Page 25 of The Do-Over

“Shut up,” I said, unable to hold back a tiny smile.

“Seriously.” He turned and started walking away from me, yelling over his shoulder as the passing period crowds swallowed him, “You’ve really made this an amazing day, Emilie.”

I rolled my eyes and headed in the direction of my locker. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t hear the giggles at first. Then something in my peripheral vision caught my eye. I glanced to my right and there were Lauren, Nicole, and Lallie, with four other girls, standing in front of a bank of lockers.

Giggling, whispering to each other, and looking directly at me.

I walked faster and breathed a sigh of relief when I walked through Mr. Bong’s door. Suddenly finding myself on those three’s radar was not something I’d anticipated, and it surely wasn’t something I wanted.

The relief was fleeting, though, when I reached my table and Nick was smirking up at me with his chin resting on his hand.

I sat on my stool and unzipped my bag, pulling out my textbook and my binder, ignoring him completely.

He said, “So that was weird, right?”

I rolled my eyes and opened the book, flipping toward our current chapter.

“One minute you were telling me to go away, and the next you were dragging me along on the world’s most awkward trip to Starbucks.”

I didn’t answer, and his voice got a little quieter when he said, “You do know he’s cheating with her, right?”

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, continuing to flipthe pages of my textbook. “Can we go back to not talking?”

“I don’t think we can.” He reached his hand over and stopped me from turning another page. “Because we’re no longer strangers.”

This was the cherry, wasn’t it? The cherry on top of the god-awful attempt at perfecting the day. Looking from his hand to his face, I sighed and said, “But we can be. I’m chatty—and youhatethat—and you’re surly, whichIhate. So let’s just pretend we never ran into each other this morning and you can go back to not knowing who I am.”

That made him smile, a smile that was—to be honest—potent as hell. He was such a scowly introvert that it almost made you miss how unbelievably handsome he was.

But when he was present—and smiling—he was club-you-in-the-gut-with-a-board attractive.

Such a waste on an asshole.

“I don’t think I can do that,” he said, crossing his arms and reallylookingat me. “And you didn’t invite me to coffee—technically, you dragged me.”

Mr. Bong came in and started talking, which foolishly made me think Nick would shut up and leave me alone. But there was no such thing as good luck on this day.

“Guess what I read last period?”

I said, “Shhh.”

“Dysphagia.” He leaned closer and said, “That’s what it’s called when food gets stuck in your throat but you aren’t choking.”

I coughed out a laugh. “What is your deal?”

“No deal.”

“You never talk to me in Chem, and now you have information on the weird health thing that happened to me last year in the cafeteria. What are you up to?”

He gave a little chuckle and straightened as Mr. Bong glanced in our direction. “I just wanted you to know that I looked it up, and itisactually a thing.”

“I know it’s a thing—it’smything! It happened to me.”

“Emilie?” Mr. Bong—and the entire class—was looking at me. Because yeah—I might’ve said it a little loudly.

I murmured, “Sorry.”

Mr. Bong went back to his lecture, and when I glanced at Nick, he was shaking his head and clearly trying to hold in a laugh. I shook my head, but the mischief in his face made it impossible not to smile a little.

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