not.
Or at least I don’t want to be.
It’s only when we get to the hallway that I notice Zeke’s limp.
“What’s wrong with your leg?”
It wasn’t meant as a mean comment but given its close proximity to the rest of my unpleasantness, I can certainly understand why it causes Zeke’s smile to drop, his eyes to roll up. “What’s your problem with me?” he says, taking a step away.
“I’m sorry,” I say, burying the words beneath the sound of his bright red Chucks smacking against the linoleum flooring. “I’m not good without coffee in the morning.”
He stops, breathing in and out, and something tells me it isn’t just the agitation with my bitchiness. He opens his mouth and closes it again, shaking his head. “My leg is fine,” he says, the meaning behind it loud and clear. Drop it.
And he’s right. It’s none of my business. And if I’m going to succeed in this class, I can’t be fighting with my partner. Time to make amends.
“If you wouldn’t mind helping me get some more caffeine into my body, we can plan out how we’ll get this crazy amount of work accomplished. I’ll even buy the coffee treats.” It’s an olive branch and at first I think he’s not going to take it. His eyes are wary and his shoulders are more stooped than before.
Unflappable Zeke has been flapped.
Bravo, Abby, bravo.
“Please?” I add, and he nods. I’m sure the campus coffee shop will have enough sugary treats to make a dent in his misery.
Turns out that dent requires three bagels, an extra-large iced sugary coffee confection, and a chocolate chunk cookie.
And that’s before I put in my order.
“So what did you think of class?” he asks, a thin line of chocolate on his top lip. A thin line I can’t stop staring at.
Not because it’s Zeke’s lips. Not because they’re slightly chapped but otherwise perfect boy lips. But because of the chocolate. The chocolate.
“Le chocolat,” I murmur.
“What?”
“Sorry. Just thinking.” I don’t look up, don’t check if he’s laughing at me. Because he should be. “I autotranslate in my head sometimes. Mostly when I’m bored.”
His smile, that smile that I only just reearned, drops.
Seriously? I slap my hand over my mouth and this time I do look up. Because there’s something about this boy that completely removes any of my common sense.
“I didn’t mean—”
“Dis-moi en français,” he says. Tell me in French. His eyes are laughing. Can you even say that in French? Tes yeux rient.
“Excuse-moi,” I say, now my turn to roll my eyes. Searching for the right words in French, I say: “Apparently I have foot in mouth disease in front of you.”
“Pied en bouche? Can you even use that expression in French? I’m not sure it translates like that.”
And then I’m laughing, iced coffee threatening to come back up my nose. Maybe this won’t be so bad, Zeke and I working together. Maybe we can spend all our time translating English expressions into French. And then French expressions into English. And then, we’ll be done.
“So, we’re responsible for watching six movies, logging in eighty hours of conversation in at least ten different settings, and decoding a dozen songs. And then the final project,” Zeke reads from the papers in front of him.
“Eighty hours is a lot.”
“Ten hours a week for eight weeks. Shouldn’t be too bad.”
Ten hours. In addition to the three hours a day, five days a week in class. That’s a lot of Zeke time. I mean, French time.
His phone dings and his eyes drop down to it. His thumbs tap out a message, and then he shakes his head, tossing the phone back in his bag. Where it continues to ding, and Zeke continues to ignore it.
“Should we start tomorrow? Or we can do later today. I just have to be somewhere for a few hours this afternoon.” Zeke’s mouth moves into a smile but it isn’t real. It’s tight around the edges, like he’s working hard to make it seem easy.
“Someplace fun?” I ask. I don’t know why I’m digging.
“Non.” His voice says butt out. It says none of your business.
“Après le dîner?” he asks, grabbing his bag with the dinging phone.
I notice he shakes out his leg under the table and it’s on the tip of my tongue to ask about it again, but then I decide against it. He’d tell me if he wanted to.
“My roommate and I were going to try the cafeteria around seven. So I’ll meet you outside at a quarter