Everyday after school since third grade, the four of us had walked home from school together. First us in elementary school, then middle school. They’re in high school now, and I’m finishing up my eighth grade year. Even being in different schools doesn’t stop us from walking together. They’re always waiting for me outside the middle school when school dismisses. Bronx and Jamie are a couple now, and have been for a couple weeks now. And now, during the long walks home, they’d spend the whole walk home holding hands, shoulder-to-shoulder, and whispering to each other. Anymore, Preston would absentmindedly rest his hand on hip in a way that would make me instantly scoot closer to him. We didn’t really talk all that much, not more than about music, or movies, things like that. Nothing more than we usually talked about, and while Jamie and Bronx were getting closer than ever, I hadn’t made any progress with Preston.
Sometimes, while Bronx and Jamie occupied themselves by cuddling on the couch, Preston would slide into the chair next to me at the dining room table. He would lean over my shoulder, looking at the homework I was doing and see if he could help, and usually I would seem lost so he would help me out. Preston is intoxicating, even more gorgeous than he always has been. I try not to stare at him too much, but sometimes I just can’t help myself. His brown hair, the same color as Uncle Will’s, is perfectly straight, falling down to almost his shoulders. I love the way his brown eyes always focus on my face when he speaks to me, and the way he always turns up the edge of his lips in a smirk of sorts, as if he’s in on some private joke. He always smells good too, always faintly of Axe, that makes me want to press my nose into his shirt and stay there for as long as I possibly can.
Today, Bronx and Jamie are curled together outside beside the pool, it’s one of the first early summer days warm enough to be outside without a jacket. And while I love seeing the way my best friend smiles when he’s around Bronx, I chose to stay inside, working instead on a homework assignment that I’ve put off for almost a week. Preston is standing in the kitchen, looking out the window to the back porch with an almost pained look on his face. I can tell he wants to be the one tucked inside Bronx’s arms, and while I’m happy for Jamie, I hate seeing how upset Preston looks. I don’t think that Preston had planned for this to be a long term break up, but Bronx had almost instantly switched to Jamie, leaving Preston alone.
“Preston?” I ask, just loud enough for him to hear me across the kitchen. He looks up at me, his previously glazed eyes focusing on my face. He tries to hide the discomfort from his face immediately, but for a few seconds, I can see it lingering there. I nibble on the bottom of my lip, trying to think of the best way I can distract him. I glance at my math book, where I’ve been struggling with the complex workings of Algebra for nearly an hour now. I motion my hand to my math book, smiling at him. “Help me?”
“Sure Lyse,” He says, sitting down at the table beside me, and almost instantly picks up my math book, moving it closer to him. He looks over it, and I’m thankful that he won’t make fun of me, unlike Bronx, for my difficulty with this subject. Math comes fairly easy to him, but he’s not the natural at it that Bronx is, and he’s always helpful when I can’t understand it. He taps my hand lightly, waiting for me to allow my pencil to fall out of my hand and into his palm. He twirls the pencil in his fingers, pushing the eraser to my notebook and scrubbing away the work I’ve done on the latest math problem. “You distributed this wrong,” He murmurs, lightly writing the correct way to do the problem.
“Oh, right,” I say, my cheeks turning a little red. I hate when he figures it out so simply sometimes, it leaves me feeling like an idiot and grabbing at my pencil from his hands. I rewrite the problem in my own handwriting slowly, erasing the parts that show where he wrote on my paper. Preston smiles lightly at me, his eyes no longer drifting up to the window where he can see Jamie and Bronx. Instead, he’s grabbed a spare pencil and my other notebook, and he’s drawn a tic tac toe board. A thick ‘X’ marks the lower right corner, and he pushes it over to me.
“Your turn,” He says, and I watch the way his lips turn up in that ever-constant smirk. It makes my stomach do a ridiculous flip, one that I’ve never gotten for anyone except for Grace. Almost, only almost, I hate that he has that ability, to make my stomach fill up with butterflies at a moments notice. It’s a fairly new feeling, only appearing a couple weeks ago, the first time that he placed his hand on my hip while we were walking home from school.
I chuckle, leaning both of my elbows on the table. “You know, this isn’t going to help me get my homework done,” I say, leaning in closer to him. My eyes flick down for only a moment to land on his lips, and I’ve never really been close enough to notice how soft they look. I stare at them, my thoughts about math becoming cloudy with the mere idea of kissing him.
“You know you want to,” He shrugs, as if that should be the last thing on my mind. And it is. In fact, he is the only thing on my mind. He’s absolutely right, I do want to play with him. I reach over, drawing a heart instead of an ‘O’ inside one of the squares. He instantly draws another X, and I respond with a star this time. He chuckles, crossing off a box in between my two symbols, blocking my chance of winning. I frown, and looking up at him he looks entirely pleased with himself. It only takes him two more ‘X’s to beat me, and after he draws the thick black line connecting his three letters, he licks his lips and looks up at me.
“I win,” He says simply, the smirk growing wider. He leans his arms on the table, smiling at me wildly. His smile is huge and playful, and this is one of those times that I terribly want to know what he’s thinking about. His eyes are bright, focused on my face. “Now the question is, what exactly do I win?”
“What do you want?” I ask with a laugh, looking down to hide the blush that is creeping up on my cheeks. I watch as he pauses, obviously thinking about what he does, in fact, want from me. He pushes my notebook near me, standing up slightly. He walks to the doorway, pausing slightly. My eyes follow him, sliding down from his face to the curvature of his hips. I can’t help but lick my lips, and I can’t help myself, but I want him. I barely notice him turning back to me, until his eyes are on mine, and it’s hypnotizing the way he captures my gaze.
“I’ll let you know” He says, and within seconds, he is out of my sight. But he is not, ever, out of my mind.
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