Adore You | ✔

Chapter 54

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Chapter 54

The next day during calculus, I waited impatiently for Robbie to show up and sit in front of the tree to read whatever book he was reading at the moment.

My pencil tapped anxiously on the open page in front of me. He had sent a cab to pick me up today because he had a last minute call for practice. 

"Coach called a meeting today," Chris said as he scootched his chair closer to mine and peered over my shoulder.

"Hmm," I said, turning to look at Chris.

"He might not come today; Coach is having a meeting," He repeated as an explanation. 

I blushed and looked down at the worksheet we were supposed to be working on.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, my voice becoming faint towards the end of my excuse.

Chris snorted, "Okay. Whatever."

I glared at him and he winked at me, and then tapped on my paper to indicate that I needed to do my work.

"This will take me 15 tops to finish, dad," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Oooh, daddy," he said winking.

"No, that is not what I meant," I replied through gritted teeth while poking the eraser's end of the pencil into his ribs.

"Okay, okay, but seriously you keep staring out that window, and I need to copy the answers before the bell rings, and then you need to explain it to me for the quiz tomorrow. I'm only trying to be responsible for the time we were given."

"The quiz whose answers you will inevitably copy off my paper," I said, my eyebrow-raising up. He grinned at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners already at 17. This was a boy who liked to laugh a lot, and it showed.

"Hey, Lia. I would just copy it. I actually prefer to just copy it.  You are the one who insisted I at least had some idea of what was going on."

I pursed my lips and went back to work on my problems. My mind inevitably wandering to Robbie and what he was doing. I was disappointed he wasn't showing up today, and I realized that I was displaying a few classic withdrawal symptoms. My heart was thumping, and my hands were trembling. As I differentiated the second function, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

"Hey, Chris?" I asked while working out the problem.

"Yeah?" He responded he was playing with an eraser. He didn't even bother to pretend to do his work at this point. The teacher never walked around to check on us, so it didn't worry him to blatantly copy off my papers.

"Never mind," I said, thinking better of it.

"Okay." He said slowly and went back to playing with his eraser.

"I mean." I paused and looked up at the ceiling.

He looked at me, waiting for me to say whatever it is I wanted to say.

"Nothing," I said, frustrated with myself.

"Spit it out, Gomez," He said, tugging gently on my paper so I would stop working.

I put my pencil down and wrung my hands, "How close are you and Robbie?"

He chuckled as if he knew exactly what the subject of my quandary was going to be, "I don't know close. It's different for girls and guys. We play sports together. Why?"

"But, like, do you talk about personal things?" I asked.

He narrowed his eyes at me and then shrugged.

"Sometimes."

"Sometimes, but not always?" I asked as innocently as possible, my voice becoming significantly higher at the end.

"I mean we don't really have heart to hearts. Have you met Robbie?"

"Yes."

"What do you want to know, Lia?" He asked me, a small smile tugged on his lips.

"Well. Just. Has he ever had his heart broken?"

"I don't think so."

"No? No 'one that got away'?"

"Some girls act like he's the one that got away, but I've never seen it the other way around."

"You never saw Robbie longing for a girl that didn't give him attention? Maybe an older girl or someone who just didn't seem that interested."

"Definitely not. Pretty much every girl he's shown an interest for he's dated shortly after. It's impressive," He said, laughing.

"Are there any girls he hangs out a lot with?"

"Yeah, you," He said, leaning back on his chair.

I rolled my eyes, "besides me and Lana and Maria."

"He's not hanging out with Lana and Maria. He's hanging out with you. Like all the time." He said, kind of annoyed.

"No, he isn't."

"Yes, he is. He's missing soccer practice every day. This is after giving me a lot of shit for doing the same thing,"

"He said it was not a big deal that he was trained."

"Cocky mother f—"

I groaned in frustration and cut him off, "Anyway. Not what I meant, never mind."After a beat, he spoke again.

"He tutors a girl."

My head perked up, "He does?"

"Or he did. I think. They hooked up, and Abigail made him stop tutoring her."

"Was this recent?"

"I'm bad with time, Lia," He said, bored of my questions already.

"Did he seem sad when he stopped tutoring her?"

"No. Not particularly. There was a lot of drama behind it. Her boyfriend almost decapitated him with a lab chair."

"Hmm," I said.

"Where is this coming from? Why don't you just ask him yourself? He talks to you a lot more than he does to me."

"I was just curious," I said nonchalantly.

"Just curious? Or jealous? Or both. They aren't mutually exclusive, you know." He said, looking at me with narrowed eyes.

I huffed, "I always give you all my math answers," I said, crossing my arms in front of me.

"So now I have to pay up with answers about Robert?" He retorted.

"Well, yeah," I said, smiling innocently at him.

"Lia, just ask him. Robbie doesn't lie, and he likes you enough where he would just tell you without avoiding the question."

"Fine," I said, annoyed, and continued to work on my problem. I felt him keep looking at me as I worked.

"Gabrielle Hauzer," he said randomly.

"What?" I asked, confused.

"That's the name of the girl he tutored."

"Gabrielle Hauzer" I mouthed.

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