“It is to me.” Not liking how petulant I sounded, I added, “Besides, I need the practice. I don’t want to get soft right before the tournament.”
“Being nice isn’t the same thing as going soft.” Turning onto a busy main road, Conrad headed back toward the interstate. “Can we get more food before we get on the highway? The stuff we had earlier has already worn off.”
“You should have taken Blake up on the dinner offer. He seemed rather determined to take you out.”
“He was just being nice.”
I had to snort at that. “Nice isn’t looking at you like you’d make an awesome dessert.”
“Okay. Maybe he was a little flirty.” Conrad’s careless shrug and pleased half smile irritated me to no end.
“You didn’t need to encourage him.”
“What the heck, man? You jealous he wasn’t flirting with you?”
“Hardly.” No way was I confessing that any jealousy, if that’s what one wanted to label it, went more the other direction. “I simply don’t want either of us getting distracted. We’ve got a lot of miles to go.”
“He wasn’t exactly my type either, but there’s nothing wrong with taking a break here and there. Life has a way of screwing people over regardless, so you might as well find fun where you can.”
I scoffed at that. “In my experience, a careful plan goes a long way to avoiding disaster.” Except of course when it didn’t, but I didn’t want to think about that right then—think about how years of planning had failed me. And maybe my big, grand plan hadn’t come to fruition, but I still believed that preparation and caution were vital character traits.
“And your experience is rather…sheltered. No offense.”
I forced myself not to sound insulted as I pointed ahead of us. “There’s a hamburger place. Get some food.”
It wasn’t until we were in the parking lot, him with a cheap burger, me with some fries, that I finally gave in to my unrelenting curiosity. “What do you mean Blake wasn’t your type? He was into you. Even I could see that.”
“Hey, I’m not that undiscriminating. A guy has to have some standards. Just because someone is available doesn’t mean I have to tap that.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly, really wanting to know what his “standards” were. I mean, I doubted they included “short, Jewish, and nerdy” as prerequisites, but I wasn’t above hoping. “He wasn’t unattractive though.”
Conrad laughed hard enough to make me fidget in my seat. “I really do need to take you to a bar or party, show you how this works. Cute isn’t everything, and you can’t let yourself be overly distracted by the packaging.”
“I don’t need…sex lessons or something.” Appetite gone, I set my fries aside.
“Yeah, you kind of do.” Conrad’s voice was light, but my muscles still clenched and I swallowed back a quick retort. “Assuming you’re into the idea of hooking up with someone eventually, we need to teach you how to pick well. Or else you’re likely to get screwed over and not in the fun way.”
“It’s all hypothetical for me anyway.” I simply couldn’t imagine a situation where his advice might help.
“Oh?” Conrad considered this. “Like you’re just not interested in sex? Or relationships? Like aromantic or something?”
I barely stifled a groan, and my voice came out more stilted and formal. “I’m not completely opposed to the concept of sex. I have considered the possibility of being somewhere on the asexual spectrum, but I don’t feel I meet the technical definition.” Looking away, I brushed crumbs off my pants.
“Is that a superpolite way of saying that you think about sex and get crushes?” Conrad laughed.
“Crushes are pointless.” I didn’t address the other part, which wasn’t wrong.
“Yeah, they are. But that doesn’t stop most people from having them.” Making a happy noise, Conrad polished off the last of his food. “And my offer still stands—I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”
“You wouldn’t?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism from my voice. I’d been under the impression Conrad wouldn’t notice if I fell under a bus. He certainly wouldn’t mind if I was replaced in our play group by someone more…personable.
“Nah. I’ve been there, man, and it sucks. I had to learn the hard way not to trust a cute face and not to believe every pickup line.”
“I’m sorry.” And I was. I didn’t like the pain in his voice and wanted to smash whomever had put it there.
Gesturing with his wrapper, he waved my attempt at compassion aside. “Anyway, time to get back on the road.”
“Yeah.” I let the conversation die, not really wanting to go into more depth about my shortcomings. It didn’t matter what sort of advice Conrad dished out—I sincerely doubted I’d ever get a chance to put it into practice. I wasn’t kidding about crushes being pointless for people like me. The few I’d indulged in had been intense, one-sided affairs that only left me feeling hopeless and like even more of a loser.
Did I want sex? Well, duh. My body wasn’t subject to the same realities as my mind. It loved the idea of sex, and while the idea of hookups with strangers did nothing for me, my body wasn’t terribly picky about what things it found appealing. So sure, sex sounded awesome. But I knew better than to go hoping for something that was less likely than a meteor strike.
The only outcome of our conversation was to make things more awkward when we finally stopped for the night at a small Illinois town. My pretrip notes had included a number of possibilities like this—cheaper stopping points than those found around the bigger cities like St. Louis. Conrad’s financial situation kept me from suggesting separate rooms as a practicality, which meant I was intensely aware that we were about to be alone. Not that we hadn’t been alone all day, but this felt weirder. More intimate.
“Oh, thank God. Two beds.” Conrad flopped onto the closest one as soon as I unlocked the room. I wasn’t sure that I shared his relief, which made me cranky. I should have been happy to have been spared the awkward conversation of the night before, but even with a bed for each of us, my mind still raced. Thanks to our earlier conversation, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things other than sleeping that people did on beds.
“We’ll need to get an early start. No oversleeping.” I kept my voice firm, trying to banish those sorts of thoughts.
“Yes, warden.” Conrad fished out his phone. “This might be a piece of crap, but it still has an alarm. There. Set. You can have the first shower if you want. I’m not planning on moving for a while.”
Frowning, I considered his exhausted expression—heavy eyes and slack mouth. “Is the driving too much for you? I’ll do more tomorrow.”
“I’m fine.” Conrad’s groan didn’t exactly inspire confidence, but I didn’t press him on it. Instead, I headed for the shower. And there, under the warm spray, day rushing past me in vivid mental snippets and little replays, I tried valiantly not to think about Conrad and kissing and tongues and sex. And failed. Miserably.
I emerged even more frustrated, and it was hours before I slept. I honestly wasn’t sure whether I was up to three more days of torture driving with Conrad. But I had no choice. If I wanted to get to the tournament, this was my best chance. And I wasn’t letting anything or anyone stand in my way.
Not even Conrad with his distracting smiles and disconcertingly tempting offers.
Chapter Fifteen
Conrad
My alarm never went off. It was all my fault. Or rather, it was the fault of my stupid, piece-of-crap phone that could barely be bothered to hold a charge and apparently thought wake-up calls beneath it. Sunlight hurt my eyes as I blinked awake, the sound of my name and not the phone’s chirping waking me up.
“We overslept.” Captain Obvious glared down at me. Which, since Alden’s hair was hopelessly rumpled and his T-shirt half-bunched-up, was pretty comical.
“You might wait until you deal with the bedhead before you lecture me. How late are we talking?” I sat up, letting the covers pool around my waist. I’d worn a T-shirt to sleep in, something I seldom did, and it was all sticky. So much for trying to keep the peace and not shock Alden—now I was sweaty and grungy and still getting complaints.
“It’s almost nine. I never sleep until nine.” Alden sounded horrified at his body’s disobedience. I’d already figured out that he was a guy who loved his order and routine, but he seriously needed to chill.
“It’s not noon. We’ll make up time. You want to raid the breakfast stuff? I’ll take the world’s fastest shower since I didn’t get one last night.”
“Fine. I want to change first.” Alden scooped up some clothes from his suitcase.
“You can change in front of me, you know. Not gonna offend me. I’ve seen—”
“I know.” Alden bustled off to the bathroom, all Victorian maiden princess, as if I couldn’t be trusted to see a cute guy and—
Hold up. What the hell? Since when had Alden fallen into the cute guy category?
True, my preferences—the same ones Alden didn’t seem to think I had—did tend to run to a certain type. I was happy to leave macking on older guys to Payton and the whole love for muscle-bound jocks to Jasper. For myself, I dug guys my own age and had a thing for ones shorter than me. Not that I wanted to feel like I was on stilts or the Incredible Hulk, but ever since my first kiss with a slightly built science geek, I’d liked that body type a lot. And I supposed Alden’s bossy nature counted as the sort of vivid personality that usually drew me in.
But even if Alden technically fit the profile, my body had never really registered that before yesterday when all that proximity had apparently corroded my common sense. In so many other ways though, he was far from my type—too prickly, too adverse to fun, too rule-driven, and too immune to my charm. I needed to remember all that before I went labeling him cute and making everything far more complicated than it needed to be.
But then he came out of the bathroom, and something about his freshly combed hair and minty scent made my brain trip over itself again. I stayed confused through a lightning-fast shower. When I emerged, Alden had food and our bags by the door.
“Bananas? Yogurt? Cereal? You trying to clean up my act?” I faked outrage as I accepted the food, grateful he’d gotten enough that we wouldn’t need to buy breakfast.
“Complex carbohydrates are digested slower by the body. You won’t get hungry as fast. You hungry is…a problem.”
My head tilted as I tried to decode his meaning. “Is that your way of saying you care?”
“No.” Alden swallowed audibly, and his cheeks turned an adorable shade of pink.
No, not adorable. Bad Conrad. Bad. I tried to lecture myself away from dangerous lines of thinking.
“Well, thanks. Give me a second to eat and then I’ll drive.”
“I can drive. You got exhausted yesterday.” Alden continued his surprising turn as caretaker as we made our way to the car. It made my chest warm. I wasn’t used to being worried over, at least not in the past few years.
“Let me get us through St. Louis—the interchanges can be tricky with the bridges, and I’ve at least driven there a few times.” It might be nice to be cared about, but I also didn’t want him thinking that I needed babying.
“All right. But I’m keeping an eye on your total drive time.” Alden legit took out his phone and set some sort of timer. My brain continued its dance down that crazy path as I wondered whether he’d be so rigid about taking turns in bed or whether he’d finally let go of all that tightly held control and…
Not helping anything, Conrad. Stop. I forced myself to focus on getting back to the highway. Once we were underway, the Illinois farmland started to give way to more built-up suburbs.
“There’s good pizza in Columbia. Maybe that can be lunch.” Even with all the food Alden had brought from the breakfast buffet, I was already looking forward to my next meal.
“Are the slices square?” Alden sounded more suspicious than interested.
“Triangles. Promise. The square thing is all over St. Louis, but this is good stuff in a little college town. You’ll like it. They even have a whole-wheat crust for your health-nut side.”
“I’m not that healthy. Regular New York–style white crust is fine. No pepperoni or sausage.”
“You’ve got it. Is the no-pork thing religious or just preference?”
“Both. My moms are hardly that strict beyond the major Jewish holidays, but they don’t usually cook it. My grandparents were more strict. But pork has always felt like breaking the rules. I don’t like breaking rules.”
“I’ve noticed.” I laughed, but quickly stopped when he didn’t. “It’s cool with me. We can split a pizza with some vegetables or something. I’m not incapable of eating green stuff.”
“Good to know. We wouldn’t want you getting scurvy or something.”
“I’m not that bad. I ate the banana.”
“And mine,” Alden added, his voice as dry as the granola had been.
“See? Healthy.” As we hit the mess of highways intersecting on the Illinois side of St. Louis, I had to focus more on driving. The GPS wasn’t a ton of help as the exits and merges came fast, and somehow we ended up approaching the city on I-64, not I-70, but I decided to roll with it rather than double back. I knew from past trips with my folks that we’d hook back up with I-70 soon enough.
“When do we see the Arch?” Alden dealt far better with this interchange mixup than he had in Philadelphia.
“Soon. But the view from the car isn’t the best. We need an actual picture.”
“Our schedule—”
“Can wait thirty minutes. I’m already taking the fast way through, and we’re after the worst of rush hour—”
“I know.”
“So another detour isn’t going to be that big a deal. Trust me.”
Alden made a noncommittal sound, but he didn’t protest when I took the downtown exit coming off the bridge. Parking downtown was as much a pain as I remembered from trips with my parents, especially with this boat of a car that didn’t parallel park easily.
“It’s not going to fit,” Alden warned.
“That’s what he said.” I couldn’t let the opening pass, and even if Alden sighed, I still laughed before I proved him wrong. “See. Didn’t even need lube.”
“Don’t be crass.” Shaking his head, Alden followed me out of the car and onto the sidewalk where the humidity smacked into us. It was only early June, but the day was still warm and sticky.
“You’re no fun.”
“So I’ve been told.” Alden’s face subtly fell, and I instantly regretted my crack.
“Sorry. That was rude. I’m sure you’re plenty of fun in the right situation.” I dug in my pocket for some change for the meter. I wasn’t going to use my already-strained card for less than an hour of parking.
“Is that a very polite way of saying that I’m an acquired taste?”
“Possibly.” Trying to show no hard feelings, I grinned at him as I led the way to the riverfront park and historic area that housed the Gateway Arch. I’d been as a kid, more than once, but Alden’s look of awe as we approached the mammoth structure had me wishing we had enough time to go up to the top. “Hey. What do you say we plan on stopping again on the way back? We can do the museum and tour both. The pictures from the observation deck are worth it.”
“Maybe.” Alden sounded thoughtful, but I could tell from the way he worried his lip with his teeth that he was interested. “Won’t you be in a hurry to get back to work?”
“Not if I win the tournament.” I winked at him to cover the lie-by-omission. I wasn’t quite ready to confess the direness of my situation to him. We might be getting along better, but I still didn’t want his pity. Or wo
rse, his lectures about poor life choices and lack of planning.
“Well, if I win, I’ll buy your ticket to the top.” He probably meant the offer to sound generous, but my back muscles still tensed at the reminder that he wanted the win too. And I didn’t like the way he sounded so confident about his chances and so dismissive of mine.
“Don’t be so sure I’m going to lose. I wouldn’t want you pissy the whole way home when I win.”
“I’ve calculated my chances—”
“Seriously?” I took the steps up to the base of the Arch. “That’s some faith in math right there.”
“Most people don’t understand probability and prediction.” Alden launched into a series of examples worthy of any stats class. He was impressive when he got to talking math, showing the same sort of thoroughness and patience he had for explaining Odyssey to newbies. Somehow his intensity made him even more attractive, made it hard to concentrate on his words.
“Professor Tuttle would be proud, dude. Since medical school was a no-go, maybe you should think about being a professor or something. I mean, it’s not as fun as being like your Miss Betsey, but you could talk math and calculations all day.”
“Maybe.” Alden sounded deflated, which I could get. Moving on from a tightly held childhood dream was hard. The way he sighed said he was ready to change topics, and I wasn’t surprised when he asked, “What was your major anyway?”
“I kept changing,” I had to admit. “Not like Payton and the perpetual undergrad plan, but more like everything interested me the first two years of college. Didn’t have a class that wasn’t fun on some level. Professor Jackson wanted me to think about law school, but I had a hard time picturing life after school. I just wanted the degree. Figured that I’d deal with the future as it came.”
Alden, king of plans, was silent a long moment as he took a few pictures of the base of the Arch. “If all you want is the degree, why not transfer to a cheaper school?”
I groaned at that. “It’s not necessarily that much cheaper, especially if you can’t get financial aid. And I dunno. It’s sort of…a pride thing, I guess. I want a Gracehaven degree. Want to prove to my dad that he couldn’t take that from me. Switching schools feels like…him winning.”
Conventionally Yours (True Colors) Page 11
