Page 41 of Choosing Her
He grabbed a napkin off the fallen table and started dabbing at the stain. It did nothing. The napkin practically disintegratedin his hands, leaving tiny paper flakes stuck to his shirt. He sighed and checked his phone. I didn’t need to see it to know that he definitely didn’t have time to get back to his dorm and then to class without being late.
Okay. This was fine. I could fix this.
“Here,” I said, jumping up so fast my chair nearly tipped, too. I yanked at the buttons of my own shirt.
Mako gawked at me. “You think stripping is going to fix this?”
I rolled my eyes. “I think switching shirts will.” I shrugged mine off and held it out to him, ignoring the way the air-conditioning immediately made my arms break out in goosebumps.
Mako didn’t take it. He just looked at me, then around the café like he was calculating how many people were currently witnessing whatever this was.
A lot, apparently.
Someone at a nearby table choked on their drink. Amanda, mid-order call, paused to blink at us.
Mako exhaled through his nose. “Do you not think this is at all ridiculous?”
“Oh, completely ridiculous,” I said. “But unless you wanna give your speech looking like you lost a fight with an espresso machine, you might wanna start unbuttoning.”
His lips pressed together like he was seriously reevaluating his life choices. But then, with a sigh, he started undoing his shirt, too. When he handed it over, I looked at it critically, wondering if I could dry it under the hand dryers in the bathroom.
But just then, Amanda called, “Order for Crossy!” and knew I was just going to have to accept my fate of wearing a wet shirt to class.
Something I definitely regretted once I was in there and had everyone staring at me.
“What is that?” Saylor asked in disgust.
“Coffee,” I said. I tried to hand her the iced coffee I’d gotten for her, but her eyes didn’t move from the stain on my chest. “My eyes are up here, you know.”
She did raise her eyes, but she looked even more unimpressed than usual as she did. “Another girl threw her coffee on you?”
“As a matter of fact,no. I threw my coffee all over Mako.”
She made a false-sympathetic expression. “He was a bad kisser, huh?”
“He is a fantastic kisser, actually,” I said, and then dropped into the seat beside her. She already had her notebook open to a fresh page with the date written in the top corner, reminding me why I’d gone to the coffee shop early as a distraction. Today was my midterm test in math. In just over an hour, I would begin writing the test that decided whether all the work Saylor and I had put in over the last month was enough to get me through this class. “I guess I’m just a nervous wreck today.”
Saylor’s disgusted look morphed into one of understanding. “Do you feel ready?”
I blew out a breath and ran a hand over my face. What wasready, really? I thought I’d been ready for all the tests the last time I took the class and look where that got me. I’d worked harder this time. I’d studied more. But would it be enough? I wasn’t sure.
“You’re gonna do great,” Saylor said when I didn’t respond. To her credit, her tone was infused with certainty, but I couldn’t say that it made me feel much better.
“You know, people always say that before big tests and stuff, but I never understand why,” I said. “Telling me I’m going to do great doesn’t fix my nerves because you don’t know how well I’mgoing to do. You don’t know how hard the test will be or how good I am at math.”
Saylor raised her eyebrows. “I think out of everybody in the world right now, I’m the one who is most aware of how good you are at math.”
“Okay, true,” I admitted. “But as my tutor, it’s also your job to raise my confidence. So, of course you’re going to tell me I’m going to do great, even if you think I’m totally going to fail.”
“I think it would reflect badly on me if I told you that you were ready and you weren’t. Not exactly a good quality for my future tutoring ads.”
“Oh, so you’re planning to keep this up after me? I’m not special enough to be the only guy you help pass math?”
She clicked her tongue. “Afraid not, sorry. In fact, I have a whole lineup outside the door.”
“But you’ll do a different study room though, right?” I put a hand to my heart and pretend to be emotional. “I mean, that’sourspecial place, isn’t it?”
Saylor bit her lip and looked at me. Then, looking nervous, she said, “I thought our special place was the laundry room.”
