The Mathematics of Love ✔

Chapter 24

I was glad I was here. And even though I would never have the guts to tell him, I was glad Alexander was with me. Dad had been completely against the idea of having a boy come along on this trip, especially a boy who he’d caught ‘sucking face’ with his daughter, but Mom had persuaded him until he finally caved.

Mom was strangely a better wingman than any of my girlfriends.

I snuck a glance over at Alexander, and his warm, dark brown eyes unexpectedly met mine. He gave me a little half-grin and then turned away, the back of his neck reddening a little. A flush crept over my cheeks. I tried to pretend I couldn’t feel the heat of his body next to mine as our coats brushed together, which only made my cheeks burn even more.

When I thought I couldn’t bear the silence or tension between us any longer, Alexander finally spoke. “I uncovered Nancy Pang’s weakness today,” he announced.

“Weakness? What?”

He snorted. “Don’t look so alarmed. I won’t leak this information to the press.”

“Oh, ha-ha, Alexander. How witty. But seriously. What weakness?”

Alexander burst out laughing and lightly flicked my forehead, leaving the tiny patch of skin he touched feeling like it was on fire. “For all of your seemingly endless talents, you, Nancy, have a terrible sense of direction,” he informed me.

“Do not,” I said automatically, and wished I could take back. Was my comeback mode set on Kindergarten-level today?

“And you sounded so confident about your sense of direction earlier, too.” He smirked and put on a high pitched voice. “‘Mom, it’s just to the store next door. We’ll be back in time for the concert’. Well, you forgot to mention the part where we accidentally travel halfway around the planet, and that you’re not sure we’ll be back in time for retirement.”

I shot him a dirty look, though it was half-hearted. “You know, your true sarcastic colors are coming out all of a sudden, and I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

Alexander patted me on the shoulder. Shivers traveled down my back from the spot he touched. “No, you’re right, I’m being an ass. I’m sorry.” He paused. “Wait, no, I’m not. This is too fun. Why don’t I do this more often?”

“I’m so glad you’re having fun while we’re completely, utterly lost in this foreign city.”

“Relax, Nancy,” Alexander said, patting me gently on the back and causing shivers to travel down my back. “So we have no idea where the hotel is. So we’re lost in Indianapolis. So what?”

I watched my breath puff out in front of me on the street. “So now we grow excessive facial hair and die abandoned and homeless on the street.”

“That was a really wild escalation of events.”

There was a short silence while we passed another street full of unfamiliar buildings. “Think it’s about time we give up and ask for directions?” I asked after another gust of wind rattled me to the bone. I had to say the city was not nearly as appealing as it was at first anymore. Indianapolis, I was beginning to realize, was like your standard popular high school girl: pretty on the outside, backstabbing on the inside. And I was not sticking around for the cliché climactic novel moment when the popular high school girl finally revealed the ugly within.

Alexander didn’t respond. When I looked up, I realized he was no longer walking beside me. “Alexander? I’m not waiting around for you—” I stopped mid-sentence when I realized that Alexander had a) ignored my half-hearted threat entirely and b) waltzed right into a music store without a word to me.