Page 75 of On His Schedule
“I didn’t want G to be suspicious. I’m assuming you didn’t tell her about us.”
He looks at me like he’s waiting for me to answer a question he didn’t directly ask.
I swallow. Us? There’s anusnow? I shake my head to agree that I didn’t tell her anything, and then I walk into the study room I claimed. Benson looks at the room we usually occupy and notices it’s taken, following behind me.
He shuts the door, and being alone with him in this tiny room makes me even more anxious. I sit down and pull out my things. He sits across from me. There’s a dead silence for a minute, and I cannot take it anymore.
“What’s happening?” I blurt, setting the pencils out. It’s the last thing in my tutoring setup.
He looks up at me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” I look around, trying to figure out what I mean, “with Gianna. Last night she told me that you were off-limits.”
He doesn’t seem surprised to hear this.
I nearly scoff, “Do you sleep with all of her friends?”
He looks at me. “All of them? No.”
“But youhave?”
He nods like he’s not proud of it.
“And that’s what you want to do with me?”
He looks at me now, and I hate that he has an adorable, guilty puppy face on. “Not exactly.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Really? Is that why you kissed me?”
“I asked.” He opens his hands, palms up on the table. “It was mutual.”
He’s not wrong, which makes me shiver. I don’t say anything.
“I didn’t know she was following you,” he adds. “I wouldn’t have come if I thought it through. I was…” he trails off, not finishing his sentence.
I straighten my spine, realizing I hadn’t considered this. “You think she was following me?”
He shrugs. “Seemed like it.”
“I’m ending this now.” I nod, feeling like this is the best decision. “Between you and I.”
The words sit on the table between us like something we both have to look at. He doesn’t say anything right away. I watch his jaw do the small thing it does when he’s working out what to say next, and I hate that I already know that about his face. He hasn’t taken his hands off the table. I haven’t either. My pencil is rolling in the small space between my elbow and my notebook, and I don’t reach for it. Outside the study room, a girl laughs in the hallway, and I hear it through the glass, and it sounds like it’s coming from a different planet than the one I’m on right now. He looks at me. He still hasn’t said anything. The quiet stretches into a place I am not equipped for, and I want to fill it, and I press my lips together to keep from filling it. He Camdenthes out.
“We haven’t even gotten started,” he says. He wets his lips and folds his hands together and then unfolds them. He sits forward and looks right at me. “I was going to ask you out today.”
I let the butterflies flutter around for a moment, really feeling uneasy under his glare. I rationalize with myself, ignoring that my body’s screamingyes. “Gianna’s my best friend, Benson. And my roommate. She’syoursister.”
“My sisteris a bit unhinged. She’s kept you hidden for years, and why do you think that is?”
I stare at him.Maybe because she knows that my mom has broken my heart for years, and I never want to feel that pain again. Maybe because she knows I don’t like to party. Maybe because she was protecting me.
He doesn’t wait for me to answer. He answers the question himself, “Because she knew that we would hit it off. I love mysister to death. I would take a bullet for her. I don’t love her any less for the drama she creates, so I want to make that clear, but I’m telling you, Lucy, that you don’t have to choose.”
“Choose?” I question.
He nods. “It doesn’t have to be an ultimatum like you don’t have to choose between me or her.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think she would agree.”
