Exotic

~ all fall apart ~

Monday morning was plagued with a worse hangover than Friday. Reece seemed to be ignoring me, not speaking a word to me for the whole weekend, which was fine by me. It made me wonder why I hadn't gone off at him before.

Max was wearing the M sweater at lunch, and a smug smile he reserved for big victories.

I placed my lunch tray by him, cautious. "Do I want to ask?"

Max grinned, checking over his shoulder. "I fucking won, dude. Trout took me off the bench for next Saturday. I told McCaffrey to put in a word or I was going to marry his sister. Or his mother. I introduced myself to her after the game. She really liked me."

I scoffed. "He's probably just biding his time."

"That's what Aaron said," Max frowned. "He's gone to sit in the library."

I didn't miss that Caleb was sitting at Aidan's table again. I filed it away in my reasons to get over my crush and tried not to stare at him too long. His school cap hung off the side of his bag, lopped through one of the straps.

Aidan glared at Max for a good portion of lunch, but he never approached. Ultimatums worked wonders. The one between Caleb and I was a little less crass than Max's, but I was glad he was back on the field. Being the most decent person on the soccer team shouldn't have been held against him.

"Tell me if Aidan gives you trouble again," Max advised me before we split for class. "I've got Georgia on speed dial if he tries anything."

I reeled him into an overly masculine half-hug-back-pat. English was torturous, mathematics was brutal. Aaron sat beside me in both classes, jabbing me whenever he thought I was losing focus.

"Are you on Valium?" he hissed after shaking me out of a half-conscious state as Mr. Bloomsbury was calculating the compound interest of a proposed trust fund. "It's only Monday. Look alive."

I rubbed my eye vigorously. "He could try some upward inflection in his voice. Who does he think is paying attention to this?"

"Unless your conversation is something you'd be comfortable involving everyone in, Mr. Stewart," Mr. Bloomsbury called, ears like a hawk despite his age. "I'd recommend shutting up for an hour or two. Who knows, you might learn something."

I gave him a lazy thumbs-up, and once his back was to us, I dropped back into the hushed conversation, "Are you doing anything tomorrow?"

"I've got a dentist appointment and then I'm going to write scholarship applications late into the night," he told me. "Don't think I've forgotten about your tutoring session."

"Only until four," I hissed. "I'll just sit quietly while you write. You won't even know I'm there."

"Oh no. I am not getting pulled into that trap," Aaron rolled his eyes automatically. Immediately afterward, he hesitated, and his eyes softened. "I guess I could get them done on Wednesday. They're not due until June. We could have a movie night?"

As much as I wanted to take him up of the offer, I knew it would be selfish. Not everyone was so disillusioned by the idea of university. I refused to disrupt Aaron's future prospects, even if it meant spending the anniversary of my mother's death sealed up in my room.

"Nah. I'll be fine," I dropped my eyes back to my textbook. "Should probably study for this test, right?"

Aaron rubbed his knuckles against my wrist. "You can drop by if you need it. Maya's complaining that she hasn't seen you. She thinks you'll waste away without her cooking."

"She's not wrong," I mused.

"She definitely not wrong. You know drinking isn't an appropriate substitute for actual food, right?"