Page 57 of Burning for Alexander
Alex blinked at me in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You and the Wascomb kid. Your choice. It’s totally up to you. Just let me know.”
My gut twisted as I waited for a response. While I was acting like I didn’t care, I definitely did.
“H-how did you hear about that?”
I sat back with my ass propped on the edge of his desk and crossed my arms, facing him. “You live in a town of eight thousand people, and at least seven thousand of them have big mouths.”
He groaned and ran his hand across his mouth. “Fuck. I don’t… I don’t know. I just…” He glanced up at me. “You seemed…”
I waited, but he simply shrugged and didn’t finish the sentence.
I thought ofDrunkenPoet, the reason I wasn’t taking Alex out on a real date tonight.
None of it sat right with me. Not the idea of moving on with Alex before I’d gotten closure, and not the idea of Alex moving on frommebecause I refused to let go of a dream that might have died four years ago.
But it wasn’t fair to keep Alex from having a good time with someone else simply because my head was a mess.
“Just don’t kiss him, Marian,” I said. “Tell him you wanna take it slow. Leave your options open.”
His eyes followed me as I straightened up and reached for my bag. “You passed the inspection. Tonsils and fire safety, both. Well done.”
And then I left and spent the drive back to the station kicking myself for being jealous about a man I wasn’t willing to date for real.
After quickly returning to the station house and reinstating Timber’s special effects permit as a result of the inspection, I went home and emailed the private investigator I’d reached out to for a consult and told him to proceed. IfDrunkenPoetwas gone forever, I needed to know so I could move on.
Before Alex Marian moved on, himself. With someone else.
17
ALEX
DrunkenPoet:Sometimes I imagine your hand at the back of my neck.
IndexEcho:Holding you down or pulling you closer?
DrunkenPoet:Either? Both.
_____________________
I askedWill Wascomb if we could go to the high school football game as our date. There were several reasons for this, not the least of which was that I felt like maybe that would be the least likely scenario where we’d end up making out at the end.
But also, my friend Maddox’s little sister was being presented on the homecoming court, which meant a bunch of us Marians had agreed to go cheer for her. Several years ago, when Maya and Maddox’s parents had passed away in an accident, my cousin Rosie had been Maya’s emotional support person. They’dbecome close when Rosie had done some babysitting for Maya, but now they were more like family. Which meant Maya was an honorary Marian and would get the largest cheer squad in Legacy.
And I would have an excuse not to have to sit directly across from my date and exchange awkward small talk. My hope was to get past the awkward small-talk phase while watching Legacy High’s team crush the Columbus Cougars.
“You a big football fan?” Will asked, handing me a coffee and a hot dog before taking the seat next to me on the bleachers. I’d brought a thick wool throw to cushion the seat and also keep the metal from freezing our asses off.
“No. Definitely not,” I admitted before launching into the explanation of why we were there. “So I appreciate you agreeing to come with me. What about you? Are you a fan?”
He shook his head. “Oh, god no. Hate football. Mostly because my brother played, and he and his friends were complete jerks to me and my friends. We were more of the beach volleyball type. I grew up in Santa Cruz, and my friends and I played all the time.”
“You’re kidding! I’m from Napa. And I played beach volleyball also, but not at home. I played with my cousins whenever I visited them in South Carolina.”
We talked about California and volleyball, exchanging several war stories while the Lumberjacks ran for thirty yards, threw a ten-yard pass, and finally made it into the end zone.
Will turned out to know quite a lot of the locals, considering he’d lived there less than six months. Every time someone stopped to say hello, I couldn’t help but look around in case our local fire chief had decided to come.
