Page 35 of Left on Read

“Are these mine?” I flip through the pages, running my fingers over the passages he’s marked.

“Yeah. I kinda stole them from your desk.” He shrugs. He won’t apologize, and that’s fine. I don’t really mind. If my precious sticky tabs helped my brother with his first-ever literary analysis, they’ve been put to good use. I’m kind of touched, actually.

“I’m so proud.” I clutch the book to my chest.

“You’re proud that I stole from you?” Gage asks, ripping the book out of my hands.

“I’m proud you listened to me.”

He rolls his eyes, but he opens the book and actually gets to work. On a different tab, he has a pretty good outline going. For a while, I just lean back and watch him. He’s already done the hard work. I don’t know why I’m even here, except to bask in the glory of having taught someone something.

Minutes later, across the table, Hayes and Dash burst into laughter again. I guess math is that funny. They’re having entirely too much fun.

“We’re done.” Dash drops his pencil like it’s a microphone.

“You’re done already?” I’m amazed. His math homeworkis the bane of my existence. It’s worse than doing my own math homework, and there are few things I hate more than that.

Hayes nods, like it’s nothing to brag about.

“I’m impressed,” I admit. I cross my arms over my chest, and Gage and I smack elbows as he keeps typing. This is something else Hayes has beaten me at, and I wait for that to stab at me. Instead of that sharp ache, there’s something more tender. Lighter, both in weight and somehow in color. There’s this intense gratitude and an overwhelming sense of calm. I let him into my house again, and I let him see beyond the veneer of normal that we all put up when an outsider comes over. Without meaning to, I let him see the true heart of my messy, jumbled family. Beyond the poetry memes and the books and the prim, proper, and professional image I’ve worked so damn hard to cultivate, I think this is actually, really who I am. And he’s here, seeing all of it.

He winks. He’s got to stop doing that. It makes me feral.

“Can I go be somewhere else now?” Dash asks, already packing up whatever in this academic slush pile he assumes is his.

“Is that all you had to do?” I ask. He won’t lie to me, I know it. So when he nods, I do the same, effectively dismissing him. When we were kids, we used to pretend this table was a classroom, and I was the teacher. Of course I was the teacher. They weren’t even old enough to go to school at that point, but I was. And I’d been there long enough to realize that’s what I wanted to do with my whole life. By the time they learned to read, they were writingI hate schoolandI hate Novaon the carefully prepared homework assignments Imade for them. But they stayed at the table. And they still do, until I let them go.

Dash leaves, dragging his backpack on the floor behind him down the hallway.

“He could’ve at least said ‘thank you,’ ” I murmur, looking at Hayes.

“You know him,” Gage says, still typing. “He was raised in a barn.”

“No, he wasn’t.” I start stacking up the remaining papers. Some are Dash’s, of course. “He was raised at this table, just like me and you.”

I hear the deadbolt rattle, and the front door cracks open. Mom and Dad are back, and they’re muttering back and forth, this time in what I can already tell is an angry tone. That’s great.

“Which one of you are they mad at?” I ask Gage on a weary sigh.

He’s already pushing his chair back. “I was never here,” he whispers as he makes a hasty retreat. There’s nowhere to run, and he knows it. He’s just putting off the inevitable.

I sigh again, throwing my head back to lean against the ornate old wood dining chair. Living in this barn is exhausting.

But at least the farmers are home.

OfficialEndeavourHigh:Seniors: they’ll never catch me alive!!!!!!

Hayes paces when he’s thinking. It’s intimidating, actually. He stomps, and watching him move back and forth is making me kinda dizzy. We’re discussing our project, as we have been for what feels like years. He keeps coming back toPride and Prejudice.

We’re in the big study room today because the librarian likes me. I requested it for a reason: My usual study room is entirely too small for me to share with Hayes. We’d be sitting too close, and I’d be able to smell him and feel him, and I could not be expected to think rational thoughts in those conditions.

Besides, he’d have nowhere to pace in a room that small.

“And that’s why Darcy’s big, grand gesture is getting his friend to marry Lizzie’s sister? Because it’s not just making the Bennetts happy, it’s like he’s saving Jane’s life?” he asks, running one hand through his curls. They’re standing on ends in all different directions.

I think about this moment in Regency terms. If we were found here,alonebehind closed doors, with him looking sodisheveled… it would be ruinous.

For me, at least. He’d be fine.