Anyone But You Part 7

"You want an infection?"

"I want a painkiller."

He laughed. "Quit your b.i.t.c.hin' and let me fix you up."

Despite my protests, I sort of liked the feel of Scott's fingertips on my face. Plus, he was still shirtless, so I was getting an up-close-and-personal view of the fine black hair skimming the nicely defined muscles of his chest. The only thing I didn't like about this scene was the locale (i.e., Casa de Louten). Thankfully, His Royal Russ-ness was still bunkered down from the night, so it was almost like Scott and I had the place to ourselves.

"It hurts," I moaned.

"Here," he said, offering me his other hand. "Squeeze it."

I squeezed as hard as I could-at first. But the more he talked, the more I loosened my grip. Eventually there was no squeezing involved, and we were simply holding hands.

"You know," he said, "you were looking pretty good out there. Got a lot of air between you and the ground."

"Thanks."

"You're right about that board, though. It's definitely seen better days."

"I know," I said. "But skating's an expensive hobby. And Layla-that's my mom-she says my grades aren't high enough for me to spend time working when I should be studying."

He c.o.c.ked his head. "So pull up the grades. You have to work if you want to support your habit."

How many times had Jesse said the exact same thing to me? And how many times had those words made me feel super defensive and more than a little p.i.s.sed off? Now I just felt ashamed, like Scott thought I was some kind of stupid slacker girl.

He tossed the soiled cotton ball into the bathroom's wastebasket and let go of my hand. "Let me see that elbow."

I thrust it upward and said, "I'm not dumb, you know."

"No one said you were."

"I meant about the grades. School's stupid. I hate the people and I'm always bored."

Scott smiled patiently, somehow avoiding the look of condescension that usually went with that sort of smile. "You do what you have to do, right? I mean, don't you ever think about going to college?"

"Not really." My eyes narrowed into full-on squint position. "How old are you, anyway?"

"I'll be eighteen in September."

"And do you ever think about going to college?"

"Already been," he said. "Evergreen State. Just finished my first year."

"At seventeen?"

"I'm a nerd," he said, almost sheepishly. "My mom had me in kindergarten when I was four, and I tested out of my senior year in high school."

"Oh."

The brainiac finished with my elbow and tapped on my banged-up knee. "Evergreen's a really progressive liberal arts school. Lots of hands-on stuff, less time spent talking theory. I almost never get bored."

I rolled my eyes. "Are you trying to recruit me?"

"Yes," he said. "That's exactly what I'm trying to do. I totally get off on converting people to the Cult of Formal Education." He punctuated the sentence by squeezing my non-hurt knee, so even though I wanted to be annoyed, all I could really do was smile.

He asked me if I'd had breakfast and I told him no. "Well, pretty girl, this is your special day. We've got a brand-new box of Lucky Charms sitting in the pantry."

Automatically I reached up to tug on a dreadlock, forgetting for a second that I no longer had any hair. Pretty girl? Not me.

"I cut my hair," I blurted out.

"Really? You did?" I was about two seconds from being crushed when a big grin spread across Scott's face. "I'm kidding. I think it's really cute."

"Cute?"

"Yeah, it makes your eyes stand out. You couldn't see how pretty they are behind all that blue hair."

There was that word again. Pretty. But I wasn't a pretty girl. At least, I'd never thought of myself as one.

My stomach did a flip-flop. Danger, Will Robinson. I had a feeling I shouldn't get too excited about a seventeen-year-old genius boy who went to college three thousand miles away, even if he could skate.

"You never mentioned why you're here for the summer," I said. "I can't imagine your cousin's charms are the draw."

He nodded. "I was waiting for you to ask that question."

"And?"

"Well . . . I was supposed to spend the summer in Austin, with my girlfriend."

Girlfriend?

"Ex-girlfriend," he corrected himself. "Her uncle's an indie filmmaker shooting his first full-length feature. We were going to work on the set, do some grunt work."

"So what happened?"

"I walked in on her having s.e.x with my roommate."

"Oh." It took a minute for his words to sink in. "Oh," I said again. Genius Skater Boy was actually Genius Skater Rebound Boy.

"Look," Scott said, "there's nothing going on between Katja and me. I'm almost completely over it."

Katja. Now that was the name of a pretty girl. "If you're so over it," I said, "why did you have to come all the way to Delaware to heal your broken heart?"

"What was I supposed to do? Sit at home and mope? I'd already bought my plane ticket to Austin. I didn't want it to go to waste, so . . ."

I sat there, totally silent. Scott poured another dose of Lucky Charms into his bowl and crunched along, staring into s.p.a.ce as I tried to sort things out. I wasn't the most experienced dater, but I had a feeling that Genius Skater Boy + recent ex-girlfriend + college three thousand miles away = disaster waiting to happen.

So we'd be friends. It wasn't like I had a ton of those, anyway.

Just then a beyond-bedheaded Russ wandered in, also naked save a pair of Incredible Hulk boxers. He took one look at me, rolled his eyes, and said, "What happened to your hair? Is that the new lesbo look?"

"p.i.s.s off," I shot back. I pushed my bowl away and hopped off the stool. "I'm leaving."

"Wait," Scott said. "Don't listen to him."

Of course, Russ wasn't the real reason I wanted to leave. He just provided the perfect excuse.

At the door Scott asked, "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"I don't know. Nothing."

"We should skate," he said. "Go to that park Russ was telling me about."

"Newport?"

"Yeah, that one."

It was tempting. I was curious about what he could do on a board, and I wouldn't mind an opportunity to show off my own killer moves. I wondered if Katja could nail a backside pivot fakie, or if she skated at all.

"Say yes," Scott said. "I promise we'll have a lot of fun."

That, I thought, is exactly what I'm afraid of.

And yet I agreed to meet him at Russ's place around nine the next day. He responded with a thousand-watt smile, which made me feel even more confused. Scott reminded me to bring my helmet and pads, and I promised I would.

I was almost through the door when he asked, "How much have you saved up for that new board?"

"Not much," I admitted.

"Can you get at least fifty by tomorrow?"

"I don't know-why?"

" 'Cause I think it's time we built you a new one. In the meantime, leave this one here and I'll see if I can salvage anything from it, okay?"

I walked home, half dazed. Now that I'd left my board with him, there was no way I could flake out on our skate plans. And then there was the money thing. I didn't actually have any saved, and I had no idea where I was going to get that kind of cash so quickly. The only person I could possibly ask was Jesse, and he was pretty tightfisted. But how could I pa.s.s up the chance to have a custom-made, virgin board? Even if the guy who offered to make it was only interested in hanging out with me because he'd had his heart stomped on by some girl named Katja?

The answer was, I couldn't.

It was just before eleven, and Jesse wouldn't be home until four. This left me five hours to figure out how to convince him to cough up the dough. Under normal circ.u.mstances, I'd go to Critter and ask him to help me cook up a plan. But these were not normal circ.u.mstances.

For the first time in a long, long while, I was on my own.

critter.

Infatuation.

I was fairly relieved when Sea took off on her own. She was wearing some two-sizes-too-small T-shirt, practically forcing my eyes to home in on "the girls," and all I could think was I'm going to turn into a pillar of salt.

But then I realized that everyone else was at work, and that the only other summer-school loser I knew had just abandoned me. Boredom wasted no time setting in.

It was the perfect time to call Sarah. Except, of course, she was probably at work, too. Or was she? I picked up the cordless and dialed her number. She answered after three rings.

"Hold on a second," she said, instead of h.e.l.lo. Then there was a long period of silence, followed by "Okay, I'm back. Who is this?"

"It's Critter," I said. "Are you busy?"

"Hey! Not really-I was just testing the water."

"Water?"

"Duh. I'm at work. You called my cell?"

"Right, right." More silence. "If this is a bad time, I could call you later."

"No," she said, "it's the perfect time. I'm so totally bored right now."

"Yeah? Me too."

"Too bad you're not here. We could, you know, entertain each other."

Alrighty then. "So when are we hanging out?"

"Hanging out, or going out? Because I thought we already had this discussion."

Her voice was playful, so I pressed on. "I'm just talking about food and a film. But you can call it whatever you want."

She laughed. "You're not going to stop until I say yes, right?"

"Would you want it any other way?"

When she didn't respond immediately, I thought I'd overplayed my hand. Then she said, "I get off at five tomorrow. You want to meet me here?"

"Sounds good," I said.

"Then it's settled," she said. "Look, I've got to get going. But I've been meaning to ask you something."

"Shoot."

"Why do they call you Critter?"

"Jesse had some speech problems when he was little," I explained. "For some reason, it stuck. My real name's Christopher, but now no one ever calls me that."