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“Oh.” I glance down at the book I’m holding to see that the cover is barely hanging on. “Thank you.”
Rhett takes the book Silas gave me and tosses it on the table, placing the newer copy in my hands. “You’re welcome.”
The two boys glare at each other while I stand in the middle and I study Silas’s face.
Then Rhett’s.
It’s obvious they don’t like each other, but why?
“Silas! Come here,” Alana demands, breaking the tension.
He does as she bids, scurrying back to sit across from her, and she leans over the aisle, her lips moving rapidly. I wish I could hear what she was saying.
“Those two deserve each other,” Rhett says.
“You don’t like Alana?” I ask him.
He grabs his own copy of The Great Gatsby. “I don’t know her.”
“Then why would you say that?”
“I don’t like the way she treated you.” We start walking back to our seats, Rhett just behind me. “And he acts like he might like you a little too much for a guy who has a girlfriend.”
“We’re just friends—” I start, but Rhett speaks over me.
“Nah. I know when a guy is into a girl. He’s into you.” Rhett falls into his seat while I carefully sit down in my mine, tucking my skirt under my butt, my mind filled with nothing but riotous thoughts.
Silas shouldn’t like me. He’s got Alana. They have sex all the time—and that’s a direct quote from her. Why would he be interested in me? I, for one, haven’t had sex with anyone, so Alana has got me beat on experience. And supposedly they’re madly in love?
I am seriously so confused.
***
At lunch, it’s just me and Iris sitting at the table at first, and I’m trying to work up the courage to ask her the questions that have been lingering in my mind for hours since Rhett said what he said.
“Do you think Silas is happy with Alana?”
Iris grimaces. “I guess he is. According to her, they’re having sex nonstop, and what boy wouldn’t be happy with that?”
“Right.” That’s the same thought I had. “That makes sense.”
“Why are you asking anyway? Please don’t tell me you’ve still got a crush on him. I hate to be mean, but you’re wasting your time.”
I lean in close and explain everything that happened today, leaving out the part where Rhett said he wanted to impress me. I want to hold on to that moment privately for a little while longer.
“Maybe he’s talking to you to make Alana jealous,” Iris suggests when I finish speaking.
“I suppose so, though that doesn’t seem like something Silas would do.” I chew on my lower lip, wishing I could read minds. Wondering for about the hundredth time why Silas never made a move on me.
Wondering even more why he chose Alana.
“You don’t know him that well, Willow,” Iris points out. “Don’t forget you were gone all last year. I’m sure he’s changed.”
I hate believing that he’s changed that much, but I suppose she’s right. “Oh, I definitely won’t forget. You won’t let me.”
Iris leans her shoulder into mine. “And then there’s the fact that Rhett said what he said.”
“What do you mean?” I sit up straighter, my gaze going to where he’s sitting outside in the quad. I can see him perfectly through the window, and he’s laughing at something one of the boys is saying to him, his attention going to the window. It’s like our gazes meet even through the tinted glass and he stares for a moment too long, the smile fading.
