Page 65 of I Hate You More

I snapped to attention at the sound of his voice. It was Thursday night, and I’d somehow managed to avoid being alone with him all week. I kept telling myself it wasn’t intentional and that it was only because I was slammed with homework. But it was nearly the weekend, and I still hadn’t had the opportunity to ask him to watch a movie with me like Tessa suggested.

I swiveled my desk chair as I considered the door. Would it be wrong of me to pretend I wasn’t here?

“Ally?”

Pretend I wasn’t here? What was I thinking? “Yeah, come in,” I called back before I could chicken out.

The door opened, and he hovered in the doorway like he was nervous to enter my room. “Hey,” he said, smiling shyly at me.

“Hey.” I smiled back because I couldn’t help myself. His smiles were rare and beautiful things that were almost impossible not to be affected by—clearly, I was still struggling with keeping my heart out of the picture when it came to Chase.

“Did you need something?” I asked when he’d been standing on the threshold silently for several moments.

He shrugged. “I just wanted to see how you were. You’ve been barricading yourself in here all week.”

“Oh, it’s this damn math test tomorrow,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve been studying for it all week. Shouldn’t you be studying for it too?”

“I finished all the problems during class,” he replied, like that was all that was required to nail the test. There had been a crazy amount of exercises to go through, and our classes just weren’t that long. He had to be lying about completing them all, but I wasn’t going to grill him about it. It was his prerogative if he wanted to bomb the test.

“Do you always study so hard?” he asked.

“I do this year,” I said, pointing toward the calendar on my wall. It was so big it was impossible to miss, and everything was highlighted in different colors. All of my homework was highlighted in green, and the sheer amount of green this month made me feel a little sick when I looked at it as a whole. I had no doubt the rest of the year would look just as daunting if I wanted to keep up at school.

Chase’s eyes widened as he scanned the calendar, and he instinctively stepped forward and entered the room so he could get a better look at it. “You haveeverythingplanned in there,” he said.

“Noteverything,” I replied. “But all my homework and activities, yeah.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have your shower time jotted in there.”

I blushed, feeling slightly embarrassed about the fact I’d created a shower roster. A couple of years ago and that might have gone on my calendar too, but I was getting slightly better at not needing absolutely everything in my life planned out.

“I just put the important things in there.”

“So, you don’t think showering is important?”

I laughed and shook my head. “Are you trying to annoy me?”

“Maybe,” he said with a sly grin. “Is it working?”

“Definitely.”

He laughed and came to sit at the edge of my desk. His legs brushed up against mine, and his nearness made it hard to remember all the reasons why I wanted him gone. I gripped my leg tightly and tried to think about how he’d broken my heart at the dance all those years ago and how he’d only break it again if I gave him the chance now.

“Have you given any more thought to what I said on Sunday night?”

My skin turned cold at the question as I recalled what I needed to do. Tessa had come up with the plan days ago, but I’d been avoiding putting it into motion. It was probably the reason why I’d been studying so hard. If I avoided Chase, I couldn’t ask him, but now that he was here, it seemed I had no more excuses.

“Yeah, I’ve thought about it,” I murmured.

“And?”

“And I was thinking we should hang out this Saturday.”

“You were?” He seemed nervous and was struggling to hold back a smile.

“I was. I thought maybe we could start small and watch a movie together.” I swallowed and tried to ignore the churning in my stomach, hoping it didn’t show on my face. “What do you think?”

“I think that sounds like something that needs to go on the calendar,” he said, his huge smile finally breaking through. He reached across my desk and grabbed a pen before he stood up and started writing on my calendar. I couldn’t see what he’d written because he was standing in the way, but the mystery didn’t last long when he turned to face me once more.

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