Slow Twitch - Реинхардт Лиз. Страница 3

  “Rabin doesn’t get upset.” She raised her dark eyebrows. “He gets wild. Like Heathcliff and Catherine wailing on the fucking moors wild.” She shrugged a quick shoulder. “But he’s beyond hot. I swear to God, I’ve never been with a guy who does the kinds of things he does to me. He has, like, no boundaries.” She laughed and clapped a hand over her mouth. “I just shocked the hell out of you, didn’t I?” she said from behind her slightly splayed fingers. “I can see it in your face. I’m sorry. It’s weird right? I talk too much. Just tell me to shut my big mouth.”

  “No, it’s not weird. That he’s…hot. That’s hot. I’m glad.” I stumbled all over the words and tried to kick back the images that suddenly flooded my brain of my imagined version of hot Rabin doing things that were sexy and forbidden with Evan. I noticed her watching my hand smoothing the blanket frantically, but by the time I stopped myself, it was too late to take my nervous twitch back.

  “I know why you’re so shocked. You look more like a logical love girl. Like a Lizzie Bennett. You like to think it all out, right? You’re not going to go wild and throw yourself off the turret over some chump with a big dick.” Her laugh ribboned around me, pulling me in.

  “Jake…” I cleared my throat before I continued. “Jake is amazing. And I love him, so much. He’s like my best friend and the guy I love. And, I mean, I try to be logical, but I don’t know if I really am with him. See, he has this brother and he and I got together for a while. It was a big mistake, really big, and I knew it was--”

  “No! You did not!” Evan jumped off of the bed so fast the springs didn’t have time to squeak. She pointed at me, the look on her face pure, undisguised glee. “But you have that sweet look. My gramma would say that butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth if she saw you!”

  I was collecting the words to explain, but the door swung open and a girl with a strawberry-blonde pixie cut said, “Hiya! A whole bunch of us are going out to find something edible in the city. You girls wanna come with?”

  Evan nodded and clapped, then turned to me. “Food? Yes?”

  “Sure.” I slid off the bed, and we headed out with a big gaggle of girls, Evan bumping my shoulder now and then to let me know that she hadn’t forgotten my partial confession and wouldgrill me later.

  We crossed the hallway, and the girl with the pixie cut ducked into an open room where a whole group of guys were playing video games. Several of them get up to join our crew. One looked so familiar for a reason I couldn’t put my finger on. He was tall with tousled brown hair and a lanky, loose frame, but what I really honed in on is his vest. It was blue and brown paisley, not easy for anyone to wear, but this guy was pulling it off like nobody’s business, and the fashionista in me was turning multiple one-armed cartwheels.

  “Mmm, he’s gorgeous. Too bad he’s gay,” Evan said, following my gaze. “Plus that, aren’t two brothers enough for you?”

  I jabbed her with my elbow and we doubled over in a fit of giggles. “It wasn’t the guy, for your information,” I said with a determined glare in her direction. I did not want her to know how easily she charmed me, especially since I had the feeling any encouragement would bring out even worse behavior. “I mean, he’s cute, but it’s his vest I’m falling hard for. I love it. I wish my boyfriend would try to pull something like that off. Jake’s got pretty simple tastes when it comes to clothes.”

  “Ooh, wait! I’m so good at this. Let me guess your boyfriend, okay, and you tell me how close I am. Ready? Jake…hmm, Jake is…the captain of the football team, jockish but smart, and he never leaves home without his Peyton Manning jersey?” Evan batted her lashes in assumed triumph.

  “Wow that is…” I enjoyed watching her preen turn to a pout as I finished, “so dead wrong. Not even remotely Jake.” I screwed my eyes shut and let the image of Jake tease through my mind for one quick, breathless minute.

  We followed the crowd of our rowdy, yelling classmates down the uneven cobblestones and past gray buildings that had old architectural charm. Evan and I clung to each other’s arms to stabilize ourselves on roads that were definitely not made with glamorous shoes in mind.

  She held a finger up. “Okay, I’m going to guess again. I got it this time. I got it. He’s the class president, smart but humble. He’s neat and sweet and has a button down and coordinating tie in every color of the rainbow,” she tried, narrowing one eye and giving me a hopeful half-smile.

  I shook my head and she was about to guess again when she teetered on the edge of her too-narrow heel and almost crashed over. I tried to grab her arm, but I wasn’t very steady on my own admittedly-lovely-but-treacherous shoes. Thankfully, Paisley Vest happened to be right behind her, and he caught her before she went down like a sack of cutely attired potatoes.

  “Good Lord, I’m the queen of klutzes today!” Evan said between gasping laughs as she steadied herself. “You must be a true Southern boy to come to my rescue like some gentleman hero.” Her drawl was twice as sticky sweet when it was directed at him.

  “Sorry. You can’t get more Yankee than New Jersey,” he said with a shy duck of his head, and it was that shy head duck that made me look closer and finally see what had been screaming in my face since I noticed his vest.

  “Devon!”

  His face drained of all blood and his eyes tweaked wide with panic, but he seemed to shake it off in a second. “Brenna.” He didn’t sound nearly as surprised to see me as I was to see him.

  “You know my knight in shining armor?” Evan squeezed my arm and relished the drama that she seemed to feed off through her pores.

  “Yes,” I said dumbly, but my mind was yelling No!.Because I recognized Devon after I saw him up close and heard his voice and it all registered and clicked in the rational portion of my brain, but who the hell was this well-dressed, handsome, confident guy standing in front of me in an Irish language arts honors program? It sure as hell couldn’t be dorky, disorganized, partial social pariah Devon Conner. “Evan, this is Devon. Devon, Evan.”

  She grabbed just his fingers and shook with gentle pressure. It was a much more delicate shake than the enthusiastic one she’d given me a few hours before. “A pleasure.” Her smile was like a big, welcoming spider web. “I hope it’s not going to be weird that we have that rhyming name thing going on. I have a friend named Nate and when he started dating this girl, Kate, I didn’t give one goddamn that she was Miss Teenage Georgia. I was shooting daggers at their whole goopy love scenario just because it was too irritatingly matchy-matchy.”

  Devon tilted his head to the side and gave her a long look. “We should just never date. That would solve it, I guess.” Evan rewarded him with a mega-watt, toothpaste commercial, politician smile.

  Devon motioned with his hand that we should try to catch up with the rest of the group, which had left us behind after it was clear that Evan was going to be alright. We walked, and Devon studiously avoided my gaze.

  “So, Evan, huh? I’ve never heard that name as a girl’s name before.” He stuck both hands in his pockets, but didn’t seem to mind at all when Evan took his arm with easy confidence and leaned close to tell him her secrets.

  “It’s an old family name. My great-gramma was an Evan, and some other poor Lennox will probably get it someday. And I know it’s not all that common, but I’m one of three Evans in my school, believe it or not.” She stared at his incredulous frown and shook his arm. “I cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “Evan Lennox?” Devon let her name roll on his tongue with an easy confidence that still left me shocked into tongue-numbed silence. “Of Lennox Lace and Textiles?”

  “Lace and textiles?” I repeated.