“Only because I was forced to,” she replies with semi-amusement.
Grey shifts his weight, scooting closer to me. I struggle not to note how amazing he smells, like soap and cologne, but I can’t help stealing an inhale.
“Why aren’t you up with the team?” Willow asks Grey as she slips on a black and red hoodie.
“Yeah, that’s an excellent question.” Wynter crosses her arms. “Why aren’t you up there with the rest of your douchebag friends?”
“I’m still on academic probation,” he answers, glancing down at where the team is sitting. “It’s okay, though. It’s been pretty interesting seeing all of this”—he gestures down at the gym floor where our mascot, a blue and gold fox, is doing a cartwheel—“from a different point of view.”
“You don’t get to play in tonight’s game?” Willow frowns when Grey shakes his head. “That’s so sad. With how much time you’ve spent practicing in gym class, you should get to play.”
“It’s okay.” He shrugs it off. “I still might get to if I can pass the English exam.”
“The one we took today?” I ask.
He nods, glancing at me from the corner of his eye. “I got a C on the one this morning, but Mr. Gartying offered to let me take it again after school. If I get a B, then I get to play in tonight’s game, but I doubt I will. It’s not like I can learn an entire course within a few hours.” His lips tug into a small, defeated smile that makes the guilt in my stomach knot.
But I’m confused. I had Beck check with Grey to make sure he found himself another tutor, and Beck reported back to me that Grey said he had it handled. Clearly, he was lying.
Wynter jabs me in the side with her elbow.
“Ow.” I grip my ribs. “What was that for?”
“He needs help studying,” she hisses as she nods her head in Grey’s direction. “Hint. Hint.”
“It’s okay.” Grey offers a reassuring smile. “I really don’t think studying for a few hours is going to do any good.”
“You clearly haven’t studied with Luna and Willow, have you?” Wynter tells Grey as she laces up her shoe. “If the two of them help you, you’ll get an A. Trust me. They’ve helped me a ton of times, and I’m a pain in the ass to teach.”
Grey looks skeptical. “And you care because . . . ?”
“I don’t care, but I know someone who . . .” Wynter’s eyes drift to me, and I tense.
Please, please, don’t say anything about me liking him, my eyes silently beg with her.
“I don’t want Beck to be pissy, and he will if we lose the game,” she feeds him as an excuse, and I relax. “He always is whenever he loses.”
Thank you, I mouth to her.
She shrugs and focuses back on Grey. “And from what Beck says you”—she makes air quotes—“ ‘kick ass.’ And they really need your help to win.”
“Winning’s a team effort,” Grey says. “Even if I do play, we still might not win.”
“But it’d be better if you were there, right?” Wynter continues on with the charade. “It might give the team a better chance.”
Grey lifts his shoulders, shrugging. “I guess so.”
“Then count me in for tutoring,” Willow declares as she slips on her backpack. “I need to practice my teaching skills, anyway. I’m supposed to start tutoring my neighbor’s kids next week.”
“Are you sure?” Grey asks, but he already appears less stressed than he was a minute ago. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to. I’m cool with just sitting the game out.”
“I want to help, but we should head to the library, like, right now.” Willow hops to her feet. “And meet there at lunch and during any of your free periods.” She jumps up onto the bench in front of her, and then her gaze drops to me. “Are you coming, Lu?”
Wynter observes my reaction meticulously. “Yeah, Lu, are you going to help out a friend or what?”
I shake my head at her sneaky little emphasis on the word friend. I get up, anyway. It’s probably my fault he has to take the test over since I was too scared to face him, too weak to face the truth about myself.
I smile at Grey. “Yeah, I’m in. I should’ve helped you to begin with.”
“It’s not your fault,” he says, leaning in and keeping his voice low. “You’ve had your own problems to worry about. How is everything with your parents and . . . things?”
“It’s fine. Things are fine.” Lies. Lies. All lies. I have the marks on my wrist to prove it.
He nods but appears unconvinced. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to help me, but if you want to, I’d really, really appreciate the help.”
“I want to help you,” I promise him. “I should’ve helped you before. I thought you had help, though. Beck said you were handling it or something.”
“I had my mom try to help me,” he explains with a shrug. “But that didn’t work out so well.”
I give him promising smile. “Stick with me and Will, and you should be fine.”
His smile reaches his eyes, and butterflies flutter in my stomach at the sight of it. Hopefully, Wynter can’t tell I’m secretly giddy. It’ll only convince her more that I like Grey.
Willow and I say good-bye to Ari and Wynter, and then the three of us jog down the stairs.
“You really think you can help me get a B?” he asks us as we reach the sidelines at the bottom of the bleachers.
Willow and I grin at each other.
“You’re going to ace this,” I assure him with a light nudge with my shoulder. “Trust me.”
He doesn’t look very confident, which only makes me hope I can back up my promise. If there’s one thing I’m good at, though, it’s school, so I should be able to.
As we hurry down the side of the gym, I notice an abundance of heads turn in our direction, just like when Grey and I went behind the school earlier this week. Beck even gives a what-the-hell look. Piper also notices, and she even pauses mid-cheer to blast me with a death glare.
Grey swings around to the other side of me and blocks me from her view, placing his hand on the small of my back. “People seriously need to get over themselves,” he mutters as we push out of the gymnasium doors. “It’s like they can’t get over stuff. First, it’s the car, and now it’s this stupid thing with . . .” He trails off, tensing.
But I know what he was going to say. This thing with Piper.
“So they finally noticed you got rid of your truck, huh?” I ask as we start up the hallway, heading for the library.
“Logan noticed the moment I pulled up in my new car,” he answers then wavers. “Or new old car, anyway.”
“I saw you had a new one.” My boots squeak against the floor as we slow to a stop in front of the doors that lead to the library.
He finally moves his hand away to open the door and lets Willow and I walk in first. “Yeah, I got it a few days ago. It was my dad’s . . . It’s old, but at least it runs. And it’s all my family can really afford right now.” He looks away, seeming embarrassed by the admission.
I’m a little surprised by it. Grey’s family was always so well off. He had a nice truck—which, yeah, I guess he sold—nice clothes, and they live on the wealthier side of town.
Suddenly, some of the stuff he’s said to me makes more sense, like the fact that he hasn’t had a phone for weeks now.
“I think old cars are cool,” I tell him, not wanting him to feel embarrassed in the least bit. “They have so much history, and just think about how many amazing things happened in that car. How many people learned how to drive it. How many people had their first kisses in there. A baby could’ve even been born in the back seat.”
Grey’s face twists in disgust as the door bangs shut behind us. “Okay, I really hope the last one didn’t happen.”
“It probably didn’t, but still, it’s cool to think about all the stuff that happened in a car that old.” I drop my books onto an unoccupied table in the back corner by the computer stations. “If it could talk, think of all the stories it could tell.”
“Most of my stories would be about my dad.” A shadow of a sad smile rises on his lips. “My dad owned the car for, like, two decades or something. From what my uncle says, he used to race it a lot and do all sorts of crazy things with it.”