Page 49 of Better Than the Movies
“So don’t touch it.”
“Really?”
He shrugged and put his hands in his jacket pockets. “Seems logical.”
I was getting sick of holding that shirt over my nose. I pulled out my phone and flipped the camera to make a mirror, then stopped walking and slowly removed the shirt from my face. “Oh my God, IamMrs. Potato Head.”
The bridge of my nose was so swollen that the entire thing looked wide. It was like my nose blended in with the rest of my face.
The good news: when I tilted my head back, it didn’t look like any more blood was waiting to fall.
This whole thing was just gross.
“I’ve broken my nose twice, and it’ll heal fast.” He put his finger on my phone screen and unflipped the camera so I could no longer see myself. “You might look like a child’s toy for a day, but after that you’ll barely be able to tell.”
I glanced at his profile in the dark and didn’t see any bumps or knots in his nose. But I said, “Define ‘barely.’?”
He ignored me and said, “Call your dad.”
“Oh yeah.” I exited the camera and went into the actual phone. “Thanks.”
I called my father as Wes stood beside me on the sidewalk, scrolling on his phone, and after I told my dad what’d happened and then retold Helena, they said they were headed toward the hospital and they’d find us when they got there.
“By the way, thanks a lot.” I put my phone into my pocket and looped the disgusting shirt over the strap of my bag, and we started walking again. With every step I tried to figure out what was up with Wes’s sudden-onset niceness. The guy was apparently all-in on getting that parking spot. “You didn’t have to escort me.”
He nudged my shoulder with his and teased, “My luck, you’d bleed to death and then my guilt wouldn’t allow me to enjoy the Forever Spot.”
“Wait—you’d still take it, even after having a hand in my untimely demise?”
I attempted to give him a playful punch, but he caught my fist in his huge hand. He grinned at the little noise I made and let go.
“Well, it’sright there,Buxbaum—how could I not?”
We stopped at a red light when we reached the corner, and he turned and looked at me. We were quiet for a moment, our smiles slowly simmering, and then he asked in his deep-and-gravelly voice, “So were you making any headway with Young before you got bashed?”
I don’t know why, but I was hesitant to tell him for a second. We’d been having fun and I didn’t want to get serious. But then I reminded myself that it was my let’s-get-Michael teammate, Wes. Whywouldn’tI tell him? “You know, I think I was. He was being a little flirty before you walked over to the small court,and hephysicallymoved my arm to help me shoot better.”
“Sweet Lord, he touched you?” His eyes widened like this was a really big deal.
“He did.” I proudly raised my chin.
“Like,howdid he do it? Was it coachy and clinical, or…?”
“It was like this.” I reached over and moved his elbows from their position at his sides to a few inches higher in the air. “Only maybe lighter and more fingertippy.”
“Holy shit, Liz.” He gave his head a little shake and his mouth was wide open. “That’s huge.”
My lips slid all the way up into the beamingest geek smile ever, even though it sent a jolt of pain through my nose. “Itis?”
“Oh my God, no. It isn’t.” Wes put his hands in his pockets and gestured for me to walk, as the light had turned green. “That was sarcasm. I thought you knew that until you said ‘fingertippy.’?”
“Oh.” I cleared my throat and said, “Well, itfeltlike something.”
“Like somethingfingertippy?”
As he mocked my words and my Michael obsession, it hit me that everything was all wrong. Wes was the one walking me to the hospital, and it was Wes’s shirt that’d staunched the flow of blood from my face.
Wasn’t it supposed to be Michael?
