Page 29 of Falling Into You

“We think Jacob is crushing on you!” Gwen announced with a little bounce to her tiptoes.

“Ooooooh!” the kids closest to them cooed.

Rory’s cheeks went full pink. She could feel the heat on the back of her neck. “He isnotcrushing on me. He’s justsucking up to the captain. He knows how skeptical I was, and he just wants to prove me wrong.”

“Because he looooooves you,” Layla said, earning moreooohs from their audience.

“Oh my God, stop. I have a boyfriend,” Rory reminded them.

“Right, and wasn’t he supposed to be here today?” Layla asked, glancing around as if she might have missed Tucker’s sudden appearance.

“I’m sure he has a good reason for missing this,” Rory said. She pulled out her phone to check her texts. Nothing. Except Jacob had sent her a picture of the two of them in a liberty, her with a thousand-watt smile on her face, him looking up to make sure she stayed steady. His arms looked a lot more muscular from this angle....

“Nice shot,” Layla said, looking over her shoulder with a wry smile.

“You’re blushing!” Gwen added gleefully.

“Shhhh!” Rory shoved the phone into her back pocket. “We’re here for the children.”

“Rory! Come see my angry pumpkin!” Brian called out.

“Saved bythe children,” Layla teased.

“You are dead to me,” Rory told her. Then she strode over to rejoin Brian at the table. She was going to have to sneak him an extra Hershey bar later.

Jacob

“There’s no way to sugarcoat this, Mr. Reilly. You’re averaging a D+ in my class this semester.”

Jacob’s entire chest constricted. He’d known that when his precalc teacher, Mrs. Dutton, had asked him to stay after class, it couldn’t be good news. Not when he’d just gotten back a 45% on the latest quiz. But was he really averaging a D+? He’d never gotten lower than a B in any of his classes.

“I’ve been trying. I really have,” he said. “The homework takes me, like, two hours every night.”

Possibly because I’ve got Lindsay twirling past me in rainbow tutus, Chad trying to burp the alphabet in my face, Ford flicking my ears every ten seconds, and Chewie begging for treats at my feet.

“Well, that’s definitely too long,” Mrs. Dutton said, looking across the desk at him. He was seated in the first row—somewhere he’d never sat before in his life—andwondered if he would possibly be doing better if he were a front-row kind of guy. “I haven’t seen you coming in early for extra help.”

“I can’t get here that early,” he told her. “I have to drive my brother and sister to school, and I barely make it here for first period most days.”

She gave him a sympathetic look behind her thick glasses, as if he were suffering a terrible hardship. But the carpool wasn’t the real problem—it was his jerk older brother who couldn’t be bothered to help out and his thirteen-year-old sister who took twenty minutes to dry her hair. He might be able to come in on the days his mom didn’t have to be at the library early, but he liked helping her out so she could have a less hectic morning once in a while. His dad was always out the door by seven to commute into Boston.

“Are there a lot of... distractions at home?” the teacher asked, as if reading his mind.

“You could say that,” he responded, shifting in his seat.

“Okay, maybe we can make other arrangements. Why don’t you come see me at lunch today? We can go over this latest quiz.”

Jacob tried not to sigh. He’d made plans with Carlos to practice the halftime routine at lunch. He really wanted to make sure he had it perfect before homecoming. But it wasn’t lost on him that his teacher was offering to give up her own lunch period to help him out. Why couldn’t he just... understand math? No one else in his family had this muchtrouble with it. He felt stupid and annoyed and, suddenly, angry at the world. Part of him wanted to tell Mrs. Dutton to just fail him and be done with it. Then he wouldn’t have to look at her pitying eyes for the rest of the semester.

But there was one huge reason he couldn’t do that. Students with D’s on their midsemester report could not play varsity sports. Which meant if he didn’t get this grade up by the end of the month, he was not only going to be kicked off the cheerleading squad, but he’d also never even have a shot at getting back onto the soccer team before playoffs.

“Okay,” he said finally, rising from his seat. He wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. “Thanks, Mrs. Dutton. I’ll be here at lunch.”

Jacob hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and took out his phone to text Carlos as he walked out of the room. He felt totally composed, but then he collided with someone coming in and had to bite down on his bottom lip to keep from cursing in their face.

“Oh, God. Sorry!”

Jacob froze. It was Rory. She looked up into his eyes, and her expression changed.