The Match Makers: Love Quiz #3

by Dallen, Maggie

  Crap.

  I didn’t mean it like that.

  “Your swimming,” I said as my cheeks burnt to a crisp. “Your swimming looked good.”

  I dropped my gaze because I couldn’t quite meet Dane’s amused stare. I could even feel Danielle watching me on my right.

  “You think I look good, huh?” Dane’s tone was all cocky arrogance and merciless amusement.

  I hated him. It was official. I truly hated Dane Foster.

  With a huff, I rolled my eyes and held up the notebook I’d been using for our psych project. “Can we just get this over with?”

  Dane took a step closer until he was so close I could see the water droplets that hadn’t been swiped away by his towel and which were now dripping down in rivulets in the crazy ripped creases of his pecs.

  Pecs that were way too close to me right now.

  “Edie, if you want to be alone with me, you just have to say so.”

  I heard Danielle’s nervous giggle beside me. She wanted to be in on a joke with him, particularly if it was at my expense. But she didn’t like him teasing about us being a thing.

  I didn’t much care for it either. I glared up at him. “You’re an idiot.”

  “But you love me.” His grin was maddening.

  “I guess I'll just…” Danielle hesitated and Dane and I both glanced over to see what she would say.

  Her smile looked strained and her demeanor wary. “I guess I’ll see you later?”

  Ugh. My heart went out to the girl at the hopeful look in her eyes when she said this to Dane. I hated the way her voice went up at the end like it was a question because she was so uncertain.

  I hated it because I could feel it. I wasn’t a terribly empathetic person, but when it came to this girl and this boy and this feeling—I knew it well.

  My gut heaved at the memory of how it had felt to have a crush on the great and beautiful Dane Foster.

  It had been the best…and then the worst.

  Never again.

  That was the first and last time I’d let myself get so boy-crazy about anyone. Now I tended to spend time with boys based on common interests and a shared respect. Granted, I hadn’t dated anyone seriously ever, but when I did, I’d choose with my head and not my heart.

  And great pecs would have nothing to do with the equation whatsoever.

  “Yup, see you around,” Dane said, already turning away from poor Danielle to face me.

  Poor Danielle.

  That’s all I could think as I watched her walk away.

  “So, should we stay here or do you want to go to the library?” he asked. “Or, even better, we could go grab a bite at the diner.”

  I was still staring at the door where Danielle had disappeared.

  “Are you hungry? Because I’m starving. I need some food—”

  “What you need is a shirt.” I whipped around to face him, not even enjoying his stunned expression at my anger. That flood of humiliation and hurt that should have been a distant memory was back and as vivid as when I’d first experienced it.

  “Excuse me?”

  I frowned up at him. “Put your shirt on and then meet me at the exit.”

  “Umm…” He looked around in confusion. “Am I missing something here?”

  “No.” Yes! I turned around to gather my things and tried to gain some control. How could he not see how callous he was when that girl so clearly liked him? I wanted to call him out on it but was that my place? If the situation was reversed I’d kill Danielle if she spoke up on my behalf. It was her business if she liked him or not, and if she hadn’t told this dope what he should have already guessed, then who was I to—

  Oh screw it. I whipped around to face him. “How can you be so insensitive?”

  He blinked a couple times as he backed away from me. “What are you talking about, crazyface?”

  I jabbed a finger into his chest and instantly regretted it because some primal part of my brain that didn’t care that I was way up on my righteous high horse had gone and taken note of just how hard that muscle was beneath my finger.

  It was so hard my finger hurt.

  Crap. I clutched it tightly in my other hand to keep from wringing it out and causing a scene.

  “I’m talking about your callous insensitivity,” I said. Even to my own ears, my voice was coming out shrewish like a schoolmarm. “You have to see that the girl likes you.” I waved a hand toward the spot where Danielle had stood. I was standing up for Danielle, yes, but I couldn’t deny that seventh grade me was shaking with rage somewhere deep inside. “You’re not an idiot, Dane.”

  “Thank you?” He eyed me oddly as he scratched the back of his neck, still clearly perplexed but visibly amused, as well.

  If he even thought about laughing at me right now…

  My fists clenched at my sides and his eyes widened as his gaze dropped to my hands warily. “Could we just back it up a second?”

  He placed his hands on my shoulders slowly. Gently. Almost…tentatively. Like he was giving me space to jerk away if his touch was unwanted.

  It was unwanted.

  And yet I couldn’t pull away.

  I glared up at him instead, my lungs struggling to pull in air, because now that chlorine smell was replaced by his smell, and that was worse.

  Better, but…worse.

  Oh, you know what I mean.

  “Look, I don’t know what I did to make you so angry, but I’d like to talk about it.” I waited for him to laugh after he said it, but he didn’t. He just kept staring at me like he could read something in my eyes.

  I blinked and glanced away. I hadn’t meant to freak out on him, and even if I had, he wasn’t supposed to be so nice about it. It was hard to cling to anger when he was all reasonable and calm like that.

  Stupid jerk.

  “I just don’t think you should lead people on, that’s all.” I sounded horrifyingly prim. Resoundingly proper.

  I was exactly the sort of type A, know-it-all, goody-two-shoes everyone made me out to be. I held back a sigh of irritation. I was just fine with myself. I liked who I was. But sometimes I wished I could be different.

  Or no, that wasn’t quite right.

  Sometimes I wished somebody else liked me the way I was, too.

  I was staring down at my feet, stewing over that maudlin thought when Dane spoke. “You’re right.”

  My head snapped up in surprise. “What?”

  He gave me a ridiculously cute look of chagrin. Crap, it was hard to remember how much I hated this egotistical jerk when he looked all rueful like that.

  “You’re right,” he said again, and I’d be darned if my heart didn’t sing at the sound of those two words. No one ever said those words to me.

  “I know she’s into me and I shouldn’t lead her on,” he said. His gaze dropped to his feet. “I’m just not sure how to tell her I don’t feel the same way.”

  I stared at the top of his head. “You could start by not flirting with her.”

  “I don’t—” he started, but he cut himself off with a sigh when his head lifted and his gaze met mine. “Okay, fine. Maybe I do. I don’t mean to, though.”

  The way he said it, looking at me all intensely like that. I wondered if this was the closest I’d get to an apology for the way he’d hurt me back in junior high.

  For the first time in years I wondered if his rejection had been unintentional like it had been with Danielle. Maybe he hadn’t meant to lead me on, either. Maybe I’d been holding a grudge for all the wrong reasons.

  I won’t need to ask her to dance. She’ll come to me.

  Or maybe not.

  Dane hadn’t just rejected me. He’d made me believe that he liked me first. He’d made me think that I wasn’t a freak. That I wasn’t a weirdo who’d never fit in. He’d made me believe that there might be one person out there who wasn’t afraid of me or making fun of me or intimidated by me or turned off by my personality…

  I shifted so I was half turned away fro
m him. “Don’t say all that to me,” I said stiffly. “You should say it to Danielle.”

  He was quiet for a second and then I heard his exhale. “You’re right,” he said, amusement lacing his voice. “Again.”

  That made my lips quirk up despite the old memories. I supposed I’d never tire of hearing those words.

  “Go put your shirt on,” I said, but with less heat this time. “I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”

  A little while later we were at the diner behind the school, per Dane’s request. I watched him inhale a chef’s salad as I picked at my chicken fingers.

  We were both staring rather morosely at the notebook between us. “This is a disaster,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” Dane said, but he sounded like he was trying to convince himself. “We’ve only just begun with the experiment.”

  I hitched my lips to the side. He wasn’t wrong. We weren’t far into the experiment—however, we didn’t have much time, either.

  “Anna’s data is still pairing her with Danny Derkman,” I pointed out, as if he wasn’t looking at the same results.

  “Poor Anna.” Dane gave a grimace of distaste. Danny Derkman’s big claim to fame was that he was known to eat his own boogers. So yeah…poor Anna. She was a sweet girl, if slightly odd.

  “It was a stretch to pair her with Zach,” I said. “But then again, that was the whole point.”

  We stared at one another glumly, each of us waiting for the other to have some brilliant plan, I supposed.

  He shrugged. “All we can do is suggest that they step it up.”

  “True.” I nodded, toying with the fries that had come with my appetizer. “They’ve only gone out twice so far, and neither date was terribly romantic. Plus, they need to be more active online.”

  “We’ll talk to them in class on Monday.”

  I nodded, trying to ignore the weird flicker of happiness that came along every time he talked like this—like we were a team. After years of being on opposite sides of just about everything, it felt odd to be working together. Odd, but not bad. Maybe even kind of…nice.

  “What about Rex and Jessica?” he asked.

  I loved the fact that he asked. Like he was honestly interested in hearing my opinion and not just waiting to tell me what he thought. In my experience, guys were forever trying to mansplain things, even in classes where I got the higher grades.

  I’d always liked that about Dane—the way he treated me with intellect and respect. The way he’d always treated me as an equal.

  Ugh. I needed to get a grip. This guy says ‘you’re right’ a couple of times and it’s like he’s set loose my inner junior high crush. It was humiliating and it had to stop.

  “We’re not really failing with Rex and Jessica,” I pointed out. The app still paired them together, the only problem was…they weren’t exactly falling for the people we’d set them up with, either.

  “We could try pairing them with new people,” Dane suggested.

  I shook my head. “Too late for that. And besides, Missy Gardner and Tommy Miller were our number one picks. We both agreed on them.”

  He nodded, his expression so serious, so…ugh, so attractive. Why did he have to look so good when he was serious? His cocky grin was easy to hate. But when he was focused like me?

  Gah! His intensity was my kryptonite. It made my own intensity feel somewhat normal.

  “Have you noticed that he and Jessica have been acting strange?” he asked.

  I nodded. That was my concern, too. They hadn’t been talking and laughing in the halls as much as usual, it seemed. They hadn’t been joined at the hip. Word was, they were in some sort of fight, which would ruin the results if it kept up.

  “We need to talk to them,” I said. “Make sure they understand that they need to keep up their normal relationship while going on the dates we set up for them.”

  “Agreed,” Dane said. “I’ll talk to Rex at school this week.”

  I nodded. “I’ll talk to Jessica.”

  We had a plan, at least. And it seemed as though they were trying with their dates, so I couldn't fault them there. They were being good sports about being set up on blind dates. All four of them were, actually.

  Mr. Portman’s comment came back to me and I felt a flicker of guilt. “Do you think he was right?”

  Dane didn’t so much as blink. “Mr. Portman?”

  I nodded, shifting uncomfortably because the more we worked together on this project, the more I noticed how in synch we seemed to be.

  It was annoying.

  And kind of awesome.

  Also, it was confusing. It led to feelings of intimacy that had no place between two people who were referred to as frenemies at the best of times.

  Dane crossed his arms and leaned back in the booth. “I think it’s possible he was onto something.”

  I narrowed my eyes and watched him closely. There was more going on beneath the surface than he was letting on.

  “You think it’s unfair that we’re not taking part in the experiment?” I furrowed my brow as I doodled on the edge of the notebook as defensiveness crept into my voice. “We’re doing our share. We’re writing the paper and strategizing, and—”

  “Hey.” It wasn’t his voice but his hand on mine that had the words freezing in my throat. “You don’t have to justify our hard work to me. I’m right there with you.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I just meant, I get where he’s coming from. You and I…” His eyes traveled over my face, seeing everything. Seeing way too much. “We have a tendency to stand apart, you know?”

  My throat closed up because—yeah, I did know. I just didn’t know that he knew. I mean, it made sense. We were similar like that. We were both leaders—admired, appreciated, and sometimes feared. But never really a part of the action.

  But there was one big difference between us.

  “It’s not the same for you,” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

  He arched a brow. “Isn’t it?”

  “No, you’re…” I waved a hand. “You.”

  “Very well said.” His lips quirked up in a smirk.

  I huffed. “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t, actually.”

  I tilted my head slightly, trying to gauge if he was being sincere.

  He was.

  “You’re popular,” I said stiffly. “Everyone loves you.”

  He frowned. “You’re popular, too.” His expression lightened when he arched his brows. “We have the same group of friends, if you’ll recall.”

  “Yes, but—” I sighed. Was he really going to make me spell it out?

  He was.

  “They love you,” I said. “They put up with me.”

  “That’s not true.” He seemed so earnest, so…so offended on my behalf, I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. Did he really not see it or had he just chosen this moment to suddenly be nice to me?

  He leaned forward in his earnestness and his hold on my hand tightened. I tried to resist the urge to pull away from his touch. It was too hot, too firm, too…Dane.

  “It is true,” I said. I held up the hand that wasn’t being held hostage and started ticking off the names I regularly heard being bandied about—sometimes behind my back, but more often right to my face by my friends. “I’m a tyrant, a dictator, a know-it-all, a strong personality,” I said that last one with an eye roll because that was how my parents and teachers described me. Like my personality was a teabag that had been allowed to steep for too long. I sighed as I continued. “Let’s see, I’m a control freak, I’m type A—”

  His laugh cut me off and I was torn between amusement and annoyance. I hated that he wasn’t taking me seriously, but that laugh… It was low and husky and…sexy.

  It was also infectious.

  “I don’t hear you trying to deny it,” I said.

  He shrugged. “What’s to deny? You are type A, and you’d be the first to admit it.”


  I pressed my lips together in annoyance, because…well, because he was right. It wasn’t like I’d believe him if he tried to fight me on it.

  He squeezed my hand. “And you are a leader, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  Says the guy who called me a control freak and laughed at me with his friends.

  I tugged my hand out from his and he let me go. “I’m a leader, too,” he said. “We’re similar like that.”

  “Yeah, but you’re a guy.”

  “So?”

  “So, it’s different, and don’t pretend it’s not. Guys are called strong while women are called bossy. People don’t mind a forceful guy, but with a high school girl…?” I arched my brows meaningfully as my words trailed off.

  The silence stretched too long and I started to regret having started this conversation in the first place. I knew what he thought of me. I knew what they all thought of me. I wasn’t sure what I’d thought I’d accomplish by spelling it out for him.

  He watched me quietly and when he spoke it was with all the somber gravity of a politician making his campaign promises. “People are dumb.”

  A laugh escaped before I could stop it. It came out in a rush of air and an awkward coughing sound as I tried to swallow the fry in my mouth.

  His answering grin was a thing of legends. It was gorgeous. It transformed his already handsome face into the visage of a model.

  Or a politician. I was back to the politician comparison again because—I swear, Dane Foster was the guy I’d vote most likely to be president. A U.S. Senator, at the very least.

  “Yeah, well…” I shrugged. “Dumb or not, it’s not exactly fair, but it’s the way things are. You’re beloved for being so charismatic and I’m tolerated because they fear me.”

  “They don’t fear you.”

  I stared at him.

  “Okay, fine. Maybe some of them fear you.”

  I stabbed my straw into my cup over and over with too much vigor, making the ice rattle. “You don’t.”

  It slipped out before I could stop it.

  He laughed so hard it was once again impossible not to join in.

  “Me? Scared of you?” He tossed his straw wrapper in my direction and I swatted it away.

  I knew he wasn’t scared of me. He’d never been intimidated by me, not even when we were kids and I was the bossy girl in our class and taller than him by a solid inch—which had seemed like a lot back then.