I want to stay instead of leave like I should? “I’ll see you around.” I turned my back on her, fully prepared to walk out of Lennon’s door and sit in my car for thirty minutes before driving home.
“Wait.” Zoey grabbed my arm and spun me around, her eyes wide. “Stay.”
I scrunched my eyebrows at her. “What?”
“I mean, who knows? Maybe by the end of the night, we’ll figure out a shared-custody schedule for Branch.” She shrugged. “We’ve called a cease-fire, right?”
I swallowed hard. She had. She’d shocked the hell out of me with her easy acceptance of my apology, and the hug afterward had been way more than I’d deserved. I could still smell her light vanilla perfume on my shirt where she’d clung to me for a few brief moments. Another warm thrill raked my skin and I tried to ignore it.
“So,” she continued when I hadn’t said anything. “Why not stay for a while? We could…”
“Talk?” I asked when her voice had trailed off.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “We haven’t ever had the opportunity to do that without something hanging in the balance.”
She wasn’t wrong. There had been times where I’d thought about broaching a non-school topic with her just to see if we’d end up in a debate, but I’d never carried out the idea. I was too busy trying my damnedest to beat her.
And even though I was still hurt over her lying, I was ready to solidify the peace I needed between us.
I turned back around and settled against the kitchen counter again. “All right,” I said.
A few more hours won’t hurt. I’ll still make the meeting with her father and hopefully sway him into saving the shop.
An awkward silence made my chest tight as I floundered inside my head for something to talk about. I blamed my sudden loss of words on her whiplash-behavior. It didn’t help that she simply stared at me, her eyes open and waiting like it wouldn’t bother her a bit to wait all night. It was a side I hadn’t seen of her before. What else had I missed about Zoey while trying to one-up her our whole lives?
“Parents lose it when you told them you’d landed the scholarship?” I finally blurted out, the words stinging every inch of the way. I’d pictured my dad tearing up and then hugging me in a way I would say was embarrassing but secretly lived for. Moments where I made him proud were why I worked so hard, but things hadn’t exactly gone to plan. Now I had to pray the internship was mine because we’d already been through three interview processes. They were still deciding and would make their choice based off any number of factors. It was completely out of my hands, and Zoey’s, which took the pressure off.
Zoey rolled her eyes before shifting them to the floor. She toed a line with her gold flat. “They were…” The muscles in her shoulders tensed like she braced for impact. “How they are.”
I motioned toward the fridge, hoping she’d follow me so I could grab another water in the spirit of staying smart. “They wanted you to go to Stanford, right?” I asked as I snatched a bottle and then shut the fridge.
“Honestly?”
“Yeah,” I said, twisting off the cap.
“I think they were hoping you got it instead.”
My eyes popped. Well, that makes three of us. “Why do you say that?” I asked after swallowing an ice-cold gulp of water and the accusations of her hiding the information from me on purpose. New leaf. Cease-fire. I wouldn’t lash out at her again.
“My dad wants me at the family company as soon as possible. He said he’d only pay for my college under the stipulation that I work for him part-time and not take the internship…if I got the position, that is.” She jolted like she hadn’t meant to blurt all that out, then with a wink and a motion to follow her, she turned on her heels toward the back door.
I stood rooted to the spot for a second, blinking like that would somehow make sense of the image she’d painted of her parents. I had assumed her dad would pay for her school no matter what. I also believed she’d be excited to work for the company after college.
Was I totally off base with her? Was everyone?
The curiosity propelled me after her more than the way her butt looked in those leggings.
Sure, keep telling yourself that.
Well, I couldn’t help what I saw. I was a flesh-and-blood male who spent more time chasing down equations and economic books than I did girls. It would pay off in the end, though, and now that Zoey had forgiven me, the weight on my chest had already lightened. All I had to do was nail the meeting tomorrow with her father, then wait out the week until they’d announce who’d earned the internship and go from there. My brain begged me to formulate a plan B, C, and D, but I quashed the urge. No use in worrying myself to death over something that may or may not happen.
What bothered me now? Mainly the fact that I was dying to know if Zoey was being real or if she was exaggerating. It was hard to know, since she always played things so close to the chest and rarely let anyone past her closest friends into her home. I had no way of knowing what her parents were really like, only rumors.
“Hey,” I said when I’d caught up with her just outside the back door. I lightly touched her shoulder, and she turned around to face me, her drink at her lips. “Is it really like that?” I couldn’t pose the question any other way, and I was never one to mask what was on my mind.
This morning included.
Damn. Every time my stupid speech came back into my head my body hurt all over again. I can’t believe I was such a dick.
Make up for it now. Yeah. That’s what I was doing. Amends. If there was something Zoey needed to get off her chest—and from the way she chugged that cider, it seemed like there was—then I could be there to listen. And she had asked me to stay.
She lowered her bottle and let it hang by her hip, her eyes slits as she looked me up and down. “Do you really care?” She tried to laugh off the question, but the sharpness in her tone wasn’t lost on me. “From the way you said it this morning, you believe everything you hear about my family and me. Just like the rest of them.” She motioned the bottle toward the crowd of students hanging in or around Lennon’s infinity pool but never took her eyes off me.
Something sizzled in my gut, a combo of anger and guilt. I stepped close enough to her that my body cast a shadow over her eyes. She had to arch her neck to look up at me. “You told me you weren’t going after the scholarship. I didn’t know I had you as an adversary. It shocked me. Hurt me. But I apologized for that. If you knew—” I stopped myself before I spilled my guts about Dad’s shop, too. “If I could take back what I said this morning, I would. I swear. You said you forgave me. If you didn’t mean it, fine, but don’t use what I did as an excuse to not talk to me.”
Her brow furrowed. “I never said I wasn’t going out for the scholarship.”
I gaped at her. “I asked you on the first day of school if you were signing up. You laughed in my face and said no.”
A light clicked behind her bright green eyes and then she cringed. “I thought you were talking about Bray’s petition…” She flinched again and I raised my hand to my forehead.
Seriously? She hadn’t known what I was talking about? God, now I really was a dick.
“You thought I’d do that just to…what? Spite you?” she asked.
“I didn’t know why you’d do it,” I admitted. “Fucking misunderstanding. In a big, bad way. New slate, remember?” I took a deep breath. “You asked me to stay. I’m here. You want to talk, I’m standing right here.” I extended my arms, almost like I was asking her to fall into them even though I knew that wasn’t what either of us needed.
“An olive branch,” she said. “For both of us.”
“Yes.” I lowered my arms. “One with two branches that go both ways.” I took a step back, the cool breeze sending a chill across my skin with the absence from the heat her nearness had created. “School is over. Next week A&J will have made their choice. We may see each other on campus at Stanford, we may not, but we have tonight.” I hurried over the last part, shifting my feet to make a slow walk along the patch of patio that separated the pool’s edge and Lennon’s house.
Zoey’s flats scraped against the concrete as she shuffled to keep pace with me. “What do you mean we may see each other on campus?” She eyed me as we walked. “Just because we have different majors doesn’t mean we won’t have some gen-ed classes together. Odds are we’ll run into each other.”
The truth clogged my airways, but I couldn’t choke out the words. Without the scholarship, and no guarantee of the internship, I may never be able to afford Stanford. I could try for loans and grants, but…well, I just didn’t know if I could handle the course load and work at the same time. I needed more time to think, more time to work the problem.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Zoey arched a brow at me when I hadn’t responded.
“It’s—”
A high-pitched voice screamed Do it! and cut me off. Seconds later, a body crashed into the pool, spraying both Zoey and myself with cold water.
Zoey squealed from the sting and I glared over her shoulder, hoping whoever the hell had jumped off one of Lennon’s balconies was still alive. I spotted Fynn in the pool, rushing toward the middle of it. He didn’t get very far before a massive dude broke the surface, fist-pumping the air.
“YOLO baby!”
I rolled my eyes, returning focus to Zoey, whose blonde hair was half soaked. She chuckled, shaking her hands to fling water droplets on the pavement.
“Come here,” I said, tugging her toward the lounge chair area where Lennon kept towels stocked. I grabbed a couple of them and led us to a less crowded spot at the edge of the patio where it connected with the yard. I used the corner of the soft white cotton to smooth over a streak of black rolling down her cheek. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were crying.”
She snorted but cleared her throat to stop herself, freezing under my touch. “You think I never cry?”
She didn’t bat my hand away, so I continued until I’d wiped the black smudge off her smooth skin. “No,” I answered honestly. “In all the times I’ve gotten lucky enough to beat you at something, not once did you cry. It’s not a bad thing,” I hurried to add. “I think you’re one of the strongest, smartest girls I’ve ever known.” I dropped the towel, licking my lips in an attempt to regain some moisture in my suddenly dry mouth. “Also one of the most infuriating,” I joked.
She smiled and a flush of red colored her cheeks. With the way her damp strands of hair fell over her shoulders, she’d never looked more beautiful.
Shit. The more I stopped seeing her as the enemy…the more I realized there was nothing left to fight over…the more I couldn’t stop seeing all the ways in which she was amazing.
“I cry,” she said, wrapping her towel around her wet hair and wringing it out. “I cried this morning.”
My fist flew to my chest, and I scrunched my eyebrows at her. “I’m an asshole.”
“Yeah,” she said, but her smile still shaped her lips. She squinted at me as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. “If I was really smart, I’d pay you back for it.”
I laughed, but a cold shot of fear zinged up my spine with the way her eyes twinkled when she made the joke. Zoey was brilliant and beautiful, which only made her more terrifying. Thankfully, she happened to be surprisingly cool, too, because she’d accepted my apology. I didn’t even want to imagine what she’d dish out as revenge had I played the jerk card and not shown up tonight to beg her forgiveness.
Just the thought made me shudder.