Make It Count (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A
LEC SAT OUTSIDE
the learning center on campus, bouncing his leg. The sun shone in a bright, clear spring glare and a light breeze blew through the budding leaves of the campus trees. He’d tried to sit far enough away that Kat wouldn’t see him when she left her appointment. He’d had to bribe Danica with a pair of purple fur-lined boots she’d been eyeing to get her to divulge Kat’s appointment time.

The only reason he knew Danica and Lea had been talking to Kat was because he had seen a text message on Lea’s phone from her. He was sure she’d been nervous for her appointment, but he could picture her, walking in with her head high. He was so fucking proud of her.

The doors of the center opened and Kat stepped out, sliding her mirrored sunglasses over her eyes. His chest ached. He hadn’t seen her since he had left her in the bowling-alley parking lot, when tears stacked up in those blue eyes.

She looked good now. Her hair was down, blowing in the wind. She wore tight jeans and knee-high brown boots. She’d traded in her heavy red pea coat she loved so much for a light khaki jacket over a blue sweater.

He had to grip the bench to prevent himself from running up to her. He couldn’t tell from her expression the outcome of the meeting.

The door opened behind her and Lea came out. Kat flashed a huge smile and hugged her, that beautiful, familiar laugh lilting over the campus to his ears.

The ache in his chest eased at sight of that grin and the sound of that laugh. They began to walk, heads bent in some sort of conversation. He knew he should get up and walk away now, before Kat spotted him, but he couldn’t bring himself to stand up. Another couple of seconds. He had to make sure Kat was all right.

As Kat drew closer to his hideout, she jerked her head up, as if she could feel his eyes on her, and looked right at him.

He held his breath, unsure of her reaction. Last night, lying in bed, he was so sure of her feelings for him, so confident they could make this work. But in the light of day, all the doubts crept in. What if he
had
misread every moment they’d spent together?

She probably only looked at him for five seconds, but it felt like an eternity to him, until she turned her head to say something to Lea, then walked away from her, in Alec’s direction.

He stood up and shoved his hands into his leather jacket. Kat stopped a few feet away from him and cocked her head to the side, pushing her sunglasses into her hair on her head.

They stood in silence, until Kat said, “Danica?”

He shrugged. “She’d sell out anyone for a pair of purple boots.”

Kat laughed and looked away, her eyes following Lea as she walked away.

“So. Hi.” His grand moment to talk to her and that was all he could come up with to say.

She turned back to him. At least she hadn’t turned on the sex kitten. “Thanks for the text messages,” she said.

That’s all she said. She gave him nothing else. “Sure.” He jerked his head toward the building behind them. “What did they say?”

“The psychologist said I have dyslexia,” she said simply, her face calm.

“Yeah?” he asked. “So, you okay with that?”

“It took me some time to work out in my head. To get over that this is what’s best for me. But yeah, I’m okay with it. I feel . . . understood. For once. I have some hoops to go through yet, but I can get extra help now. I told them about statistics and we had a conference call with Dr. Alzahabi. I did, in fact, fail the mid-term, but he said considering the circumstances, he’ll allow me to make up the grade by giving an oral presentation. My choice of research topic, as long as it relates to statistics, obviously. Total bummer because I really wanted to do a science project on which nail polish dries the fastest.”

Alec laughed softly. “I also heard about you wanting to declare an education major.”

Kat narrowed her eyes. “I’m going to take a marker to those stupid purple boots.”

“Actually, it was Lea who let it slip.”

“Hm, well I can’t be mad at my MBF.”

“MB what?”

She waved her hand. “Never mind.”

“Well, I do want you to know, I think that’s great. You’ll make an awesome teacher.”

Her eyes softened. “Thanks.” She fidgeted with her bag. “So, I need to get going—” she began.

Now that he had her in front of him, he didn’t want her to walk away. “I’m proud of you,” he blurted out.

Her body jerked and she blinked, her eyes glassy one minute, then clear again the next. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “You know, I’m starting to be proud of me, too.”

Keep her here. “And you know, I can help you with that project, if you want. I have some ideas from when I took the class . . .”

He let his voice die when Kat’s entire posture went rigid. He’d fucked up again. Dammit.

And that was it. She dropped her sunglasses back over her eyes. “See you soon,” she said before walking away.

He held on to that
soon
like a life preserver.

He watched her until she was out of sight and then stood there for another couple of minutes, biting his lip and thinking of all the things he should have said.

“Hey,” a voice came from behind him and he whipped around to see Danica, dressed in some sort of steampunk getup, tight pants and a leather corset over a white blouse.

He raised his eyebrows at her clothes and she grinned, fingering some massive headpiece, birds and flowers welded onto a metal gear.

“Where do you find this stuff?”

She sat down on the bench and leaned back. “Oh, young man, the Internet is a great and many-splendored thing.”

He sat down beside her. “Yeah, it has cool stuff like news, you know, not just places to find . . . whatever the hell that is you’re wearing.”

She ignored him. “Did you see her?”

He looked down at his hands. “Yeah.”

“Why isn’t she here, then, laughing at your awful jokes and messing up your hair with her wandering fingers?”

He glared at her. “You’re just on a roll today, aren’t you?”

“Answers, Stone.”

“I don’t know. I fucked up again, I guess. It’s like every time I offer to help, she shuts me down. If she doesn’t want my help, why doesn’t she just say so?”

Danica’s blue eyes searched his before she exhaled in exhaustion and slung an arm around his shoulder. “Oh, Stone. My misguided, left-brained friend.”

He bunched his shoulders so she’d drop her arm. “Let go of me.”

She held on tighter. “I tried to let you figure this out on your own. I really did. And in fact, I promised Kat I’d leave you to your own devices but this is getting ridiculous. I’m tired of seeing the two of you act like someone killed your puppies.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She kept talking. It’s like he wasn’t even there. “What happened when Kat told you about her teacher and parents?”

“Um.” He frowned. “I talked to her about it.”

Danica shook her head. “Specifically, what did
you
say?”

“I . . . I tried to come up with a plan, to fix her statistics grade and get her off academic probation and—“

Danica held up her hand. “How do you think that made Kat feel?”

He paused. “Um, I thought at the time she’d be grateful for the help but now I’m thinking that’s the wrong answer.”

Danica leaned in and patted his cheek. “You’d be correct.”

His mind whirled as he remembered that scene in her bedroom. He’d wanted to forget it, but every night it replayed in his head like a bad movie. She’d shut down right when he’d gone into tutor mode and offered suggestions on how to fix it. How to  . . .

Oh shit.

“Fix her,” he blurted.

Danica, who still had his face in her hand, squeezed her fingers. “What?”

He met her eyes. “Oh God, I’d made her think I wanted to fix her. Right? Like . . . like . . . she was just some sort of student to me. Not the girl I . . .”

He closed his eyes as Danica’s hands dropped from his face. She tugged his head into the crook of her shoulder. That stupid blouse had laces that tickled his nose.

“I know you like to fix things,” she said quietly. It’s who you are. It’s why you want to be a lawyer and why you’re smart and so good at what you do.” She exhaled roughly. “But you can’t fix her. She’s a person, not a math problem. You can’t solve her for X.”

He didn’t care who walked by and saw him cradled in Danica’s arms. She’d probably snarl at anyone who dared to look at them askance anyway.

Finally he straightened. “How do I show her I don’t see her as a project? That I don’t think she needs fixing?”

Danica smoothed his hair back. “Oh no, you’re on your own there. I’m not good at the romance thing, either. Monica says my idea of romance is ‘Take off your shirt.’ ”

Alec huffed. “Well clearly, I suck at it, too.”

Danica shook her head. “You care about her. You see her—all her parts—and that’s all she needs. No grand gestures, no flowers or anything. Just find a way to show her how amazing she is.”

He leaned in and smacked a kiss on her cheek loudly. “Love you, Dan.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Love you, too.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“A
ND THAT IS
my conclusion on the distribution of animals in a box of animal crackers. I am ninety-five-percent certain of my findings that the tiger has the highest percentage of probability at ten percent and the lion has the lowest, at two percent.”

Kat bit the head off a monkey animal cracker and grinned at Dr. Alzahabi. He sat in a desk in front of her in an empty classroom, hand wrapped around his jaw, elbow on the table, looking at Kat like she was from another planet.

“Want an animal cracker?” she asked.

He dropped his hand onto the desk and leaned back, clearing his throat. “No thanks, Ms. Caruso, but I appreciate the offer. I looked over the paper you submitted to me already and despite your odd choice of topic, this was well researched and presented.”

Kat finished chewing her monkey head and swallowed. “Thank you.”

“Because of that, I’m going to excuse your midterm test grade and use this grade instead, which will give you a B plus for your midterm grade.”

Kat gawked, her mouth open, bits of animal cracker probably on her lips. A B plus? In statistics? She didn’t know whether to cry, laugh or dance a jig.

“I—I don’t know what to say,” she stuttered. “Thank you so much for this opportunity to bring up my grade.”

Her professor rose slowly from his chair and stepped toward her, his stern expression warming. “I commend you for taking the initiative to get a diagnosis, and for your desire to pursue an education degree.”

She was still gawking, so she closed her mouth. “Thank you,” she mumbled.

Dr. Alzahabi’s face returned to his impassive status quo and he gave her a curt nod. “Right, well, we’ll do this again for your final and that will be sufficient to pass this class, I think. Thank you, Ms. Caruso, and good luck.”

Kat picked up her book bag and slung it over her shoulder, still processing her professor’s words. He was already at his desk, packing his papers into his briefcase.

“Thanks, Dr. Alzahabi. Thank you so much,” she said again, before darting out the door.

She walked down the hall in a daze, dumbfounded she had managed to pull off that project. She had thought of the idea while watching an airing of
Armageddon
with Tara over the weekend. Ben Affleck’s character got frisky with Liv Tyler’s character with an animal cracker, and Kat had begun to think about which was the sexiest animal available in an animal cracker (lion, obviously). Then she thought about the odds of getting said sexy lion and then she had her statistics project.

By herself.

In pure Kat style.

She had never been more proud of herself as she had been when she completed that project.

The learning support center appointment was eye-opening. The exam the psychologist gave her covered an intelligence test and reading/writing test, which resulted in a dyslexia diagnosis. She talked to them about her attention problem, and she planned to go in for further testing to determine if she had an attention deficit disorder. They suspected, however, that it was part of her method for coping in a world she didn’t always understand. She’d been given some additional coping methods, such as chewing gum during tests—a trick that supposedly could help her focus.

And as she worked on her project, she learned her wandering mind, which she had previously cursed, could be creative.

No, there was no cure. She’d always have dyslexia. But it wasn’t an academic death sentence. The diagnosis was freeing, releasing her from the prison of constant misunderstanding.

She had begun to realize her struggles and newfound knowledge of learning disabilities were an asset to her future as a teacher, not a hindrance. Thanks to Lea, the last two weeks had been productive. Kat had met with a great advisor who helped her declare her elementary-education major. She was officially out of the “undecided” club and squarely in the “I finally know what to do with my life” club.

It was a good feeling.

And last night, Alec’s text message had said,
I still owe you a date. And then I can tell you in person how sorry I am.

The message swelled her heart, but she kept her guard up, because she didn’t know if he knew what there was to be sorry about.

When she burst out of the doors of the math and science building, a set of nervous, familiar brown eyes waited for her.

“Max?” She walked up to him where he was seated on a stone bench under a blooming maple.

“Hey,” he said.

She sat down beside him. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Everything’s fine. I ran into Danica at the TUB and she said you’d be here. I . . . uh . . . wanted to talk to you.”

She nodded hesitantly. “Okay.”

He tapped his fingers on his knees and pursed his lips. Kat waited for him to speak, staring as he worked his jaw. “Max—”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, finally looking up at her. “I know I was a dick to you, and I’m sorry.”

This was unexpected. He didn’t want to get back together, did he? Because that would be awkward. “Max, it’s in the past now—”

He shook his head roughly. “No, please don’t brush it off. Can you accept my apology? I was an asshole. You know it and I know it.”

“Okay, fine. I accept your apology, and I appreciate it.”

Max smiled, and it was the smile she remembered from October when he’d first asked her out. He’d been so charming then. He’d make some girl really happy once he sorted himself out and realized what he had to offer.

She returned his smile and patted his cheek, then quickly withdrew her hand. She didn’t want to give him any ideas. “But we can’t get back together, I—”

“Whoa whoa whoa,” he held his hands up, palms out and leaned back. “No, that’s not why I apologized. Alec told me about you two.”

You two.
Like she and Alec were a real couple. She pushed that aside and focused on something else. “You two are talking?”

Max’s faced reddened and he looked away. “He told you.”

They didn’t have to mention the betrayal. “He told me.”

“I didn’t cheat on you, just so you know.”

That was good to know, but she cared more about what he did to Alec than the thought he’d done something to her. “Okay.”

Max’s jaw twitched. “I apologized to him, too. Been saying ‘sorry’ a lot lately.”

She dug her nails into her thighs. She wanted to yell at him, to tell him that’s what happened when you were a jerk to your girlfriend and slept with your best friend’s girlfriend, but Max looked like he knew all that. She didn’t need to tell him.

“By the way,” Max said, “You gonna call Alec anytime soon? He’s mopey.”

Kat laughed. “Are you and Danica teaming up? She used the same word to describe Alec. You guys at least need different adjectives next time you launch your offensive.”

Max wrinkled his nose. “Danica and I are not on the same team. Oh wait, maybe we are, since we both like girls. I’m not sure.” He furrowed his brow and stared off into campus, as if he was trying to figure it out.

A phone rang and Max reached into his pocket. He swiped his thumb across the screen to answer it. “Hey Cam.” Pause. “What do you mean he won’t come out?” Max stood up and put a hand on his hips “Well, fucking bang the door down, take off the hinges or something!” Kat placed her hand on his arm. Max looked at it, eyes squinted in concern, then he raised his head and met her eyes. “Never mind, Cam. I got a secret weapon.” He shoved his phone into his pocket and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go.

She had to run to keep up with him as he dragged her across campus. “What? Where are we going?”

“To my place,” he said irritably, like he couldn’t be bothered to explain why he was kidnapping her.

She tried to dig her heels in to stop but Max was too strong. “Why?”

When they reached his truck, he opened her door and pushed her inside. “Because Zuk needs you.”

“Me?” she squeaked, but he’d already shut the door and was rounding the front of the truck. Why would he need her?

When Max started the truck, she tried to plead her case, that she was sure there was nothing she could do, but Max cut her off, explaining Cam said Alec got a phone call from his mom. He had answered it in the living room and while talking, his face had paled. He’d run up to his bedroom and locked the door, refusing to answer except to say “I’m fine, just go away.”

Cam wasn’t pacified by that.

Kat gripped the seat with white knuckles as Max sped through the town like a demon, violating about a dozen traffic laws in between his road-rage curses.

Kat pushed aside the insecurity over her ability to fix the situation. She wrung her hands because now there was a new, bigger worry. She hoped there wasn’t anything wrong with his mother. Alec didn’t need to lose another parent.

Max took the turn onto his street with a screech and on what Kat could have sworn was two wheels. He parked and didn’t wait for her, flinging his door open and sprinting for the house. By the time she had followed him into the house and up the stairs, he was banging on Alec’s door, a fretting Cam beside him. “Let me in, Zuk! What the fuck?”

Some sort of slow, depressing emo music, which Alec didn’t normally listen to, could be heard through the door. She didn’t know if he had searched Pandora for a “sad song” station or what.

Elbowing Max out of the way, she placed her palm on the door. Unsure what to say, she went with the easiest thing. Her favorite word. “Alec.”

The music stopped, followed by silence.

She licked her lips and tried again. “Alec.”

There was a rustling and a creaking, which she knew was his bed. There was movement at the corner of her eye and the doorknob rattled as he unlocked it from inside.

Kat eyed Max and Cam, who both stepped back, conceding defeat. She gave them a small smile and walked in, shutting the door behind her.

Alec was in a cocoon of sheets on the bed, his dark, glossy hair peeking out at the top where it rested on his pillow. She didn’t hesitate to go to him because no matter what, she cared about him. And he needed her. So she’d put aside her own fears and worries and do whatever she could to comfort him. She put a knee to the bed and crawled to him, lying on top of the covers, her front to his back, wrapping an arm around his waist, the other petting his hair.

His breaths were even and deep. She would have thought he was asleep if he hadn’t just stood up to let her in his room.

As she touched his head and ran her fingers over the hair at his temples, he shuddered, then turned to face her.

There were no tears, but shadows lurked in his eyes. “How’d you get here?” he asked.

“Why did you shut yourself in your room?”

“How’d you get here?” he repeated.

“Why did you shut yourself in your room?” she shot back.

“I asked first,” he mumbled.

“Max saw me on campus. We were talking when Cam called him. Your turn.”

Alec bit the inside of his cheek. “He’s dead.” His eyes darted back and forth, begging her not to make him say a name. He didn’t have to. She knew.

“How did he die?”

“Heart attack. Didn’t even make it to his parole hearing.”

Her breath left in a rush. “Wow.”

“Yeah.” His eyes were hard to read, searching hers like she held the answer to a question he wasn’t asking.

She squeezed his arm tighter. “I can’t read your mind. Are you happy? Sad? What?”

“That’s what I’m in here trying to figure out,” he said, his brows furrowing and the green in his eyes darkening in confusion. “I feel oddly empty right now. I don’t feel justified, I don’t feel happy. I just feel . . . nothing. It’s all very anticlimactic.” He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “Shouldn’t I be dancing on his grave or something?”

Kat scooted closer and buried her face in his neck. She had an excuse to get close to him and she wasn’t above exploiting this moment to do so. She was only human. And she needed something, his fresh scent, the feel of his skin on hers, to take with her when she left. “It’s okay to feel this way. It’s not wrong.”

He swallowed and she felt his Adam’s apple bob against her cheek. “I never wrote the letter to the parole board. I realized I spent a lot of time being angry about what happened, hating MacEnroe. You said it wasn’t a travesty to my dad’s legacy to let the anger go and you were right.” He took a deep breath and exhaled roughly.

“We should mark on the calendar that I was right, because it doesn’t happen often.” Kat fingered the collar of his T-shirt and wondered if she could also steal one on her way out. The other shirt she took from him needed to be washed sometime.

He chuckled. “I feel like an idiot for holing myself up in here. I didn’t want to have to deal with Max or Cam . . .”

She wanted to ask why he let her in. What was it about her? But she didn’t talk as he sorted his thoughts out loud. “Feels sort of good to be empty, actually. Like my heart is drained of all the bad so I can fill it with the good.” He bit his lip.

She brushed her lips against his neck, just once. “Your heart was always full of good.”

He turned to her and smiled, once again focusing that intelligent, all-knowing gaze on her and she knew it was her turn to make her exit. She couldn’t do this again, get sucked into Alec’s orbit. She’d come too far in the last couple of weeks for a man tell her she “needed fixed.”

Even if he held her heart. “You going to venture out of your room now?”

He nodded, eyes still locked with hers, holding her there like some sort of force field.

But this wasn’t a sci-fi movie, so she dropped her gaze. “Well, that makes me happy. She scooted back and up on her knees. “So, I guess I’m going to go now—“

He jolted up, one hand braced behind him, one out as if to touch her. “Wait, are you leaving?”

She nodded and stood beside the bed. “Yeah, I have some things to do and so . . . yeah.”

“Wait, Kat—“

“I’m glad you’re okay with everything.” She fumbled with her bag on the floor. “And say hi to your mom for me!”

And then she ran out, like a coward. Jogged down the stairs, almost tripping on the bottom step as a thump and a curse sounded from Alec’s room, followed by her name. Max walked in from the kitchen, a sandwich halfway to his mouth as she opened the front door.