He studies me for a moment, and my assumption that he doesn’t recognize me falters. He scrutinizes my features until his gaze locks with mine. “Do I know you?”
I shake my head a little too vigorously. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Are you sure?” His head tilts slightly to the side, and I nearly let out a swooning sigh. “You look really familiar.”
“Positive,” I lie.
“Are you sure you’ve never been to one of my shows?”
I contemplate acting like I have no idea who he is or that he’s in a band, but decide that’d be overkill, and it would probably make him even more suspicious. “Nope. I just thought you could use a hand . . . Sorry, I acted impulsively.”
“No,” he blurts when I start to turn away from him. I turn back around. “No. No, you’re fine . . . Thanks.” He smiles, and it brings back an onslaught of memories. Him pressing me against the kitchenette counter. My pink heels lying in the walkway of the tour bus. Him leading me up the stairs. Me asking him to help me forget. Him smirking and asking me to count backward from ten. I feel my cheeks redden before he adds, “I actually think tutoring sounds like just what I need.”
“Huh?”
“Tutoring. This weekend.”
“Oh . . .”
“We kind of have to now anyway, don’t we? I mean, if I don’t do halfway decent on the test we have on Monday, we’re both screwed. He’ll know you were just covering for me.”
Freaking hell. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Just one problem,” Adam says. “I have a few shows out of town this weekend . . .” He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket and packs them against his palm as he thinks about it, staring at the ground. Then his eyes lift back to mine. “You’ll have to come along.”
“I’ll what?”
“I mean . . . can you? Do you have plans this weekend?”
“No, but I—”
“Good. We can leave tomorrow morning.” He smiles at me, like there’s no doubt I’ll go with him.
“No, we definitely can not leave tomorrow morning!” I practically shout.
“Why not?”
“I have classes . . .”
Adam frowns. “ ’Til when?”
“Two o’clock.”
His eyes stare up then, his mouth moving as he does some math in his head. “Okay, that works. I’ll pick you up out front after class. We won’t get back until Sunday night, so make sure you pack some stuff.”
“I don’t even know you!” I protest.
Adam grins and then sticks out his hand. “Adam Everest.” I stare at his hand, too shocked to take it, until he laughs and reaches forward, pulling mine from my side and shaking it. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for saving my ass.”
Chapter Ten
DEE, LETI, MACY. Macy, Leti, Dee. My feet carry me down their row of faces and back again as I pace across Dee’s room, pulling my hair through my fingers. “There is no way I can go!”
After my conversation with Adam, I skipped speech class to come back here and panic. By the time Dee and Leti showed up, I had worked myself into an anxiety attack.
Dee ignores me and pulls two nearly identical tops out of her closet—one pink, one aquamarine. When I first told her about Adam’s offer, she squealed so loudly I literally cringed. She immediately launched into a high-pitched monologue about all the fun we’d have—since she proclaimed us a “package deal”—until I reminded her that her first shift at her new waitressing job was scheduled for this Saturday. She’d been putting in applications all month, had finally landed an interview last week, and must have sweet-talked the hell out of the owner, because he hired her for a job that she wasn’t even remotely qualified for. Fast-forward to an hour later—after I’ve explained all the reasons why skipping her very first shift would be a really bad idea—and she’s busy packing my suitcase, ignoring the hundred times that I’ve insisted I can’t go.
Dee studies the pink and aqua tops she’s holding up, and then she walks over to me, holding each against my body in turn. Satisfied, she hangs the aqua one back in her closet and tosses the pink one in the suitcase she’s busy stuffing.
Leti watches us from his slouched position in Macy’s computer chair, his ankles crossed on her desk. “Why can’t you go?” he asks me. “You don’t even have classes on Fridays, so it’s not like you’d be missing anything.”
“Because! It’s insane!”
Macy, usually the voice of reason, asks, “Why is it insane?” Seriously?! Her too?
“Because I don’t even know him!”
“Everyone knows him,” Leti says, watching Dee as she lays three black skirts on the floor, looks them over, and then tosses the shortest one into the suitcase.
I slump on my bed, my elbows on my knees. “This is such a bad idea.”
Dee holds up two pairs of hooker heels, and I pale at the sight of the hot-pink shoes I wore to Mayhem. “Leti,” she says, “A,” she holds up the pink pair, “or B?” She holds up a black pair.
“Hmm,” Leti hums, smoothing a pretend-beard. “Both.”
Dee grins at him appreciatively and then lays both pairs in the suitcase.
“Deandra!” I snap. “You’re wasting your time!”
The next afternoon, I’m walking to campus with my suitcase rolling behind me. It’s making a racket as it skips and tumbles over cracks in the sidewalk. How in God’s name does Dee always succeed in talking me into things like this?