Page 10 of Harvest Moon (Riverbend 3)

Stupid.Now he knows how lame your life is.Why not just go ahead and tell him she stayed home and watched rom-coms on weekend nights? Her cheeks were probably nuclear by now. “Fine, what works for you?”

“Sunday night at eight.”

That was pushing it. The form was due Monday, and what if they couldn’t agree? A distinct possibility. “The, uh, library isn’t open on Sundays.”

He shrugged. “So come to my house. Come at seven—you can grab a meal with us first. See you then.”

She definitely didn’t want to face him on his turf. Andgrab a meal? But he was already walking away and anyway, what wouldshe say? The coffee shop was closed on Sunday evenings, and she sure wasn’t inviting him to her pathetic house on the poor side of town.“Here,havea seat on our secondhand sofa. Don’t mind the ripped cushion.”

She sweated it out all weekend. Finally Sunday night rolled around, and she changed outfits three times, cursing herself with each swap for caring one whit what Gavin thought of her.

The Robinsons lived in a charming white clapboard farmhouse on a beautiful property. When the door swept open, Lisa Robinson, a pretty blonde, welcomed her inside, and before Laurel could blink, she was seated beside Gavin at the table. She met his dad, and his younger brother and sister. They were all so nice—and talkative. They included her without putting her on the spot. There wasn’t a moment’s silence during the meal.

It was a drastic change from her own family suppers, which was often just her. And when her mother was there, they usually talked quietly about what had happened that day, then ran out of things to say.

Even Gavin seemed pleasant enough as he joked with his siblings, giving as good as he got. It was over an hour later when his brother and sister rushed off. Laurel offered to help Lisa and Jeff with the dishes, but the woman shooed her from the kitchen. “Oh, honey, you and Gavin should get started on your assignment.”

Gavin ushered her out back to a picnic table sitting on a curved patio beneath twinkle lights. The sun had already dropped behind the mountains, ushering in twilight. She set down her folder and purse and took a seat.

Gavin lowered himself beside her. His body seemed to take up half the bench.

She’d sat in the middle, expecting him to sit across from her.She inched her thigh away from his as she opened her folder, then pulled out her notes. “Okay, I’ve been working on some ideas. The one I like best focuses on the play’s use of symbols. I can write an essay and you could give a presentation. I’m particularly intrigued by the use of weather in the—”

“Or... we could do something a little more original.”

She blinked. “Okay...” She scanned her list for a more creative idea. “We could focus on Macbeth’s evolving character. There’s a lot to work with there.”

“What else ya got?”

She pursed her lips. “You’re being awfully difficult for someone without any ideas at all.”

“Keep them coming. I’m sure you can do better.”

She glared at him before dropping her gaze once again to her notes. “We could translate the play into modern vernacular. I guess we could do the translation together, then act out a scene for the class.”

“Everybody’s going to act out a scene. We should do something different.”

She snapped her folder shut. “Fine. Let’s hear all your great ideas.”

He leaned his elbows onto the table, his shoulder brushing hers. “I could build a model of the Globe Theatre.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it again. Okay, not bad. “That sounds like a big commitment. We only have a month and all our other finals to worry about, not to mention extracurriculars.”

“No problem. I’m good at building stuff. It won’t take me long.”

“And what would I do?”

“The Globe has an interesting history. Did you knowShakespeare was part owner? That they hung daily flags to represent what genre they were performing that day? Or that it burned down after some cannons were fired during a performance ofHenry the Eighth?”

It irked her that she’d known only one of those things. Still, it was a decent idea. “So you’re suggesting I write a paper on the Globe and you build the model?”

He lifted one of those broad shoulders. “What do you think?”

“I guess it would work...”

But what if he botched the model? Sure, academics came easily to him—sometimes she swore he had a photographic memory. She never saw him studying, not even in study hall.

But she couldn’t afford a bad grade on this project. Alicia Wallace and her 4.22 GPA were on both their heels. “What if we worked on both of them together—the model and the essay? We’d have to coordinate our schedules, but I’m sure we could make it work.”

---