Been Here All Along (6 page)

“There's nothing else going on,” I say, my voice sounding thin and nervous to my own ears, and I hate the guy I become when I'm put on the spot like this. I clear my throat. “I mean, I'm not having some kind of crisis at home or whatever you might be thinking.”

She smiles a thin-lipped smile. “Well, I guess you should get out of here then, but before you go, here's a list of available peer tutors.”

I take a quick look at it, and of course Gideon is right at the top.

“Do you know anyone on that list who you don't mind asking for help? If not, I can get someone assigned to you.”

“No, I know someone.”

We say good-bye, and I shove the list into the bottom of my backpack.

This sucks, this sucks, this sucks
,
I think as I walk to my locker.

“Hey there, Mr. Crabby Pants.”

I'm so annoyed and lost in thought that I didn't even notice I was getting closer to my locker, and I definitely didn't notice Ruby standing in front of it.

“Oh, hi,” I say, kissing her cheek. At least things with Ruby and me are better.

“What's up?” she asks, looking concerned. “I don't think I've ever seen you looking that pissed-off before. It's a weird look for you.”

I try to pull in all the air I can and rearrange my face into a more relaxed expression. I can
feel
how tense I am. I can only imagine how tense I must look.

“Um. I didn't do very well on an English assignment. No big deal.” It's not a complete lie.

“Is that really all?” she asks, examining me from several angles as I kneel down in front of my locker and try to figure out what I need to take home with me tonight. I always keep a list going on a notepad of what's due the next day, but I can't find my notepad at the moment and everything feels wrong.

“Yeah, it's nothing. Not a big deal. I just needed to talk to Ms. Gupta.”

“She's so awesome.”

Hearing Ruby declare my greatest enemy “awesome” is too much to take. I don't even care what's due on Monday. I'll care later when my mom asks me about what homework I need to do this weekend, and I'll care next week when I don't have anything to turn in, but right now, I do not care.

I shove whatever's closest in my bag and stand up, slamming my locker door closed.

“Guess you're not a fan?”

“Oh, uh…” I shake my head. “I mean she did just give me a bad grade, but I'll get over it.” I smile. It's forced, but it seems to make Ruby feel better. I take her hand and pull her in for a real kiss.

She smiles into it and then backs away. “That's more like it,” she says.

I take a deep breath and feel a lot calmer. I lean on the lockers and realize that my notepad was in my back pocket the whole time.

“You ready to get out of here?” she asks.

“In one second. I think I forgot something.”

I kneel back down, open my locker, and take a minute to read my notes and make sure I have everything organized. I'll show Ms. Gupta that I'm just fine and that I have everything under control. I'll ask Gideon to tutor me, maybe leaving out the part where I'm failing and focusing on the part where I just want to keep my grades up for basketball camp. I know it doesn't make any sense to try to hide this grade when my parents will find out on my report card in a couple of weeks, but maybe they'll be less angry if they know that I'm already being proactive about my grades.

I finally have the right books in my bag for the weekend and I'm ready to go. This time I close my locker with a smaller slam. It's weird how much better I feel than even just a couple of minutes ago.

As we're about to leave, Gideon strolls up.

Gideon

“What's up, Gid?” Kyle asks when he sees me.

“You're giving me a ride home? And we're supposed to hang out tonight? We made plans, like, three days ago.” I knew he'd forget. He always forgets this stuff.

“Oh crap!” he says, smacking his forehead.

“I knew you'd forget,” I say.

“It's just that Ruby doesn't have to babysit for once,” he starts explaining really fast. “And I had to stay after to talk to Gupta again, and I didn't forget. I just kind of didn't think about it.”

I nod. “It happens,” I say.

“But it's your birthday weekend,” Kyle says. “We were supposed to start our marathon.”

“It's cool, don't worry about it,” I say.

At the same time, Ruby says, “I could go home. I don't mind.”

“Maybe the three of us could do something together?” Kyle asks, glancing between Ruby and me. “You guys can come back to my house and we can hang out?”

Every single bone in my body says no. I can't imagine a worse situation at the moment than having to hang out with them being all lovey-dovey and couple-y. Not that they're really one of those couples, but almost anything could be too much in my current fragile state of liking Kyle.

I look over at Ruby, hoping that she's not into the idea, but she's smiling and nodding. This is terrible.

We hop into Kyle's car, and I tell myself it's not going to be so bad. That I have this all under control. Even though I have a feeling it's going to be pretty awkward when it's all said and done.

As soon as we walk into Kyle's house, it's apparent that we're not going to be able to hang out there.

His sisters have every single member of the middle school softball team over for a start-of-the-season pizza party. The sheer volume of squealing will not be conducive to anything that requires concentration.

“What should we do?” Kyle asks.

“It's cool,” I say. “We can go hang out at my house.”

But when we walk in my front door, the peace and quiet is almost deafening, and I have no idea how I'm supposed to entertain Ruby. I know how to entertain Kyle. I've had years of practice, but I have no clue what Ruby's into. I should know more about her, since she's been my best friend's girlfriend for six months. But all I know is that she loves cheerleading and she spends a lot of time with her family.

“So what do you guys want to do?” I ask.

Kyle chews on his lip. “Um, maybe we should have grabbed my PS4 while we were at my house. Ruby's a big fan of Grand Theft Auto.”

“Are you really?” I ask.

“Yeah, it's not so bad,” she says.

Kyle gives me a meaningful look. “Would you mind helping me get all the stuff together for it?” he asks. “You know I never grab the right cables or whatever.”

“Um, sure,” I say.

“Ruby, you stay here,” he says quickly. “Go hang out in the den and we'll be right back.”

Ruby looks a little taken aback, but she seems to follow his directions as we head out the front door and back to Kyle's house.

As soon as we're alone in Kyle's room, he starts talking. “I need your help, but I don't really want to tell anyone else, but I know I can trust you.”

“Of course, anything.”

“I'm doing kind of bad in English, and I need you to tutor me,” he says. He licks his lips. “Please.”

“Oh,” I say. “Um, sure, of course.”

“Gupta gave me your name on a list of peer tutors, so I figured you'd be into it.”

“Definitely.” I scratch my head. “What do you need to do?”

He shrugs. “Nothing right now. I have a paper due in a couple of weeks, but I turned in an extra-credit essay and that didn't go well. So she told me about the peer tutoring thing.”

“How bad are you doing?”

He scrunches up his nose. Oh God, he's too cute.

“Well, I'm getting a D this marking period.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah, and I need to keep my GPA above a C so I don't lose my spot at that basketball camp this summer.”

“We'll figure it out,” I say. “I promise.”

He grins and seems more himself already.

 

six

Ruby

I've always been aware of the fact that Kyle and Gideon live next door to each other. Their houses are definitely similar to look at them from the outside, like you can tell that someone tried to build them in the same style. Gideon's house is obviously a little bigger and a little older. But I expected it to be a normal-person house.

I did not expect it to be a freaking mansion on the inside.

When Kyle and Gideon leave me alone, I can't help but wander around a little.

His house has this gigantic foyer with big stairs and a couple of doorways off it. I'm sure they just think of it as a hallway or something. Really rich people are always downplaying how rich they are.

I take a peek into each door as I pass and find the exact kind of super ridiculously fancy parlor you would expect on one side, with an equally fancy dining room on the other. Then there's a family room with a big-ass TV, and finally the kitchen. But even the kitchen is bigger than I would expect, with an island and a separate eat-in area, like a breakfast nook. There's one room beyond the kitchen, like a big sun porch. Maybe it's called a solarium. I don't know, my
House Hunters
addiction has only gotten me so far in life, and my parents recently canceled our cable anyway.

His mom is in the kitchen, looking really put together and a little too smiley for my taste.

“Hi,” I say. “I'm Ruby, Kyle's girlfriend.”

“Hi,” she says, extending her hand to shake mine. “I'm Miriam Berko.”

I never quite know how to respond to adults who tell me their first name like that. Am I supposed to say, “A real pleasure to meet you, Miriam. You have a lovely home”?

Mrs. Berko shakes my hand up and down like it's one of those old-fashioned water pumps and offers me a snack.

“No thanks, I'm good,” I tell her, my smile plastered on. I'm honestly a little bit worried my face might get stuck like this.

“Gideon and Kyle went back over to Kyle's to get his PS4,” I tell her. “So I'm just going to wait for them in the den. If that's okay.”

“Sure, of course,” she says.

I make my way back into the den and sit in the chair that looks the most used. And even then it doesn't look like anyone ever really sits in it, but more like they bought it that way.

I try to find a comfortable position, but in the process my phone slides out of my pocket and under the couch.

When I reach to grab it, at first I pull out a binder that's super disheveled and has paper coming out the edges. I swear I don't mean to peek, but the edge of one has some writing on it and I can't miss Kyle's name. My natural nosiness takes over and I slide it out.

It's a to-do list. A to-do list about Gideon liking Kyle. And not in a friend way, like in a pretty obviously romantic way. There are tons of lists, each one more damning than the last. One of them is in Elvish, and something tells me that's probably the worst of them all.

I stop for a second and take in what I'm looking at.

Not only is Gideon gay, but he's in love with my boyfriend. Or at least in some pretty deep like with my boyfriend. It's a lot to take in, and who knows when someone might walk into this room. I snap a picture of each list with my phone, because I want to understand better what's going on. And because I'm just plain nosy. I really can't help it.

As I slide the binder back under the couch, the front door opens and closes and footsteps trail down the hall before they pause at the door.

“Hi,” a male voice says. A male voice attached to a complete hottie who is neither Gideon nor Kyle.

Ezra

“Hey yourself,” she says.

“Ruby, right?” I ask. She was a freshman when I was a senior. Even back then everyone knew who Ruby Vasquez was.

“Yeah,” she says, nodding coolly and turning to look at me. “Ezra, right?”

“Yeah. I wasn't sure you'd remember.”

“Hell yeah, I remember,” she says, breaking out into a grin. “You're basically a legend at Madison High. Getting out of this stupid town and heading to L.A. to become a surfer is still one of the coolest things anyone from here has ever done.”

I grin. I can't help myself. That was pretty cool of me. Until my bar mitzvah money ran out. And then my graduation money. And then I realized that working at Starbucks thirty hours a week wasn't going to cut it.

But she doesn't need to know about that stuff.

“I heard you were doing really well, too. Like winning some kind of tournament.”

I have no idea who would have started such a rumor, but I thank them in my head.

“Oh totally. I'm just home for Passover.”

“Isn't that almost over? Are you leaving soon?”

“Um. Not sure.” I did not expect this chick to know when Passover was, so instead I go for a quick change of subject. I survey the room, trying to think of something else to talk about.

“I can only imagine how desperate you are to get back to California,” she continues.

“Totally. So what are you doing here?” I ask, deciding to go with the obvious.

“Well, we were supposed to be playing Grand Theft Auto, but Kyle and Gideon went over to his house to get the PS4 and have abandoned me here.”

“Do you want something to drink?” I ask, gesturing toward the kitchen.

“Nah, I'm good,” she says. “What's California like? Is it everything you wanted it to be?”

“Um, it was good. I had a lot of fun. Met a lot of people.” I realize too late that I'm talking in the past tense, but if Ruby notices, she doesn't say anything.

“Well, it looks like it suits you,” she says, giving me an appraising look just as Kyle and Gideon come in through the back door.

“I'm so sorry about making you wait, Ruby,” Gideon says. “And about him.” He points in my direction.

“What about me?” I ask. “I was just being cordial to your guest.”

“It's really no big deal,” she says. Kyle sits down on the sofa next to her and puts his arm around her shoulders.