“I’m dreading that moment,” I said. I wondered if I should mention the way Charly had crossed out my name on the sign-up sheet or how she’d threatened me again in the practice room hall a few weeks ago but decided not to. Nothing had come of it. Maybe nothing would come of this either.
“Don’t worry about her,” Jenn said, giving me a nudge with her elbow. “That was a glorious moment to see you ruin her shoes.”
“Glad you think so.”
Mia laughed. “One time I threw up during our family pictures. I projectile vomited all over the photographer’s equipment. We had to delay taking pictures until everything got cleaned up again and my sisters were so angry because they had their kids all spiffed up prim and perfect and ready to go and by the time we were ready to do pictures they’d gotten into the Cheetos and had smeared orange on their white shirts.”
By the time Mia finished we were all laughing. I felt infinitely better. They were right—I didn’t need to keep beating myself up over something so miniscule. And if Charly did anything to me, I’d go to the principal this time.
I made it through the remainder of the school day without any kind of confrontation with Charly or anyone else. I purposefully avoided Tate because I still wasn’t confident I could pull off our relationship under the snide scrutiny of others. I wasn’t running away, I told myself. Just giving myself time to process.
Now that classes were over, though, I had no excuses. I supposed I could shut myself in my room and focus on my neglected homework, which had become a thorn in my side and a pebble in every step I took. Honestly, I couldn’t ignore it any longer. Did no one else here have homework?
Except Tate texted me in that moment of indecision. You busy? he asked.
Looking for a reason to be, I said, giddy at having his attention.
Good. Meet me at the gym.
Now?
Eyeroll emoji. Yes, now.
I paused at my door long enough to greet the guilt of ignored homework and suppress it before heading in the direction of the gym. Several couples were enjoying their afternoon off, kissing in corners or taking strolls along the lake.
Sounds of clanking weights cut through the blasting music with a heavy bass line as I approached the conditioning gym. Near the vending machines, Charly was caught in some kind of argument with Tate. I wasn’t close enough to hear. What were they talking about?
Tate said something in a sharp tone in her direction. Her hair flounced as she stormed off. I’d thought her threat against me was over, but seeing her here now...Had she been here when Tate texted? Why would he invite me if he was with her?
Unless...
He wouldn’t plan this just to hurt me. I was convinced of that after the moment we’d shared in Dad’s basement, and the intense way he’d told me how he felt about me. There had to be some other reason. It wasn’t like just because they’d broken up they didn’t have anything to do with each other. We did all go to the same school. She was bound to bump into him now and then. Was she giving him a hard time for being my stepsibling too?
Treadmills, ellipticals, and weightlifting contraptions I couldn’t hope to know how to use stood like metal soldiers in the large area lined with mirrors. The wall’s bright green paint was interrupted with a white stripe and a large MLA logo painted in the center. A large TV blared from the ceiling, though with the booming music, the subtitles streamed across the bottom of the screen.
Guys in matching t-shirts bearing the school’s logo—like the one I’d seen Tate in the day we met—sat at various weight-lifting machines, feet braced on the floor as they pumped iron. Girls ran on treadmills, concentrating on books positioned at the head of their machines.
With Charly out of the picture, Tate hunched against the set of vending machines offering bottled water and Powerade, looking like the teenaged god of thunder. He wore the same shirt as the others but had cut the sleeves off to better display the muscles roping along his arms.
“Hey,” I said.
His hands slipped around my waist, pulling my hips to his. “Hey, you,” he said. “This is your first time in a gym, isn’t it?”
I burned under his attention. “Guilty. Want to tell me what I’m doing here?”
“Spending time with me.” He winked and plunged in to place a kiss on my neck before releasing me, turning, and guiding me down the ramp to the floor.
I wandered behind him to the lineup of dumbbells and heavy weights. “We’re total opposites,” I told him, feeling out of my element and thinking of the app Adelle and Jenn had talked about. He wanted me to be with him while he lifted weights? Did he expect me to lift them too? “This would be like me inviting you to the practice rooms to hear my voice lessons.”
Tate paused in his perusal of thin, circular weights and lobbed an impish grin that had the power to knock me over. “I like your voice. You caught me with your voice.”
I gave in to his magnetism and closed the distance between us. His arms wrapped around me. “I did not,” I said.
“Yes, you did. Then this only sealed the deal.” He kissed me again and then selected a pair of weights, placed them onto an empty bar, and settled himself on the nearest bench. Lying on his back, he faced the ceiling and reached for me. “Come here. You have to spot me. Stand here, by my head.”
I listened, standing over him so he lay in front of me. “What are you doing?”
He gripped the bar hanging over him and grinned up at me. “Trying to show you how manly I am.”
So that was why he invited me. I couldn’t say I minded. “How much weight is on these?”
“This is about two hundred. I’m starting small.”
“Two hundred is small?”
“Sure. The bar is forty-five. Then add these larger ones, a few nickels and dimes on the end, and it all adds up.” He gestured to the stack of weights on the bar’s sides. “My goal lately has been two-sixty, but I don’t know if I’ll get there. Two forty-five has been my personal best.”
I couldn’t fathom lifting that much weight. No wonder his arms looked the way they did.
He secured his hands on the bar. The weights clanked.
“Wait!” I placed my hands on his and stared down at his face. His hair wafted back from his forehead and he frowned at me. “What am I supposed to do?”
I liked this angle of his face. Looking down at him reminded me of Juliet’s balcony, though these circumstances weren’t exactly romantic.
“Just keep your hands ready in case I need you to help me with the bar. Sometimes I lift too much and can’t get it back into place.”
“How am I supposed to lift a hundred pounds?”
He laughed. His mouth looked strange upside down, but he still made my heart flap. “You don’t do it by yourself, and neither do I. That’s the point of spotting. We work together. Help each other out.”
His words struck me right in the chest. I thought again about my parents. Sunday night, before Tate offered to take me home, though Dad had apologized and we shared that moment downstairs, I hadn’t been able to meet Dad’s gaze. My mom had been under the bar, bearing the weight of our small family. Dad was supposed to have been there, to support her when the weight became too heavy. But he dogged out.
Tate’s parents too. His mom had had a huge challenge trying to raise a daughter with Down syndrome and having a son with serious heart defects. His dad should have been there, holding the bar right along with her. Instead, he’d abandoned them, leaving her to heft the weight alone.
For a fleeting moment, I was glad Laurel had been able to find someone again. I wasn’t sure if she and Dad would have any more kids, but something told me Dad was happy with her. They had each other’s spot.
If only my mom could find someone who would keep his word too. Would her latest boyfriend? Who knew, though she seemed happier with him than she’d been with any of the others.
Tate bared his teeth, his forehead pinched, and he hefted the bar from its place. Air exhaled through his lips. Gradual
ly, time and again, he lowered it to his chest only to lift it once more. I watched in fascination as his muscles bulged, his concentration deepened.
“Looking good,” I said after the first lift descended to his chest and back up again.
“Dead sexy,” I added after the next.
“You’re smoking hot,” I said the third time. “Emphasis on smoking.” It was incredibly appealing to see a man pumping iron. I found my body temperature increasing. Tate’s strength left me tempted to fan myself.
He clenched the bar, lifting it a fourth time and, with effort, settled it up onto the bar. With an exhale that was half frustrated, half charming, he glanced up at me.
“I like what you’re doing,” he said, breathing hard. “But it’s kind of distracting.”
“Oh?” I trailed a finger along his hand, still gripping the bar. “I thought I was cheering you on.”
He shook his head. “You’re making me laugh,” he said, shuffling to adjust his shirt from beneath him and then resting his hands on his chest. He rubbed a hand over his heart a few times. “I can’t laugh when I do this.”
“Not a humorous sport, I take it.” I allowed my fingers to trail down his arm.
“It’s manly, don’t you know.” He caught my hand, kissed it, and directed it back to the bar.
“Of course I do,” I said. “I was pointing out how manly you are, just like you wanted me to.”
He chuckled and repositioned himself beneath the bar. He lifted it again. The weights clanked, and then a pained groan croaked from his throat. The bar’s weight pulled me forward as Tate’s grip slackened. He clutched his chest with a gasp.
“Tate!” I shrieked.
With effort—and his strained help—I got the bar back onto its hold on the bench. Bar in place, I barreled around and knelt before him. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
Tate panted, keeping a hand to his chest and staring at the ceiling.
“Tate, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong? Did your heart...is it beating?” I realized too late what a stupid question that was. Still, I didn’t withdraw it.
“Heart hiccup,” he said. His shoulders relaxed. He inhaled deeply and rolled, elevating his torso to meet my gaze. I rested my hand on his knee, alarm screaming through me.
“I thought you said sports helped you,” I said.
“They do.” He rubbed his chest. “It’s just...every once in a while, those happen.”
This wasn’t normal at all. “How much is once in a while?”
“Not much,” he said with a sniff. The comments Dad and Laurel had made during our first dinner rumbled through my mind, as did the reminder of our conversation while flipping through our baby books.
“This is why my dad doesn’t want you playing football, isn’t it?” I asked. They’d mentioned his safety. I thought they’d been talking about a normal, healthy person’s safety, which was already at risk playing a contact sport like football. What did Tate think he was doing, playing it when he had heart problems?
Tate didn’t answer. Instead, he puffed air out through his lips before readjusting as if to settle himself back under the bar again.
“What are you doing? You can’t go back to lifting right now. Give your heart a break.”
“I’m fine. I always push through it.”
“Tate, that doesn’t sound safe.”
He rolled to his side and cradled my face, his expression matching my concern. “I told you, I get checked regularly. I just had my appointment last week. The doctor said I’m fine. He’s cleared me to keep doing what I do.”
That was why he’d gone home, why he’d been there to find our baby books. I frowned at him, but his lips stretched into a thin smile. “There’s nothing to be worried about.”
I wasn’t sure I believed him.
Chapter Fifteen
The words “pop quiz” in AP English Literature were the last things I wanted to hear. Thanks to Jenn’s party, and Tate’s distracting muscles and his heart scare, I hadn’t been able to concentrate on the mountain of homework I should have been doing. I’d spent the rest of Sunday evening with Tate—in the gym, in the bistro, locking lips in the hall outside my room. Then inside my room, without him, I’d called Camryn and my mom and then Dad too so I could talk about Tate. I was so not ready for a test of any kind.
Tate’s so-called heart hiccup occupied all my thoughts even now. One thought dominated the rest—what if it got worse?
Obviously, his surgery as a baby had fixed whatever the problem was, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to participate on the school team or do all the sports I saw pictures of him indulging in as a kid. Maybe he was right. Maybe it really was nothing to worry about.
On top of that, I couldn’t stop thinking about my last lesson with Professor Granger. We were working on an aria and she didn’t respond with her usual affirmative nods. She’d seemed more irritated with my lack of perfection than usual. Ordinarily, I had perfect pitch and could hit a note regardless of whether I heard it played first or not. But as I sang with the recordings she provided, she continuously stopped the accompaniment and had me start over again.
She then commented how disappointed she was that I hadn’t signed up for her blog feature spot. Sure enough, someone—cough, Charly probably—had erased my name from the signup form again.
Flustered, I added my name to it a third time, grateful that Professor Granger was there to witness.
And now I got a B on the pop quiz? That was enough to send me reeling over the nearest cliff, or at least to brace myself on the edge of the desk. I gaped at my paper. “A B? I never get Bs.”
“I get Bs all the time,” Jenn said from her seat beside me. She chanced a peek at Mr. Arnold, who was prattling on about the Restoration, Augustan, and Age of Johnson periods during the Neoclassical era, and lowered her voice, leaning in closer. “Come on, what’s bothering you?”
I wasn’t sure I was allowed to talk to others about it. Did anyone else know about Tate’s condition?
“Nothing. I guess it’s a good thing I’m not trying for valedictorian, I guess,” I said, thinking of Mrs. Partridge, the school secretary. Besides, I already had a few ins with the Ivy leagues if I chose to take them. Still, B was below my usual standard.
This social life business was taking its toll, but now that I had friends and a—gulp—boyfriend, I couldn’t just start ignoring everyone. The nameless faces I felt so strange around on the first day were becoming more familiar. People smiled at me, waved to me in the halls. I got invitations to group chats and dorm-room parties now. I wasn’t ready to fade back into the shadows.
The bell rang, and I relayed a portion of what was bothering me.
“Before class, I had my private lessons,” I told Jenn. “I’ve got some seriously challenging songs, and Mrs. Granger just told me I’m not anywhere near where I need to be to accomplish the range I need for the song.”
It was “The Laughing Song.” Charlotte Church performed the number on her Enchanted album, and she made it sound so easy. I was struggling getting the right feel for it, along with the necessary jumps across such a high soprano range. Why—why couldn’t I just hit the pitches?
“Sounds like you just need to devote more time to practice, that’s all,” Jenn said, hefting her bag onto her shoulder. “Speaking of which, I’d better head out there.”
“Yeah, thanks, Jenn. See you later.”
My phone buzzed with a text from Tate. Want to meet up for some study time in the library? I hear their little window alcoves are quite accommodating.
I rolled my eyes. The embodiment of my point, I thought with a chuckle. Why study when there were boys around?
For studying or kissing? I texted back.
How about both?
My tummy tingled. I was severely tempted by the idea. I’d seen the occasional pair of shoes belonging to couples who took advantage of the curtains in the library’s plentiful window seats. I never would have thought I’d experience anything like that mys
elf, but the possibility was enticing. Since kissing Tate at Dad and Laurel’s house, he’d pull me into random corners to steal a few more as we passed on our way to classes. Each and every time, the brush of his lips on mine detached my brain and lifted me to the clouds. No wonder I was turning into a space cadet lately.
Down the hall, Charly walked in close proximity to Carson. Heads bent together, I thought they might be staring at the same cell phone, but they were deep in conversation. I wouldn’t be surprised if they snuggled together in one of those curtained alcoves; they’d seemed awfully chummy lately.
“He’ll be there tonight. He’s playing linebacker for Lincoln,” Charly said quietly as they passed.
“And you think he’ll go for it?”
“Yeah, he doesn’t like him anymore than I do. Tate’s the reason it took so long for us to get together.”
My ears were on fire. Will who go for what? Were they planning something? My eyes widened, suspicion creeping along my spine. I must have drawn attention to myself because Charly cleared her throat, nudged Carson, and then glowered at me. “What are you looking at?” she snapped.
“Nothing.” I retreated a few steps.
Charly raised her voice and looped her arm through Carson’s conspiratorially. “Did you know Bailey and Tate are brother and sister and they still kiss?”
I wished I had a thousand things to spew at her in return, some quick and clever way to defend the situation between Tate and me. Instead, I stood there, fists clenching, watching them until they rounded the corner.
How many people thought the same thing she did? I shook it off, remembering Tate’s and my mom’s words. We knew the truth. So what if no one else did?
So that’s a no? Tate’s text jerked me back to our conversation.
Oh, right. I’d forgotten about his invitation to study. Shaking off Charly and Carson’s shady chat, I guided myself back into the moment. I knew exactly how much studying would get done if I agreed. And right now, my focus couldn’t be on his mouth. I’m behind on all this reading for AP English Lit. Mrs. Meyer packed it on, and we’re applying Theory to it in class tomorrow. I’ve got to get caught up.
Don't Kiss the Quarterback: Billionaire Academy YA Romance Book 5 Page 13
