“Me, too.” Delilah tucked one of her many tiny braids behind her ear and straightened her macramé necklace. “Do I look okay?”
I grinned at how they were drooling over him. Yep, that was my guy they wanted. Well, he was kind of my guy… “kind of” being the operative phrase…
Rafe looked over. Of course he would. There were four girls standing on the sidewalk right in front of the school. Like he wouldn’t notice. He scanned the group, and I felt my cheeks heat up as his gaze landed on me. His mouth tightened ever so slightly, and I knew he was still mad. Crud!
I had to bail before he got to us and exposed me in front of my friends. But where would I go? And if I took off, everyone would know I’d been lying all along.
There was only one option. If it didn’t work, I was so dead.
I yanked my arm out of Erin’s and ran across the parking lot toward Rafe to intercept him before he could get within earshot of my friends. His eyes widened when he saw me running toward him, and he raised his arms like he was going to fend me off.
I launched myself at him. My body slammed into his with a thud and I threw my arms around his neck. “Rafe!” I said it loud enough for my friends to hear.
He grunted from the impact and grabbed me around the waist to keep me from knocking us both over. My heart thudded down to my toes as his arms wrapped around me. I could feel his body against mine, solid muscle and raw strength. Wow.
Rafe set me back down, his hands still on my hips to keep me from knocking him over. His face was wary and he looked like he was afraid I’d gone insane. “What was that about?”
I knew my friends couldn’t hear us, as long as we talked quietly. I wrapped my hands around his arms, like I was using him for balance. His biceps flexed under my palms, rippling with muscles that made my whole body tingle. “I wanted to apologize for getting you sucked into my miserable life,” I said, my voice a little breathless as I forced myself to pry my hands off his arms. “Your life is bad enough already, and I’m sorry.” I hadn’t meant to apologize, but suddenly, it seemed like the right thing to do. Yeah, I hadn’t barged into his band on purpose, but it was still my crisis that had prompted Crusty to come up with the solution.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise, his dark eyes so freaking intense even in the afternoon sunlight. “You’re sorry? Really?”
“Yes.” I was sorry, but at the same time, it had still been unfair how he’d treated me. So I poked him in the chest. “But you were still a jerk for how you treated me last night.”
The corner of his mouth curved up and he let go of my waist to flick my bangs off my face. When my dad did that, I felt like he was treating me like a little kid. When Rafe did it, I felt like my legs got all shaky and I forgot how to breathe. “I’m sorry about last night, too” he said.
I blinked and this time had to hold onto him for real to keep from falling over in surprise. I would never have expected Rafe to apologize. He’d been so mad, and he was just, too…well, cool. “What?”
He shrugged. “I talked to my aunt afterwards. She said you had nothing to do with it.”
I lifted my chin. “I told you I didn’t.”
“I know. Sorry for jumping all over you. I know my aunt well enough that I should have realized she’d railroaded us both into it.” He shrugged his shoulders, looking a little uncomfortable. “The point is, I’m sorry. I was a jerk and you didn’t deserve it.”
“Oh.” Well, that was kind of nice. Did I still have to be mad at him?
He gave my ponytail a tug, and I thought I was going to die right there from the feel of his hand drifting over the ends of my hair as he oh-so-slowly let go. “So, what do you say to a truce? We’re stuck with each other for a month, right? We might as well deal with it.”
I grinned, my heart racing. “I suppose I can forgive you. But only because you’re a good drummer, not because you deserve it.”
He chuckled. “Such attitude. How does your boyfriend stand it?”
Oh, right. I forgot about my boyfriend. He had a girlfriend. I had a boyfriend. The ponytail twirling meant nothing. Crud. I sighed. “My boyfriend thinks I’m a goddess. He’s right, of course.”
His smile got wider. “You’d be impossible as a girlfriend, you know that?”
My smile faltered. He thought I would be a bad girlfriend? For a split second, I felt totally bummed, then I caught myself.
What was I doing? It wasn’t like anything was going to happen between us anyway, right? I was going to play in the band, and Rafe and I were friends again. That was as far as it would go. I would not let the boyfriend/girlfriend thing screw up the one good thing I had in my life right now! I slapped on my most arrogant look, the one I used when I was feeling the most scared at a recital and didn’t want to show it. “You’re just jealous.” I spun away with a flip of my hair and started marching toward the building.