Page 16 of Double Dared
As if.
CHAPTER FIVE
taylor
The lyrics to “Life on Mars?”followed me throughout the morning as I poured milk over my cereal and sat at the kitchen island with my elbows resting on its cool surface.
“What are you doing?” Jason asked, coming down the stairs with Peanut by his side. “Are you humming?”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“It must have been some movie,” Jason said, scratching Peanut behind the ear, then walking over to the fridge, scratching himself behind the ear, too. Sometimes, I was certain he was doing this on purpose.
“We never got around to watching the movie,” I said. “Harrison stuffed eggplant slices with cheese. You can’t imagine how good that was.”
Jason looked at me over his shoulder with a frown twisting his eyebrows for a moment or two. “Cool guy, huh?”
I shrugged. I had to bite my lip not to laugh at Jason’s narrow eyes and the lingering look of gentle confusion. He took out Peanut’s open can of food and spooned a generous portion into a clean bowl, then carried it to the corner where Peanut liked to eat.
With his priorities in order, Jason proceeded to make himself a grilled cheese sandwich, while I continued to hum the song that was stuck in my head. The tune slipped from major to minor for no particular reason, and I let it fade out because it made me inexplicably sad.
Shaking my head a little, I carried the bowl to the sink, rinsed it, and stacked it inside the dishwasher, then went back to my room to find that book I owned. It had to be somewhere in there. There were a few scattered textbooks on my desk, my laptop was open and gathering dust in the center of the workspace, pens and pencils had rolled around a stack of notebooks, the beanbag was pushed to the corner, and the bed wasn’t made yet. On the windowsill, watching out, was the stork Harrison had bought me.
It made me pause, erasing my mission from my mind for a long moment before I got back to my senses and rummaged through the drawers. Still dog-eared, the paperback was under a stack of corrected essays, and I tucked it into the back pocket of my baggy cargo pants, turned to the wardrobe, and found myself a hoodie. It was a picnic, so I decided to go with a casual look.
My feet pattered against the stairs as I hurried down and toward the door.
“Where are you off to at the crack of dawn?” Jason asked, rinsing his plate.
“Out,” I said, sticking the headphones into my ears. “Got plans. Gotta dash.”
I didn’t need to look to know that Jason was trying very hard not to put two and two together because the result would fundamentally change everything he thought he knew about me, life, and the universe at large. Only when the door closed behind me did I let myself laugh.
And just because I had a strong suspicion that Jason was at the window, spying on me, I boogied down the path to the street and around the corner. The music carried me down the street long after I was out of Jason’s field of vision, but I didn’t stop.
The lawn by the philosophy department was inclined, and the grass was just a little overgrown, and students had already placed their picnic blankets around the park. The biggest one was a checkered red-and-white blanket with a basket covered by yet another checkered cloth, this one blue and white, and the figure lying on his back caught my gaze immediately.
Harrison wore a navy blue, short-sleeved polo shirt paired with beige shorts and darker brown loafers. It was a ridiculously polished look, especially when I realized that he wore green-tinted sunglasses with a faded golden frame.
I dropped next to him on the blanket. “Now I look like an idiot.”
Harrison lifted his sunglasses and scanned me. He took a moment. “No, you’re perfect. I might have overdone it.”
We looked around, and sure enough, few wore the latest Hermès look to a book-reading picnic. “Maybe a smidgen,” I agreed.
“Got a book?” Harrison asked.
I slapped my ass where it was still packed in the pocket, then pulled it out. “Don’t judge. I only read fifty pages, and I’ve been meaning to continue, but I kept putting it off.” I placed it on the blanket between us.
“Are you kidding me?” He picked up the book with delight on his face. “I grew up devouring everyDiscworldbook I could get my hands on. Terry Pratchett is a personal hero.”
I frowned a little. “Huh, and I just picked it up because the cover was funny.” It was a busy illustration featuring Death, a horse, a scrawny kid, a woman, and a single word,Mort, lettered across the vast blue sky.
“This is my favorite,” Harrison said. “Well, top three, for sure.” He handed it back to me, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. Mr. Intellectual liked my book. “What did you bring?”
Harrison pulled the white-and-blue cloth off the basket. “Breads, jams, a thermos of coffee, and this.” He lifted a heavy, hardcover edition ofThe History of Film Compositionwith a black-and-white cover thatshowed actors in a room with a window in the background and a boy playing outside in the snow.
“Interesting,” I said honestly. “You can tell me about it. I don’t think I’d survive reading this.”
