Phoenix stepped away and shook his head. “Go to school. You’re, what, half done with your degree? Don’t screw it up now, not because of me.”
I saw that he would feel guilty if I skipped, so I sighed and said, “Fine.”
Phoenix laughed. “You’re adorable when you’re being a baby.”
“I’m not being a baby!” Not much, anyway.
He reached out and gently squeezed my bottom lip. “You’re pouting.”
I was. Damn it. But he just replaced his finger with his mouth and kissed me.
I went to class, but I didn’t hear a word my professors said. Instead I daydreamed about Phoenix and me running off to New Orleans and living like hippies on my art and his tattoo work. We would have a dog and a tiny apartment in the French Quarter and I would never wear makeup again and he would always think I was beautiful.
There was nothing wrong with dreaming.
Except when I left campus at three I realized it was the first day for my Tuesday-Thursday classes, and I was already behind.
My schedule was heavy with business courses, and none of it seemed like anything I wanted to do. Ever.
But I didn’t have a choice, did I? So I went to the coffee shop and started in on reading the textbook.
“I have to go to the store,” Phoenix told me when I picked him up at his cousin’s house. “Do you mind going with me?”
“No. What do you need to buy?” I pulled down the street. I had been planning to go in the house and say hi to everyone, but Phoenix had been waiting on the front step and he’d gotten into the car immediately. I felt a little guilty, like I was blowing off Jessica, but then again, I didn’t even know if she was home or not.
“Well, I went into prison with my clothes and five bucks and that’s basically all I have to my name right now since my mom disappeared. I need to buy basic stuff like deodorant and some shirts. I can’t keep borrowing my cousins’ shit.”
“Okay.” I tried to imagine only owning the clothes I was wearing and couldn’t. I had a whole bedroom full of stuff at my parent’s house—clothes and mementoes and old electronics. The thought of all of it disappearing freaked me out completely.
When we walked into the discount store, Phoenix said, “I have forty-five bucks, that’s it. So I need to do some math. I’m getting paid every day under the table, but I had to pay Riley back for my phone, and I still owe them like another hundred bucks, so it’s going to be tight for the next month.”
Forty-five dollars? What the hell was he going to buy for forty-five dollars? But I got a cart and got my phone out of my purse. “We can use the calculator on my phone. By the way, I want to buy some art supplies after we’re done here. The craft store has cheap canvases.”
In recent years I had minimized my painting to school projects or pop art. I hadn’t painted the way I had in high school in more than two years, but suddenly I wanted to really create, to take my brush and pour out my feelings in a genuine, dark oil. Maybe a self-portrait. Or maybe a lonely lighthouse. Something to express the emotions that had been overwhelming me, the ones I wanted to get rid of.
“Cool.” Phoenix picked up the generic version of everything, from toothpaste to deodorant to sports drink, and put them in the cart. “What are we at?” he asked me.
I squinted at the screen on my phone. “Twenty-two dollars. But there will be tax.”
“Okay. We’re cool.” He bought two T-shirts that were five bucks each and a pair of boxer briefs. “That’s good enough for now.”
Impressive.
What was even more impressive was that when we were near the checkout lane he decided to spend the last five bucks in his budget on a bouquet of flowers, not for me, but for his aunt’s grave.
“I know they’ll go brown in like two days, but I don’t know, it seems like the right thing to do,” he said, actually lifting the bouquet of cheerful daisies to his nose, which he wrinkled. “Well, they smell like shit, but seeing as she’s dead, I guess it won’t matter.”
Really? Boys could be so sweet and silly at the same time. “I guess not. So I guess you’re planning on going to the cemetery?”
“Yeah. I missed the funeral so I would like to do that. If you don’t want to go with me, I understand. I can borrow Riley’s car.” He started to load his stuff onto the belt for the cashier.
“No, it’s fine. If you don’t mind me being there.” Grief was a private thing, and I wasn’t sure if I would be intruding or not. I wanted to add that he really shouldn’t be driving, but I figured a guy who didn’t have much of a mother wouldn’t particularly appreciate a girl he had just started seeing to go all maternal-nag on him.
Phoenix cupped my cheek in the checkout line. “I don’t mind you being there. In fact, I would like that very much. In fact, I like you very much.”
It was official. I was falling in love with him. He was just so . . . intense, in a good way. And after the night before and that morning, it felt so natural to have him touch me. So tingly. So perfect. There was a familiarity, an intimacy with him that I had never experienced with any other guy.
He gave me that earnest look he had, the one that made me feel like I was the only human being on the planet, and I melted. I wanted him to kiss me and I started up on my toes when the cashier said, “I said, forty-three twenty-two.”
Giving me a smile, Phoenix turned. “Sorry,” he apologized to the cashier as he handed her his money.
My phone was buzzing in my pocket. I pulled it out absently, then quickly turned the screen toward my stomach when I saw it was Nathan. Shit. What the hell did he want? Casually I tilted my phone so I could read it and get rid of it.
You can’t be serious about that guy.
I made a face as I deleted the message. Obviously he was talking about Phoenix, but the real question was why did he give a shit?
My phone buzzed with another text.
He’s a loser.
That annoyed me. It was none of Nathan’s business who I was spending time with, and as far as I could tell, Phoenix was making the best of a crap start in life. Yes, he had been to prison, but it was for defending his own mother. He was completely drug– and alcohol-free, and I was pretty sure he always had been. So he wasn’t in college, so what? Plenty of people couldn’t afford to go to college or didn’t want to.
Let me see you.
Seriously? Exasperated I finally typed back a simple “no” while Phoenix collected his two bags and the flowers.
“You okay?” he asked as we walked out. “You look like someone just pissed you off.”
The idea of lying to Phoenix made my stomach knot, but I didn’t know how to tell him the truth without telling him the whole truth, which I couldn’t do. I didn’t want him to think I was a cheat or a bad friend. Which I was.
Ugh.
“I’m fine. It’s just I don’t really want to be back in classes. My school in-box is already filling up with syllabi and stuff from profs.” That was true. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it wasn’t the truth either. My stomach clenched harder.
“I don’t even know what a syllabi is, but I’ll take your word for it that it’s no fun. School wasn’t really my thing.”
“No? You didn’t like it?” I pounced on the opportunity to change the subject, deleting the second and third messages from Nathan with lightning fingers as we crossed the parking lot. It was still summer hot, and I could see the heat rising off the pavement.
“No, not really. I mean, I didn’t mind the schoolwork, but we moved too much and my mom could never keep track of my records and stuff, so I was always confused about what was happening. And any sort of project that required supplies at home was impossible. I remember one time we were supposed to dress like a historical figure so I put my baseball socks on over my jeans and wore a winter scarf. I’m not sure what I was going for.” We got into the car and Phoenix laughed. “It’s funny now looking back. At the time, it wasn’t really that amusing. I was the weird kid in my class, always. Me and this girl who used to eat her scabs. The other kids gave us space.”