Page 16 of The Wrong Track
“You mean me taking care of Tobin?” I’d shaken my head. But he was right that I’d needed a snack. I had taken a bite of the food he’d given me and it was delicious.
“I got an automatic quesadilla maker,” Hatch had explained, showing me a large machine on their counter. “It’s gas-powered. Hazel’s with that guy all the time,” he went on, switching the topic back to Tobin. “She’s taking him to the doctor today and she’s skipping a class to do it.”
“Really?” I ate the rest of my quesadilla triangle in one large mouthful and he gave me another piece.
“You know that Hazel used to have a little crush on him,” he’d mentioned then.
Well, I’d actually come to believe that she’d been in love with her “best friend” Tobin for most of her life before she’d met Hatch. But wasn’t that over?
“And Tobin, I think he cares about her, too,” Hatch had gone on calmly. He ate an entire quesadilla. Not a section, the whole damn thing. “I’m not worried. Hazel is mine.”
He’d said it with utter finality. What if she wanted to get away, though? A chunk of cheese and tortilla had lodged in my throat and I’d coughed until Hatch had hit me between the shoulder blades. Not hard, and only to help, but it had scared the crap out of me and I’d quickly left in the car that I’d meant to return to him.
“Remy?”
I looked up at Beth Ellen behind her desk at the library. “What? Did I go over the limit for how many books I can take out?”
“No, you returned a lot, so you’re good. I was going to ask…nothing.” She shook her head. “I bet I’ll see you soon.”
Maybe, but maybe I’d time my visits to when she wasn’t working so she couldn’t ask me any questions. I took my backpack full of the weird books and left fast.
“Oh, Remy!” Hazel said when she opened the door at Tobin Whitaker’s house. Just like her boyfriend had told me, she was there. I wondered how pissed he’d be about that when she went home to him.
“I came to drop off books.” I’d be back to pick them up, too, because I didn’t want any late fees or unreturned items on my library record. I didn’t want unpaid bills, I didn’t want any mark against me. As much as I’d changed over the last few years, that part of my personality hadn’t.
“Come on in,” she invited, and although I was only there to drop off the stash from the library, I did step into the warmth inside. Hazel was apparently cooking something, too, something other than gas-fired quesadillas, because the place smelled so good.
“I was at your house earlier,” I said, “to drop off the car. Hatch told me you skipped class.”
“I hope he didn’t let you give the Bronco back,” she answered, then shrugged a little. “I had to miss just the one because Charlene—you know, Tobin’s mom, she couldn’t take him to the doctor and I wanted one of us to be there. I don’t think he would tell anyone else if he were feeling sick or something. We had to stop along the way because he got nauseated.” She frowned. “Those pain pills make him feel worse.”
“Is Hatch mad?”
She stared. “At me? Because I drove Tobin to the doctor?” Her face got worried. “Did he seem mad?”
And I thought about that, and the answer was no. “I don’t know if he’s jealous or something,” I commented. Kilian wouldn’t have liked it if I had gone off to help another guy under the guise of friendship. I knew exactly how he would have reacted to it, what my punishment would have been.
“Hatch isn’t jealous but still, it would be hard for me to watch him taking care of a woman that I knew he used to, um, have feelings for. Which I don’t for Tobin, not anymore! I used to think that I was in love with him and I do love him, like I would love my brother, if I had a brother. I don’t,” she let me know. She glanced back toward the bedroom where her fake-brother rested. “It’s hard to navigate all this, but I love Hatch. A lot,” she said with emphasis. “And not in any way like a brother. Like, I want to marry him and be with him forever.”
I thought about how sure she sounded, how confident she seemed that those things would happen. How did she really know? What if her boyfriend decided to use those big hands against her—what would she do then? Forgive him? Stay? Keep loving him?
“I have pasta sauce on the stove,” she told me. “Tobin hasn’t felt like eating until now and I know he loves this one thing I make, so I thought it might tempt him.” She looked again towards the bedroom and then at the front door. “Now I feel like I’m doing something wrong. I’m not,” she said firmly. “I can’t help if Tobin wanted more than I—” She broke off her words and looked at me, checking to see if I’d noticed.
I kept my face very blank. “I’ll give him the books and then I can stay here,” I said. “You don’t have to. I can finish dinner, too, because I don’t mind cooking.”
“Really? Thanks, Remy. That’s such a relief!” She hugged me and went back to the bedroom before she practically ran out of the door and to her car.
I walked a lot more slowly toward Tobin’s room. He was in the same place on his bed but looked better, less pale and drawn. His leg had a large blue cast on it now, one that went up over his knee.
“Remy.” He started to sit up more.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “I only came to bring you some books like I told you I would.”
“Thank you,” he answered promptly, but he didn’t look overly thrilled. I remembered him saying that he didn’t like to read.
“They’re mostly non-fiction. I thought you like football so I got a biography of a Woodsmen player.” I put my bag on the bed and hunted for that one.
“Are you carrying a ton of weight again?” he asked, but did take the volume I handed to him with the old-fashioned football player on the front. “Thank you. I haven’t read this.”