Page 19 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
The scene was familiar; people playing a drinking game around a table, a few girls having a teary conversation, the guys ribbing one another as they tested who could lift the heaviest stuff around Kenji’s house. I captured it all, as unobtrusively as possible.
But not everyone liked the spotlight.
Nicole put her hand up to cover my lens when I got close. “Please don’t,” she said, annoyed.
I nodded and backed away. It didn’t always work when I tried to catch people off guard. And sometimes they surprised me, too.
Like when Logan Harper, a lacrosse player with sandy hair and light freckles across his nose, reached for Mitchell’s hand under the table across the room.
Above the table, they pretended like nothing was happening. Like they weren’t even paying attention to each other. They played the part well, their eyes only snagging on the other for a brief moment.
But when Logan’s thumb brushed across the back of his hand, Mitchell beamed in response.
I whipped the camera away. As far as I knew, neither of them were out. Sometimes it was unclear what was okay to document versus what was straight-up intrusive. But I definitely drew the line at outing anyone.
I quickly darted into the adjoining room, and my footsteps faltered because tucked into a chair in the back corner sat the very person I didn’t know I was looking for.
Reid.
A few people milled around talking. I ducked behind a towering bookshelf and watched him for a second. I’d rarely seen him outside of practice and never in anything but athletic clothes. That night he was wearing a toffee-colored T-shirt and jeans. It was simple, but the color was so flattering he managed to make it look stylish. His head was bent over a notebook, pen flying across the pages. It was the same notebook I’d noticed he pulled out on bus rides to races or after practice sometimes. He tugged on an earring absentmindedly while he wrote.
It was practically offensive how good he looked in the soft light.
“It’s rude to stare.” He hadn’t even looked up.
I startled and turned off the camera, quickly grabbing a book from the bookshelf to pretend to read. My heart hammered against my ribcage as his footsteps approached on the honey-colored hardwood. I realized too late I could’ve just greeted him like a normal person, but I was nervous. It confused me that seeing him made me nervous. I refused to look up when his feet stopped close to me, pretending to be completely absorbed in—
“How Not to Get Caught Spying,” he joked, making up a title. He grimaced. “Don’t think that one’s helping you out much.”
I looked up slowly—withdignity—and met Reid’s eyes. They were cackling. It wasactuallybook one from my favorite fantasy series that I loaned Kenji months ago that he clearly hadn’t even opened.
“Hilarious.” I slammed the book against Reid’s chest, and he grabbed it before it fell.
He grinned. “Thanks, but I’m actually on book three.”
I glared at him, thrown by the way his deep voice thrummed through my body. “You readGlass Swords?”
“YoureadGlass Swords?” Reid asked, the teasing tone replaced by surprise.
“Most people have never even heard of it,” I said, suspicious that he was still messing with me.
He gave me a leveling look and walked over to his backpack, which was tucked beside the chair. He pulled out the green hardcover I knew well and offered it to me as proof.
Instead of lingering on the adorable fact that he brought a book to a party, I opened to where he was in the story. Oh. He didn’t know yet that Yesenia didn’t survive. I’d cried so hard while reading it that tear tracks stained my copy. He was only a few chapters away.
“Whoa, spoiler alert,” he said.
My eyes went wide as they met his. “I didn’t say anything!”
“You didn’t have to. Yesenia dies, doesn’t she?”
Shit, did he really get that from my face?
He pushed a hand through his hair. “I knew it. She sacrifices herself in an epic battle, forcing her brother to take the throne so Una can live a simple life with Felix. Right?”
My mouth fell open. “Wha— How did— I didn’t say—”
He let out a massive laugh then. Shoulders shaking, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He was very pleased with himself. “Your face. Priceless. I’m rereading it.”
