His eyebrows raised as he looked at me and slid into the seat on my right. “I’ve been saying your name for a whole minute, dude. What were you staring at?” He glanced around the lunch room before bringing his gaze back to mine.
Had I ever noticed the blueness of his eyes? Icy blue. Surely I had noticed the darker flecks before, right?
“Aaron?” Jeff quizzically cocked his head.
What the hell was wrong with me today? “Sorry. Just tired. Uh, I was…was watching Deidre practically humping Russell over there.”
Please believe me.
He scanned the room until he saw them. “Oh, yeah, they’re putting on quite the show, aren’t they?” His cheeks pinked as he turned back to me. “So, you need a ride to work tonight? Or is your piece-of-shit car working?” One corner of his mouth quirked up as he watched for my reaction.
“Ha-ha, funny man,” I replied, rolling my eyes. Making fun of my car was one of his favorite things to do. “My car is awesome and you know it. You’re just jealous!”
He laughed. “Whatever, Aaron.”
Unfortunately, he was kind of right. As much as I loved my 1995 Saturn, it was always breaking down. Last night it had died on me again. And God, did I hate admitting that. “But, uh, yeah…my car isn’t working,” I said sheepishly as I glanced at him from the corner of my eyes. “Can you give me a lift tonight?”
He didn’t even try to hide his smirk. “Sure. Need a lift home from school, too?”
“That’d be great.”
Jeff and I had part-time jobs at the local movie theater. It was a fun job and we were able to see movies for free anytime we wanted, which we took advantage of as much as possible. It sucked that we almost always had to work Friday and Saturday nights, but at least we were together. This weekend we had to work only Friday, though.
“Seriously, man, you need to look at another car,” Jeff began, jumping in with his weekly “get a new car” pitch.
“I can’t,” I said, trying to tamp down the irritation in my voice. “You know that, Jeff. I have to save for college.”
“I get it. But since I’ll be over two hours away at Central Kansas State University, what are you going to do if your car breaks down again?”
My stomach did a little flip-flop I didn’t want to examine right then. The same thing always happened when he talked about college next fall. “Hey, pretty soon, when I have enough saved, I’ll put some of it into the car and get it fixed. Don’t worry about me.” I waved my hand.
“But I do worry, Aaron,” he said, staring into my eyes. Huh…there went that flip-flop again.
“Hi, Jeff! Got any plans tonight?”
We both jumped at Lily’s question, our weird little moment broken. The petite redhead parked herself in the seat directly in front of Jeff. Her lips were bright—almost neon—pink today. She had a collection of lipsticks that ran the gamut from peach to hot pink to red. I swear I saw her with deep purple lips the other day, too. She watched Jeff with her pretty green eyes as if she’d rather devour him for lunch instead of the pitiful peanut butter sandwich on her tray.
“Uh, gotta work tonight,” he muttered, looking at his hands.
I knew how much he hated when Lily cornered him. I wasn’t sure what he had against her. I mean, even I could tell she was cute. Good figure. Sweet. Not the brightest in our class, but she worked hard on her assignments. She’d made her interest in Jeff known over the last few months, but it was obvious he didn’t want to go out with her. I had tried to talk him into it for a few weeks until he shut me down. Said he liked someone else and to leave it at that.
Of course, I couldn’t drop it, though. When I’d found out Jeff had a crush on someone, I was like a dogwith a bone—determined to find out who had finally captured his attention. I had hounded him to tell mewho he liked. Nope. He hadn’t budged.
I knew his shyness, but I wished he would realize he wasn’t that gangly little guy with glasses anymore. No, he certainly was not, I thought, as I watched him talking politely, but stiltedly, to Lily. Last summer, he had grown several inches to at least six-four, if not an inch or two more. He had taken up working out and was more muscular than I had ever seen him. Not massive like Russell Adams, but he had definitely filled out. He kept his dark brown hair trimmed, but still shaggy enough that the endscurled around his ears and neck. I was secretly glad he kept some of the length. It fit him. Once he’d traded in his glasses for contact lenses and started shaving on a daily basis, well, let’s just say he was definitely not a geek anymore.