Page 50 of The Love Interest
I chance one last look at the bus, then sprint back through the house to my bedroom. I guess I could drive if I miss the bus, but I don’t really want to, because driving still freaks me out. Inside my room, I pick up the dirty clothes that I’d previously kicked under my bed and throw them away. Then I pick up a gray box and tear it open. Inside is my Spider-Man costume.
I grab it and shove it into my bag. Then I run down to the bus. The bus driver, whose name always escapes me, gives me a friendly smile, which settles my heart rate a little bit. It’s not enough to calm me down, though, as the memory of my epic fuckup lingers.
At school, Juliet, Natalie, and Trevor are standing near Juliet’s locker.
“Hey, Caden,” says Juliet with a small smile. “Do you have your costume for the party?”
I open my locker. “It’s not a party, it’s an extravaganza, remember? And yeah, I do.”
She snorts and pushes away from the locker. “Yeah, you’re right. It should be a lot of fun. But hey, can I talk to you for a second?”
Uh-oh.
I nod, and we walk to a quiet spot at the edge of the lockers. She leans against the wall. Normally the prospect of having one-on-one time with her would make me smile. Right now, as a side effect of my recent activities, which have been distinctly not Nice, my hands start trembling. I tuck them into my pockets.
“So, Caden,” she says. “You know how, when you first got here, I needed someone to model for me?”
I nod slowly. Kaylee scripted a scene about me modeling for Juliet, so I know which direction to steer the conversation. “Yeah. Are we ready to start? I’ve been doing a lot of chin-ups and have been avoiding the free drinks at work to make sure all this”—I gesture toward my chest—“is ready.”
“No, it’s… Don’t take this the wrong way, but I asked Dyl to pose instead. I’m good friends with you now, so staring at you pretty much naked for hours would be weird for me, and I think he would help me do well on the assignment. That’s all this is about, getting a good grade. Is that cool?”
I frown and my shoulders slump. In the script, she said yes, and I model for her. Kaylee even wrote a few witty one-liners for me to say while I was posing. Now I’ve lost all that time with her. I can’t help but think that kissing Dyl, or my outburst this morning, is what caused this.
“Juliet, I totally understand. I’ll do whatever makes you happy.”
School passes slowly because all I can think about is the fact that Juliet chose Dyl over me. Point blank, she picked him. I think about pretending to be sick so I can leave early, but that’s what the Caden who got me into this mess would do. For me to claw my way back into this contest, I need to fully recommit to being a Nice. My true thoughts and feelings are the enemy, so I need to bury them.
After lunch, I head down the hallway to English. Dyl is walking toward me, staring at his stupid poetry book. I glare at him. He’s going to strip in front of Juliet. I picture the way he’ll slowly pull his shirt up and over his body. The way he’ll grin as he balls it up and throws it away. How the ridges of muscle along his ribs will ripple as he flexes.
I think about grabbing him by the shirt and shoving him up against a locker. I’d press my forearm into his neck, just above his collarbone. I imagine his eyes, wide and startled, and the way his mouth would drop open for a second before he’d smirk and call me Nice guy.
He never forgot about the contest. Not even for a second. All day I’ve been distracted and he’s been making moves to pull Juliet away from me. I want to scream at him, to ask him how he could kiss me and then keep playing like nothing has changed. Instead, I clench my fists and walk past him.
After the final bell, Juliet is waiting for me outside my classroom. She’s leaning against the wall, glancing at everyone as they stream out of the room.
“Hi,” I say as I approach her. “It’s nice to see you.”
She bites her lip and detaches from the wall. We make our way down the hall toward the exit. “Caden, you know you can tell me what you actually feel, right?”
I gulp. “What makes you think I don’t?”
“Just the way you’ve been acting today. Like, it seems like you’re upset about me doing the art assignment with Dyl, but you don’t want to let it show. It’s fine if you’re mad at me or whatever, but please don’t pretend to feel something you don’t. It’s what my dad does and I can’t stand it. Promise that you’ll never do that to me?”
“I promise,” I say. “Well, from now on, anyway. In case it isn’t screamingly obvious, I’m not cut out for this whole lying thing. You can see right through me. So yeah, I’m a little bit upset that you’re doing the assignment with Dyl because I was looking forward to spending time with you. That’s it. I’ll get over it.”
“Thanks for being honest, Caden. But I want you to know the reason I’m doing the assignment with Dyl is that I like you so much, not the opposite.”
“For realsies?”
“Yep, for realsies. To do the assignment you’d have to be half naked. It’d be weird with you because, you know, you’d be shirtless.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
Too bold, Caden. Get awkward, fast!
My smile drops. “About the me-being-shirtless thing, I mean. Sorry, I was trying to sound sexy and I epically screwed it up. Pretend I didn’t say anything.”
She laughs. “It’s okay, Caden. I like the idea of seeing you without a shirt on. It’s… it’s why I asked in the first place. But, well, our relationship is different now. It’s stronger than attraction, or at least I think it is. So I don’t want to screw it up by throwing a whole lot of lust into it, especially when you’re naked and I’m not. So let’s drop it, okay? Speaking of dropping it, Trevor and Natalie are coming over to my place before the party starts to get ready. Do you want to join us?”
