the man who doesn’t love you back.
“Hey—great concert tonight!” Ellie says. “I wish I could have heard the whole thing!”
“You were there?” Dylan asks, giving me a sideways glance.
“Only for a minute,” Ellie chirps. “But I don’t have a fake ID, so we had to watch through the window!”
Oh, kill me already. I can’t even shush her, because that would make it worse than it already is. So I just sigh, instead.
Blissfully, it’s a short ride back to the dorm. “Nice chatting with you, Ellie,” Dylan says as he stops at the curb.
“The pleasure was all mine!” she says, as if we were all just out at a party together.
“I need to talk to Chastity for a second, though. Would you have a seat on the bench for a sec?”
“Sure!” she says, and then wobbles over to it.
I’m already unbuckling my seatbelt and sliding toward the open door.
“Chass, wait. I really am making caramels tonight. And I’m sorry I didn’t reach you in time to ask you to join us.”
“Us?” I ask, meeting his eyes for the first time tonight. His are brown and bottomless. And now I remember why I’ve been avoiding them.
“Me, Rickie, Keith, Daphne. For some reason Kaitlyn tagged along, and I’ve been trying to get rid of her. But if you come with me, I’ll ask her to leave.”
It’s tempting. I don’t want to be a slacker where the caramels are concerned. But I glance at Ellie, who’s playing with her bottom lip. “Didn’t you tell Ellie’s parents we’d look after her?”
“Yeah, I kind of did,” he says, wincing.
“Well, I’m going to make sure she gets to bed okay. There was some vomiting earlier.”
“I had a feeling.” He smiles at me, and my chest actually aches. “You know you can’t duck me forever, though, right?”
Busted. “I don’t suppose I can.”
He taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t know what to do, Chass. I need us not to be broken.”
“Broken?” I ask, even though the word resonates with me immediately.
“Complicated,” he tries. “I shouldn’t have been so impulsive the other night. Because look what happened. You’re not answering my calls.”
“That’s Kaitlyn’s fault,” I say. But it’s a lie. Kaitlyn put words to some things that I didn’t want to hear out loud. True things. “She’s the one who made it awkward. But it’s my fault for throwing down the challenge in the first place.”
He gives me a small smile. “Well, I didn’t really argue.”
Except he did. He’s the one who said it was a bad idea. He’s the one who said he doesn’t date. I didn’t want to hear any of that.
So if we’re broken now, I’m the one who broke us. I guess I’d better figure out how to fix it. “We’re going to work together next weekend,” I tell him. “I promise.”
“Good,” he says, giving me a tentative smile. “I’m counting on it.”
Yup. It’s going to be torture. “I’d better take Ellie inside.”
“She seems cool,” he says.
“She’s terrific.” I glance out at the spot where she’s sort of swaying on the bench. “I’m not sure cool is the right word.”
“It’s exactly the right word,” he argues. “The cool people are the ones who like you just the way you already are. She called me Farm Boy.”
“I noticed that.” It was actually Hot Farm Boy, but I’m not going to correct him.
“Like The Princess Bride,” he says. “Kaitlyn called me Farm Boy, too. But she meant it as a put-down. I’m serious, Chass. The cool people are the ones you don’t have to try to impress.”
“That’s a nice way to think about it,” I say quietly. “Ellie is the coolest, then. But I should take her inside now.”
“I know.” He leans forward and traps me in one more caramel-scented hug, while my heart beats wildly against my ribs. I will never get enough of Dylan Shipley. He is my ultimate cool person and I’m just going to have to figure out how to live with that. “You’re pretty cool yourself.”
“You don’t have to flatter me.”
“I’m not,” he says, and then he drops a kiss onto the top of my head. “Call me,” he says. “Before Friday.”
“I will,” I promise, extracting myself and then hopping off the truck’s seat and onto the curb. My skin feels too hot for a cold November night.
“Call me about algebra, too?” he asks as I’m about to shut the door.
“Maybe? Might not need help this week,” I lie. Then I close the door and give him a quick wave