Schooled

by Piper Lawson

  I looked at him warily. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but have you done this before? Or is this just some macho guy thing?”

  Ava intervened. “Dylan’s actually pretty good with engines. He pretty much rebuilt the Mustang from the ground up, and he used to fix Ethan’s bike all the time.” Dylan looked slightly surprised she’d backed him up, but it seemed like they were on better terms lately. He turned to me expectantly and I nodded.

  “Great. Thanks.”

  Sure enough, Dylan knocked on the door at eight at night. Ava alerted me to his arrival by shouting up the stairs.

  “I’ll be right there!”

  I pulled on shoes and wrapped a soft sweater around me and went down. Dylan was taking up most of the doorway¸ and I almost stopped in my tracks at the sight of him.

  He was less Abercrombie than rebel today, in a threadbare black hoodie and dark jeans. The combination was striking. With the sun almost down and darkness creeping in, he looked like the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to run into in an alley at midnight. But his dark looks didn’t scare me. It would be better if they did.

  I grabbed my keys off the hook in the foyer and squeezed past where he was standing in the door frame.

  “You’re like a magic genie. Giving rides, fixing cars.”

  “Don’t get used to it. You’ll owe me big time for this.”

  “I thought we were friends!”

  “We are friends. But having been friends for all of four weeks, this goes beyond the call of duty.”

  “If you can get it running again, you can have anything you want.” I said it flippantly. He walked around to the front of the car where he’d left a toolbox.

  “Let me at it.”

  I popped the hood for him, tried starting it. Nothing.

  Dylan leaned over, bracing himself with one strong arm as he started fiddling under the hood. I stepped out of the car and closed the door. The stupid convertible had been a bad idea, me rebelling against my mom and Grant as much as buying something I wanted. Another reason not to go with impulse buys. It occurred to me out of nowhere that kissing Dylan that first night had been another stupid impulse.

  Thankfully it was fading from my memory the more time we spent together. I could enjoy almost an entire hour in his company without fixating on his hands, or mouth, or anything else. It was progress.

  I leaned against the side of the car while he worked. If he didn’t know what he was doing, he was a hell of an actor.

  Dylan’s face was a mask of concentration. His hair fell across his forehead, but for once he ignored it. His hands were strong and sure as they moved.

  “Are you just going to watch me?” His voice in the darkness surprised me. I could watch him all night but wasn’t about to say it.

  “Yup. Consider it my insurance.”

  I thought I saw a corner of his mouth quirk up, but it was hard to tell in the low lighting. “In that case, will you at least entertain me while I work?”

  “Maybe you should be entertaining me. This car fixing stuff isn’t my thing.” I smiled sweetly as he glanced in my direction.

  “What’d you have in mind?”

  I thought for a moment. Still not sure he was going to grant me an all-access pass, I figured I may as well start somewhere. I chose my words carefully.

  “You said at the party that I didn’t know you. If we’re going to be friends for more than four weeks, which I think I’d like, what else should I know? I mean, I know you’re smart enough to be here on scholarship and you made prom king despite … whatever it was that ultimately landed you in rehab.” I know you’re a pretty decent guy, and hot enough that you should have a warning label tattooed on your forehead.

  He let out a breath that might’ve been a laugh or a sigh. “I’m glad you think my academic and social status define me. You also know I can fix a car.” He stood up and scratched his neck, leaving a smudge of black across it.

  “Actually, I don’t. So far all you’ve done is move some things around, make assessing noises, and get dirt all over yourself.”

  He looked over, his eyes thoughtful, and gestured to me. “Oh yeah? Come here.” I moved over to join him at the front of the car and looked down into the engine. But instead of focusing under the hood, he turned and took a step toward me. In an instant, Dylan’s body was nearly pressed up against mine, dark fathomless eyes looking straight into my soul in that disconcerting way they did. My traitorous mind switched into hyperawareness, feeling the warmth of his body, his hard planes so close. Every inch of my skin was instantly and intimately aware of every inch of his. I wanted to sway toward him and bring us into contact. Instead I swallowed.

  To anyone who happened to be looking our way, which I prayed to God there wasn’t, it would’ve looked like we were in some kind of embrace. This was not helping my Dylan detox plan.

  Dylan slowly reached out to touch my face. Ran a thumb gently from near my ear, down my jaw to my chin. My eyes dropped to his lips and I shivered all the way to my toes. My mouth fell open, needing to tell him—what? To stop? To hurry the hell up and take me against the side of the car before my brain caught up with us?

  Then he flashed an uncharacteristically broad smile and my trance was broken.

  “There. Now we’re both dirty.” Huh? My brain finally clicked on again. Forcing my legs to move, I walked around to look in the driver’s side mirror. Saw a smudge of grease that ran the length of my face.

  Ass.

  I tried to rub it off on the back of my hand and only proceeded to make myself dirtier in the process. He was making fun of me. My own sexual frustration converted smoothly to anger at his antics. “Clearly you’re doing just fine yourself. I’m going inside. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Oh come on, Lex,” he implored. “It was a joke. Stay. I can’t help it, you’re just so teasable. Besides, I might do something stupid if left to my own devices.”

  I paused.

  “Sorry if that was against the rules. Remember the whole ‘start fresh’ thing? I’m still trying to figure out who I am. Cut me some slack.”

  I huffed out a breath and he continued. “We were having a conversation. In fact I think it’s your turn.”

  “What do you mean? You didn’t answer—”

  But he plowed on.

  “I know your dad left when you were young. I know you want to start a clothing line with my sister. I know you’re a pretty great kisser. What else should I know if we’re going to be friends?” He was so matter-of-fact I almost thought I’d misheard him. I flushed, but his eyes seemed focused on the car. If he’d turned them on me at that moment I probably would’ve gone an even darker shade of red. But the very fact that he’d snuck that in did something to soothe my hurt ego.

  “There’s not much to know about me. I’m an open book.”

  “Bullshit. You’ve got more layers than an onion.”

  I didn’t know whether to be pleased or irritated. “Oh yeah? Well you have more secrets than the FBI.”

  “Then I guess we’re even. That guy. Jake, right? Tell me about him.” Dylan smoothly switched topics.

  “There’s not much to tell. We started dating in high school.”

  “And he was dreamy?” He drawled the last word.

  “Yep. Jake was the golden boy. Most girls in high school are drawn to that.”

  “You don’t strike me as ‘most girls.’” He said it with imaginary air quotes around the final two words.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that you’d get bored with a guy like that. One who’s too straight-laced and predictable.” I’d never thought much about it before. Was there such a thing as too perfect?

  “I still couldn’t resist at seventeen.”

  Dylan grunted with effort as he unscrewed something under the hood. The sound made my body tighten. Down, girl.

  “And what about now?” he asked, his voice tight from the muscles working in his arms and chest.

  “What do you mean?
”

  The bolt came free and he glanced toward me as he unscrewed it without looking. “What can’t you resist now?”

  “Caffeine.”

  “No. You know what I mean.” It felt like he was testing the friend boundaries again and I didn’t know why. Particularly after he’d been so careless about our proximity a few minutes before.

  “Alright. I guess I can’t resist guys who know who they are, and what they want. Most people don’t.” For some reason I rushed to add, “but like I said, I’m not dating.”

  He seemed to think about it for a minute but went back to work on the car. I took the opportunity to jump in.

  “My turn again. Why do you have such a bad reputation?”

  His voice sounded more guarded when he spoke again, but it might have just been muffled by the hood. “I don’t know.”

  “Really? I get that the rehab thing might have been …” I searched for an appropriate word. “… polarizing. But what about the rest? The partying, the girls. Why does everyone think you’re such a player when you’re not?”

  Dylan’s hand paused for a moment, but he didn’t look up. “People see what they want to see.”

  “Maybe for a while. But don’t people eventually see you as you are? People you’ve known for a long time? Friends?”

  “Sometimes. Not always.”

  “How can your friends think you’re partying, sleeping with everything in a skirt, and doing drugs when you’re not?”

  “It’s complicated. I never said I was a saint. Just that I didn’t do some of those things.”

  “Maybe it’s because you act the way people expect you to act.” I was being more ballsy than usual and didn’t know why.

  “Or maybe because they’re not real friends. They just want to be friends with the person they think you are.”

  “Is that why you wanted a clean slate? Not because of the whole rehab thing, or what people knew about you, but because you didn’t have any friends you actually cared about? Or who cared about you?”

  Finally he twisted something off, looked inside. “Can you get me a cloth or something?”

  I ran inside and brought back out a floral hand towel. He raised his eyebrows as I handed it to him. Our fingers touched, but I pretended not to notice. “I’m afraid we don’t do much auto repair in these here parts,” I added in my best southern belle accent. Taking the cloth, he scrubbed at the part he’d twisted off, replaced it in the engine.

  “Try it again.” I slipped behind the wheel and sure enough, it started. Dylan closed the hood with a thud.

  I raised my eyebrow.

  “Distributor cap,” he said, putting his tools back into the toolbox. He walked around to the trunk to drop them back in his car. “No big deal.”

  “Wait,” I called. “You didn’t answer my question.” The more I found out about him the more I realized I didn’t know. And the more I wanted to know. Guys were not supposed to be this mysterious at his age. I know Jake hadn’t been.

  Dylan was walking to the driver door when he shot me a half-smile. “I know. Rain check.” He closed the door after him and leaned his head out the window. “And Lex? You still owe me.”

  Chapter 9

  That Wednesday Dylan picked me and Ava up to grab dinner after class with some of his roommates. Jane was going to meet us there. Mostly I was curious to see what sort of guys Dylan lived with.

  Kent and the infamous Rick were both juniors. Rick was a geography major, which apparently left him sufficient time to pursue his athletic and social interests, while Kent was in engineering like Dylan. Both Ava and I had heard far too many intimate details of Rick’s life to be interested in sharing so much as a straw with him, but Ava seemed to have a very different opinion of Kent.

  I couldn’t blame her. Kent was quintessential California. Blond hair and a rugged jaw topped off a surfer body. He looked like he lived on salt water and sunshine and was born to run beaches shirtless. Apparently he did all that and managed to keep up in engineering courses. At least enough so that he made passing grades, though from what Dylan had said Kent definitely wasn’t top of his class.

  Over burgers and fries Kent regaled us with stories of a surfing trip to Costa Rica he’d taken with his family the year before. Ava was practically drooling in his cola as he described their activities. I thought at one point she was going to ask him to strip and act it out.

  At Ava’s insistence, our “no dating until launch” policy didn’t extend to cover one-time, no-strings hookups. If her current actions were any indication, she was ready to fully exploit the fine print.

  “I’ve heard the girls there are hot. Are they hotter than American girls?” Ava’s eyes were big and her hand reached out to graze his arm. She was about as subtle as a flashing neon sign spelling out DO ME in lime green halogen.

  Kent, sitting across from me, seemed oblivious and was probably used to the attention. And, being hit on by Ava wasn’t a hardship. “Yeah, the girls in Costa Rica are pretty great, but compared to Cali girls?” He turned to look at me, flashed a toothpaste commercial smile. “It’s no contest.” Whoa, boy.

  It was flattering, but I tripped on the irony. Ava and I looked nothing like your typical beach babes. Her dark coloring and my red hair and gray eyes would get us kicked off a music video set faster than you could say “peroxide.” Still, Ava was all kinds of beautiful, and she clearly liked him. I was confident she’d have him wrapped around her finger by the time the bill arrived.

  Jane arrived late and squeezed in next to me, across from Rick. I shifted closer to Dylan to give her more room. My leg brushed his and I didn’t feel the urge to jump back. He didn’t seem to have noticed.

  Despite a few tense moments Monday by my car, I was getting better at relaxing around him. It was a good thing because I’d have to if we were going to be friends.

  Rick was trying to impress Jane with dismal results. He seemed to be running out of things to ask her after having established she wasn’t into football, rock concerts, or parties. Though he didn’t seem to be doing anything too outrageous, his reputation was enough to send my conservative friend into lockdown mode. After she shot me a couple of “help me!” looks, I headed to the restroom, nodding for her to come with me, so we had a reason to switch places when we got back to the table.

  By the time we returned the conversation had moved to partying. “So this girl Kelsey, ass like a stripper, and—”

  “Lex, I want to hear about New York.” Dylan cut Rick off in the midst of what would have been an embarrassing disclosure for Kelsey, whoever she was. His eyes were pleading with me to fix the cringe-inducing direction the conversation had taken.

  “Sadly, there were no strippers. But I did manage to find the one apartment in the city with affordable rent and a roommate who wasn’t a rat or an alcoholic.” I’d landed half an enormous-by-NYC-standards two bedroom sublet shared with a Ukrainian student whose parents had sent her to the U.S. to model. She’d paid for more than half the rent in exchange for me helping her write letters to prospective agents.

  Nadia was six feet tall, spoke about ten words of English, and called me Lexus. Her pronunciation of that particular word was good because she’d dated a guy who had driven one. By the time we parted ways at the end of August, we were decent friends. Mostly what endeared her to me was that I never had to worry about her eating my food from the fridge.

  Talk of NYC led into a conversation about our travel inspirations, gamely held up by the others. It was a bit of a shock. New York was mecca for me, and I hadn’t considered what I’d do after I made it there.

  Jane visited China every other year to see her mom’s family. The way she talked about the country emphasized that it really was the other side of the world.

  Dylan jumped in next. “I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. Engineering has these exchanges for undergrads. You can go to Tanzania and help with infrastructure projects, like building homes and schools.” He leaned forward in the booth. “It’s pretty
unbelievable to think that you can actually change someone’s life with a few weeks and your hands.” It surprised me to see that talking about it totally lit him up. He shed the cool-Dylan skin and became a regular guy talking about something he loved.

  My stories about New York suddenly seemed dull by contrast. I’d never spent a lot of time thinking about what people in other parts of the world were facing. Realizing how much I didn’t know made me feel a bit guilty but mostly curious. My world, stretching from California to New York, had always seemed big enough, but hearing Jane and Dylan talk sparked something in me.

  When we’d nearly polished off our meals, Kent headed up to the till to use a credit card. Ava followed behind like she had him in a tractor beam.

  Rick had been in the bathroom for at least ten minutes, and I wondered if he’d picked up our waitress on the way back there. I didn’t want to know the details and was hoping he’d hitch his own ride home.

  “Thanks for dinner, guys,” Jane said. I stood up to let her out of the booth. “LSAT prep calls.”

  Just Dylan and I were left, sitting on the same side but with a nearly comfortable distance between us now that Jane was gone. He was polishing off his fries. I was craning my neck to watch the will-they-won’t-they show unfolding at the front of the diner. “I think Ava’s got her sights set on that one,” I whispered, though they probably couldn’t have heard us anyway.

  Dylan looked over for a moment, then leaned across me to grab one of my fries, having finished his own.

  “Who, Kent? She won’t have much luck.” Dylan looked at me thoughtfully as he chewed. “He’s into you. He saw you at the party last week. Hell, it’s probably why he tagged along tonight.”

  Surprise registered. “Because Kent and I have so much in common. We never even talked.” Because I spent most of the night with you.

  A wry smile surfaced. “You think attraction is based on having things in common?” Dylan shook his head once. “I thought I was supposed to be the naïve one.”

  “But come on,” I argued. “That’s like driving down the road to McDonald’s when you have an all you can eat buffet at home. You guys have stripper-types through your house every day. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s Ava, ready to—” Dylan winced and held up a hand.