Tru Love (3 page)

Chapter Three

              She bolts out of her seat and clears the door while the bell is still ringing, then loses herself in the crowd of kids pushing to their next class. All probably unnecessary. She doubts Mr. Australia is following her, or that Mr. Cooke has any more poisonous arrows to shoot her way. All the same, she’s relieved to turn the corner and catch sight of Hunter’s curly mop of hair just feet in front of her. She slips between a group of girls and slides her hand into his. Hunter looks down at her and smiles.

              Genny tries not to focus on the fact that today, Hunter’s impact on her seems even less than it was yesterday.

              She definitely ignores the streaking image of
his
smile, and the way it makes her skin feel singed.

              “Thanks,” she says. “I needed that.”

              “Bad morning?” he squeezes her hand.

              Genny rolls her eyes. “You could say that.”

              “You want to tell me about it?”

Before she can, he pulls her hand toward his face and peers at her palm.

              “Ouch,” he says. “Did you fall?”

              She thinks about where to start, what to leave out, and how
not
to sound like a complete idiot, but every version places her square in the role of moron. So she settles for a simple,

              “Yeah.”

              “Sorry, babe,” Hunter sympathizes then moves on. “You didn’t bring your guitar?”

              Genny frowns. “No. I have to go home right after school,” she tells him. “My mom, the Great Disciplinarian, has decided that walking home from your place, in the dark, requires a consequence.”

              Her mother must have brooded about it all night. She was waiting for Genny when she woke up this morning. She actually stayed long enough to eat a boiled egg at the table while Genny feasted on her usual
Fruity Pebbles
. Her mother stumbled through all the reasons why not seeing Hunter for a day would be good for Genny. Safety topped her list. Also, she’s been dating

Hunter for almost two months and her mom thinks it’s time she

met the ‘in-laws.’

Her mother laughed when she said it, but Genny doesn’t think it’s funny.

And then her mother was wondering why, in the three years Genny has known Hunter, their families never sat down to dinner together. Never shared a celebration—birthday or Thanksgiving—and her answers didn’t please her,
“You’re too busy and Hunter’s mom is too anti-social.”

              “You’re grounded?” Hunter says now, his voice filled with disbelief.

              “Not really. Just for today, anyway. This is her first attempt at follow-through. She usually leaves that up to my dad. So I should be good to go tomorrow.”

              “Wow. Grounded.”

“Not really,” Genny stresses, then decides she may as well dive right into the problem. “She wants to meet your mom.”

              Hunter’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead and hide behind his curls.

              “I know,” Genny says. “I can’t believe it, either.”

“Isn’t that something you do when you’re serious?” he says, then realizes his words don’t sound so good outside his head and tries to make up for it, “I mean, we’ve been dating a few weeks—“

              “Seven and a half,” she corrects him.

              “OK, but still—she wants to meet my mother?”

              Genny nods.

              “You don’t even want to meet my mother,” he points out.

              “I’ve met her,” she defends herself.

              “You said hello.”

              “Several times,” Genny points out. “One time I even talked to her for fifteen minutes.” Really, she listened while Hunter’s mother carried on about work—she’s a legal assistant—and how much she doesn’t like it.

              “OK,” Hunter allows. “That fifteen minutes was probably more than I talk to her in an entire week.”

              “So, what are we going to do?”

              “Stall?” Hunter suggests.

              Genny shrugs. That’s not the answer she was hoping for. She doesn’t like the idea of her mom and Hunter’s mom meeting and she definitely doesn’t want to be trapped at a dinner table between them for a full hour trying to find something to talk about, but she wishes Hunter wasn’t
so
freaked out about it.

              “Maybe,” she suggests, “we could set something up. Something short and sweet. Like coffee. How long could that last?”

              “No.” Hunter is shaking his head. He pulls his hand away and turns so that her back is up against the wall. She realizes that they’ve arrived at her next class. Calculus I. “It’s too soon,” he complains. “Maybe this summer,” but his voice is spongy with doubt, like he doesn’t believe they’ll even get that far. “If we need to.”

              “If we need to?” Genny repeats, wanting him to clarify that.

              “We could find a way out of it by then.”

              He smiles. It should feel like sunshine, but an icy spot blooms on her back, between her shoulder blades.

              He drops a kiss on her head and steps back. “See you at lunch.”

              Genny pushes away from the wall and slips into the classroom before the bell rings. This time her desk, in the exact center of the room, is vacant. She sits down and lets her back pack fall into her lap.
What just happened with Hunter?

             
It definitely felt like the Great Brush Off. Genny has watched plenty of those play out in the halls or in the cafeteria—high school is sometimes a stage.

              And Hunter kissed her on the head, like she’s a puppy.

              A little late, she wonders why the thought of losing him doesn’t devastate her.

             
Because I’m not Jane Eyre. Or Juliet.

              And Hunter was never Romeo material. He’s just too sunny. Too Golden Retrieverish. Even the way he put her off just then—he had a smile on his face and practically bounced down the hall to his class like the world couldn’t be a better place.

             
It must be nice, living inside a bubble.

             
Her lips twist as she recognizes the sour grapes in the thought. Hunter is sunshine. She’s always been as moody as a boiling gray sky. Even though she has it so good.

              Her thoughts are interrupted before she can get her pity party off the ground. A shadow falls over her. You’d think it would make her feel colder. Nope, heat rises to the surface of her skin and she doesn’t have to look up to know who’s standing over her.

              “Were you some kind of butler in Australia?” she snaps. She looks up. And up. Truman is tall. His shoulders block out the overhead lighting.

              “Australia?”

              “Yes. You know, koalas and kangaroos and boys who hover?”

              “Where did you get Australia from?”

              She stares at him and offers slowly, as though he might need a little extra processing time, “Your accent.”

              “You’re too south.”

              That would leave out South Africa, too. “England then,” she says. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. I just think you have a problem with—“

              “Hovering?” he suggests.

              “Yes.”

              “You’re cold.” He nods at her, huddled in her seat with her back pack in her lap and continues, “Your clothes are still wet from rolling around in the street.” He slips his leather coat off his shoulders and lays it on her desk. “Where I come from, we do what we can to help.”

              He walks past her, leaving his coat, and sits down in an empty seat one aisle over. Genny’s cheeks flame.
What is wrong with me?

              My boyfriend isn’t into me. Not much, anyway.

              My mother is everything a woman should be, and exactly what I’m not.

              And, yeah, I am possibly attracted to a guy with an irritating hero complex.

              So not much. Really nothing at all.

             
She sits fuming for a few minutes before she allows the thought to wiggle into her brain: She’s going to have to apologize to the boy from Bolivia, or wherever he’s from. And thank him, too. Right about now he’s probably wishing he let the Mercedes run her down.

              “You got something going with the new kid?”

Genny turns to her right. Tabitha Walker. The whole school is filled with kids whose names sound like designer labels.  

She shakes her head and hopes the lack of verbal communication will put the discussion to an end.

              “He’s the hottest hottie to hit Fraser since I’ve been here.”

             
The hottest hottie?
Some kids fail the entrance exam and their parents pay their way in.

              “Look at that hair,” Tabitha gushes.

              Genny feels her neck grow stiff. She
won’t
look. Too bad she doesn’t need to. She remembers the color—the reddish brown of a fox—and the texture. Her hand must have brushed against the longish locks when they tumbled across the street. Thick hair. Tamer then Hunter’s curls, but richer, too. Soft.

              Genny shakes her head, trying to lose the thoughts. Behind her, she hears him laugh. She won’t forget that, either. Warm, straight-to-the-heart laughter that makes the hair on her arms shiver.

              This is disgusting, she tell herself. Her boyfriend is breaking up with her and she’s already thinking about another guy.

“Good shoulders, too,” Tabitha continues, like she’s writing her wish list.

              Genny reaches for a song and starts humming, a not-so-subtle hint that Tabitha should shut up. Mrs. Lombardi walks into class and closes the door making it almost impossible for Tabitha to continue anyway. Mrs. Lombardi is all-business. She presses a button on the lap top connected to the projector and suddenly the room is shuddering under the booming voice of some famous mathematician—think
Good
Will Hunting
–and his image looms on the canvas screen in front of them.

              Mrs. Lombardi’s hands fly to her ears. ”Oh, dear,” she mumbles. “What’s wrong now?”

              She’s not good with technology. Often, a student rises to correct her errors. This time Truman is to the computer before anyone else can peel their hands away from their ears. He pushes a few keys and the noise level drops by decibels.

              Mrs. Lombardi thanks him in that breathy voice responsible for her nickname—Marilyn.

              “Who are you?” she asks.

              “Truman Lennox, Ma’am,” he says.

              “That’s a lovely accent,” she comments. “Where are you from?”

              “Edinburgh.”

              Scotland. That was way down on her list of possibilities. She didn’t even think of it.

              “Scotland,” Mrs. Lombardi murmurs. “Well, welcome, Truman. I hope you’ve had a little calculus before landing in our city?”

              “A little,” he admits and pulls out his thousand watt smile.

              He turns and walks back to his seat. She watches him, so it’s no surprise to her when their eyes meet. His are warm, dark, intent on her face. He doesn’t smile at her, so she’s not completely defenseless. She has enough juice left in her brain to remember that she doesn’t want his jacket, doesn’t want his attention. Not really. She shouldn’t anyway. She has Hunter.

He draws parallel to her desk and she nudges his jacket to the very edge of it, watching as gravity pulls on it.

He catches it before it can hit the floor and she hears him murmur, “Genny,” in a tone that’s too close, too personal, too
knowing
her.

Chapter Four

              Lunch is a total bust. Hunter isn’t in their usual place and when Genny texts him he doesn’t reply. She waits in line in the cafeteria, chatting with Serena. She looks over her shoulder a couple of times, but doesn’t see that familiar, comfortable head of curly blond hair. When it’s her turn at the counter, she chooses a diet soda, a bag of Doritos and an apple. Serena is still talking, about a topic Genny would rather never hear about again—Truman Lennox.

              “He is divine,” Serena practically purrs. “I can say that today because Victor is home sick.” Her boyfriend. “And anyway, he knows I could never be serious about a
novio guero
.”