Page 51 of Better Than Revenge

“It’s okay if you’re not.”

“I am. I’m good.” I took a step back, out of his reach, swallowing hard as I looked around. This wasn’t a populated area at lunch—most people ate in the courtyard or cafeteria—but it wasn’t empty either.

“About the library the other day,” he said. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You were being stupid,” I said. “Annoying.”

“I seem to accomplish that a lot.”

“Yes, you do.”

He chuckled a little, his smirk settling back into place. “You’re mad at me.”

“No, well, sort of. You don’t have to pretend you’d listen to my podcast idea when you already told me it was boring.”

“I never said that.”

I shook my head in disagreement. “You especially shouldn’t say it right after you told your friends you’d never listen to the podcast.”

“Because Jensen is the host.”

Oh.

“An-and also, I thought we were trying to keep our distance so people wouldn’t talk. But then you tell me to work out in the library and you come to my class today.” I pointed behind us.

“I didn’t think you meant we couldn’t talkat all,just that you didn’t want anyone seeing us on the football field together.” He whispered that last part. “We can’t be seen togetheranywhere? You were at one of my parties…. People know we know each othernow.”

“But that was before we had a plan. And now we can’t…we shouldn’t talk.”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re pretty annoying too, you know.”

“Yeah…well…” Everything he’d said was true. I had been fine talking to him before. Didn’t think anything of it. I was overreacting. Nobody was going to make the jump that us hanging out together meant anything about Theo training me to kick unless they saw us in the act. And if they were going to make that jump, they would’ve made it already. Probably at his party.

He smiled. “No need to be so paranoid.”

“It’s just…I want this to work so bad. I need him to have some kind of consequence for what he did. And I don’t want him to see it coming.”

“I get it. But I’m not going to stop talking to you in public. Atthis point, I thinkthatwould be more suspicious. Iwilltry to be more careful about the things I say if you’re worried. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Soccer Star.”

“Seriously, stop calling me that.”

“Why does it bother you?”

“Because even when I played, I wasn’t great. And you probably know that.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Plus, I quit.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“You need to work on that.”

“Getting better at soccer?”

“No, your confidence. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’re never going to get the position over him.”