Читать книгу The Boy Most Likely To - Huntley Fitzpatrick - Страница 17
ОглавлениеAlice’s hands are behind her back, her beat-up purse hanging off her elbow. Green scrubs, circles under her eyes, smells like anti-bacterial gel . . . and she still kicks my pulse into high gear.
“I’ve got something for you,” she says, brushing past me.
“Is it kinky? Does it involve you, me, some body oil?”
She snorts. “In your dreams, junior.”
“Just the really good ones. But we could totally make those a reality.”
“Here.” She holds out what she’s had hidden behind her. A package wrapped in bright blue tissue. She shoves the box at me so fast, I have to snatch at it before it drops to the ground.
“You got me a housewarming present, Alice?”
“Unwrap it already.” She walks over to the sink, full of two days’ worth of dishes. Most with Grape-Nuts laminated to the sides.
I open it to find a box with the Nike swoosh on it.
“If I wear these, does it mean we’re going steady?”
“If you wear these while you’re running, it means you won’t wind up in a cast.”
I examine the sneakers. They’ll fit. Perfectly.
“You know my size?” I check the tiny tag. Yup, thirteens.
“You’ve left your disgusting Sasquatch shoes by our pool often enough. Your feet are like, freaks of nature.”
“You know what they say about large feet.”
“Uh-huh. Big smelly socks. Stop it, Tim. I just thought if you were even remotely interested in being healthy, you should have the right equipment.”
“Trust me, Alice. I have the right equipment.”
She starts to laugh. “Please. You’re like one of those overgrown puppies who can’t stop humping everything.”
My smile fades. But Alice has turned away, hands on hips, to survey the room. “You’re a bigger slob than Brad,” she says. “Impressive.”
This means that she’s been in lame-ass Brad’s room – quick one-two punch to the gut, even though, Christ, of course. I mean, she’s nineteen.
She squints at the apartment some more, walks around. Which is, ya know, embarrassing in the daylight. It was pretty dim when she was last here. In addition to the sink pileup, I have a small mountain of used boxers and shorts in one corner and the sweatpants I slept in last night draped over the couch.
“Hey. Uh . . .” I indicate the box of Grape-Nuts before she can notice the raised toilet seat and wad of wet towels on the floor of the bathroom. “I’d offer you cereal, but I only have one spoon. I know how anal you are about germs.”
“I’m educated about germ transfer. You drink out of the orange juice carton. I’ve seen you. Why do guys do that? Foul.”
“Because when we want things, we want them now. We’re thirsty, we need a drink – we take a drink. Finding a clean glass, washing out a dirty one and all that crap – nah. We’re just basic. We want what we want right this minute . . . or maybe that’s just me.”
“Tim, cut it out. Now. Please.” Her face is as expressionless as her voice. But of course, I keep going.
“Like that old song: Antici-pay-ay-shun is making me way-yay – yait. That could only be written by a chick. Guys hate anticipation. That’s why we all write about satisfaction. Why we never wrap presents. I notice you wrapped mine.”
“I thought it was because you’re all too cheap to buy wrapping paper. Or too clueless to find it in the store.”
“There’s that. But honestly, you go to the trouble of getting someone a present, something you think they’d like – why hide it and make them work for it? It’s coy.”
Alice laughs, shifting aside my sweatpants and dropping down on the couch. “It’s not coy. It . . . it shows you care.” She gathers her hair up in a knot, showing off her long neck.
“The present shows you care. The wrapping paper shows you aren’t as concerned about the environment as you should be. Like showering alone. A needless waste of resources.”
“Are we ever going to have a conversation without you coming onto me, Tim Mason?”
“I doubt it. We want what we want, right? Basic, babe.”
“Please. No ‘babe.’ No ‘chick.’”
“You prefer Allykins? Ally-o? Ally-ums? Noted.”
“Tim. Don’t.” Her voice sounds a little funny. Damn. Is she that sold on Brad?
She roots through her purse, pulls something out. “I have another present for you, actually. I didn’t wrap this one.” Holding up a small clinical-looking square box, she wags it at me without looking at my face.
“Nicotine patches, Alice – seriously?”
“I told you you can’t smoke here.”
“And I told you I’m trying to kick it.”
“I know.” She waves me over, clasping the box between her knees, and flips it open with her other hand. When I plunk down next to her, she slides the rolled-up sleeve of my shirt higher, cool fingers on my skin. “You need to put these on parts of your body that aren’t hairy. Not that you’re very hairy. Only a bit on your chest.” Her fingers freeze for a second before she continues. “Stick it on your shoulder or your back. Or your ribs. But rotate the spot, because the nicotine irritates your skin.”
She’s touching my upper arm, totally professional, like the nurse she’s training to be, and hell if I’m not reacting like she’s unzipping my jeans.
I edge away, scratch the back of my neck, which doesn’t itch, a little dizzy.
She pulls my arm to her stomach, holds it steady, and plasters on the patch. “Change it once a day. Different location. Six to eight weeks.”
“Did you have a secret vice, Alice? You sound so knowledgeable.”
“I read directions. Another thing guys rarely do.” Patting my arm, she flips my sleeve back down, hesitates a second before meeting my eyes. “What you’re doing is tough, Tim. Not drinking, no drugs. Living on your own. Add quitting smoking. I admire you for it.”
I stare at her. “For real?”
“Of course. I’m nineteen and still at home. This is no easy thing” – she reaches out and taps where the patch is under my shirtsleeve – “but you don’t always have to take the hard way. Not when there are easier ways.”
My throat tightens. Of all people I expected to . . . whatever, Alice might be dead last. I swallow. Her green-brown eyes are sincere. I lift my hand a few inches toward her cheek. Then drop it, shove it in my pocket as I stand, jingle the loose coins in there.
Alice inspects me sharply for a sec, school-marm-over-her-glasses-style, then licks her lips and looks away, wiping her palms on her scrubs. She stands up. “What’s it with you and the Grape-Nuts? Besides pizza, it’s almost all I ever see you eat.”
“I like Grape-Nuts.”
“You live on Grape-Nuts. That’s more than liking. It’s obsession.”
“You sure are getting worked up about this.” To keep my dangerous hands occupied, I pour myself a bowl, get milk out of the fridge, sniff at it.
“Well, it isn’t rational.”
Her tone is mad huffy. Why? What’d I miss?
“All this emotion over cereal? What do you care what I eat?”
“You’re all thin and pale, Tim. You look like you’re not sleeping. People worry about you.” She lobs her droopy, too-big purse back over her shoulder. “I should get going. I’m on babysitting call tonight.”
I move between her and the door before I can think. “Okay, Alice. I’ll grant that worrying people has always been a talent of mine. But my family’s pretty much given up. You’re the one who came all the way over here to save my ankles and so on. Are we talking worrying people . . . or are we talking worrying you? ” The words rush out, hover in the air. I’m noticing again how little Alice is, aside from those curves, barely coming up to my shoulders. Five two? Five four?
She yanks her purse onto her shoulder again, looks down. Her cheeks go pink.
“Well?” I ask, because I’ve pushed it this far already.
One finger after another, she ticks things off. “You’re my little brother’s best friend. Though sometimes I have no idea how or why he puts up with you. You’re a minor. You’re a potential, if not an ongoing, disaster. You –” Then she sighs, shuts her eyes. “Listen, I have a long day tomorrow. Three classes, a clinical. When I get through it” – her voice drops to a low mutter, like even she doesn’t want to hear what she’s saying – “could we just meet for dinner? Like a . . . sample date?”
This goes through me like an electric shock.
A date.
With Alice Garrett?
Wait.
A sample date?
“What would we be sampling?”
She looks like she might laugh. Doesn’t. “Not that. I don’t do hookups.”
“I didn’t mean that. I never thought that for a second.”
She gives my shoulder a shove. “Of course not.”
“Okay. But it was like a millisecond, a nanosecond. Then I remembered how much I respected you and that I would never –”
Alice puts her hand, her fingertips, over my mouth. “Tim. Stop talking now.”
I snap my mouth shut.
“We’d be sampling dinner. ”
Then I remember a certain two-hundred-and-fifty-pound boyfriend. Who apparently already hates my ass. “Wait. Is this a setup? Are you trying to get my ass kicked by ol’ Brad?”
She shakes her head quickly, pulling her hand away from my face and burying it in the pocket of her scrubs. Her purse strap falls down again. My hand goes to slip it back up, but then no, I shove it back in my pocket.
Alice hesitates for a second, then: “This has nothing to do with Brad. He wouldn’t mind, anyway.”
“Then he’s even more of a putz than I thought. Hard to believe.”
Her eyes flick to mine, then away. “It’s not like that.”
It’s not? Okay. So that makes me . . .
Dinner.
“Meet me at Gary’s Grill in Barnet. Six thirty. Tomorrow night.”
Barnet is three towns away. Apparently Alice isn’t prepared to be seen in the immediate vicinity with her underage, recovering alcoholic sample date.
I say I’ll meet her there. She nods, gives me a subdued version of her sexy, crooked, smile, then her lips brush my cheek. That Hawaii smell. Oh, Alice.
“See you then.”
I nod, speechless, and shy-Alice morphs back into take-charge-Alice, jabbing a finger at me. “Don’t you dare be late. I hate it when guys pull that, like my time doesn’t matter. Like they’re all casual and time is a relative thing while I’m sitting there with the waiter pitying me.”
“Should we synchronize our watches?”
“Just don’t let me down.”
