Lianne spoke into her phone, leaving a message. “Harvey, it’s Lianne. I have a little job that needs doing. Let’s say six or eight models, for three hours next Saturday. Call me.” She hung up. “I don’t mind paying for it.”
“No, I can,” I said quickly. Money was one problem I did not have.
Lianne waved a hand as if this detail was beneath our concern. “Now we need to generate a diagram of the bleachers. Tomorrow we can go over to the stadium and count the number of rows. But estimating the density is still kind of tricky. Even with a spreadsheet.”
Jesus Christ. I’d underestimated this girl again. “I’ll ask my friend Graham for a photograph of the stands during a game. The newspaper must have that in a file somewhere. We can count the heads in the picture.”
“That’s a great idea.”
This brainstorm was interrupted by the sound of a distant knock on my door.
Lianne and I both silenced our planning immediately. “To be continued?” I whispered.
Is that Rafe? she mouthed.
“Probably.”
“I’m going to need you to report back,” she whispered.
Saluting her, I slipped into my room, closing the bathroom door. The knock came again. “Bella?” Rafe called. “I have your book.”
I opened the door. “Did you think I wasn’t going to answer unless I got Essays on the Feminist Perspective back?”
He came into the room warily, handing me the book. For several seconds we just stared at each other. We both decided to speak at once.
“I’m sorry,” we said in unison.
“Aw,” Lianne said from behind the door.
“I have to talk to you,” Rafe said. He slipped past me and went to sit on the bed. “Sit down,” he said, patting the spot next to him. His dark eyes flicked up, locking on mine. Then they darted away again.
“Can I go first?” I asked.
He shook his head and smiled. “Nope. There’s something I need to say.”
“But my thing came first,” I argued.
“It doesn’t matter, Bella! I’m trying to…”
I cut him off, by virtue of hollering. “I’m trying to apologize for stealing your virginity!”
There was a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the bathroom door.
“Lianne!” I hollered. “Take your skinny butt over to that fancy stereo and find yourself some tunes.”
There was a grumble and the sound of feet moving away from the door.
Rafe’s shoulders sagged. “Freaking Bickley.”
“I know,” I sympathized. “But I had no idea—”
He held a hand up to silence me. “Just stop, okay? I don’t want to talk about this.”
“But we have to, because—”
“No,” he said forcefully. “We really don’t. That’s ridiculous.”
“No it isn’t,” I said, dropping my voice. “I was so hard on you…”
He held up that hand again.
“Fine!” I yelped. “But I feel like an ass. You’ve been really good to me. Always really good to me. Since that first day you carried a box up to my room, okay? I just wanted to say thank you. I haven’t been… my best self this year.”
Those brown eyes softened. “You had reasons.”
I let out a breath. “I had a few here and there. But you’re just about the only good thing that’s happened to me this year. And I want you to know I appreciate it.”
That may have caught him off guard. I saw him swallow roughly. “Thank you.”
“That night in September…”
He made an impatient noise. “Don’t go there.”
“Hey! I’m not going to embarrass you. I promise. But you… I couldn’t tell, Rafe. I would have never guessed.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Uh… thanks?”
“You’ve been really patient with me when I had a shitty time, and I wasn’t so patient with you. I wish I had been.”
“It’s okay, Bella. I’m done with this topic.”
Ugh. Well, I tried. “Okay then. What was your thing?”
“My thing,” he repeated.
“Yeah. I cede the floor to the gentleman from Washington Heights.” I sat beside him.
Rafe put a hand on the small of my back, and the heat seeping through my T-shirt felt divine. “Okay,” he said, rubbing small circles on my back. “When I said today that I don’t do casual, I wasn’t kidding.”