Free Falling (15 page)

I laughed at that comment. “What you doing here anyway? Got
nothing you need to be jumping over?”

He sighed and frowned. “I came to hang with your brother.
Also, I thought maybe I’d get to talk to you about tutoring and stuff. Maybe we
should make up a schedule?” he offered, finally looking at me.

I groaned quietly. I’d forgotten about that. “You sure you
wouldn’t rather just let someone else do it?” I asked, putting maybe a little
too much hope in my voice because he frowned and shook his head forcefully.
“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’m going to wash up before dinner.” I headed into the
bathroom, closing the door behind me before leaning against it and sighing
deeply. I already knew this was going to be a rough evening. On top of having
to plan out a tutoring schedule with Zach, I knew I needed to speak to Luke
about Friday night. I needed to know how he felt about what happened with
Sandy, how he saw everything. That was going to be an extremely painful
conversation. This was going to be a long night, I could feel it. I already
knew I’d be crying myself to sleep tonight.

Chapter 10

After washing my hands, I stepped tentatively out of the
bathroom. Hushed whispers caught my attention, so I stopped just outside the
door and listened to what they were saying. “So, she said there was a run in
with Luke. What happened?” my mom asked.

“Ask her. I’m not getting involved. I have the twin loyalty
thing that I was born with,” Alex answered in his cool and aloof tone. I smiled
gratefully. Sometimes, just sometimes, I loved having a brother.

“Alex, be serious. We’re trying to help,” my mom whispered
back. “She looks so sad and she hasn’t really opened up to anyone about it. It
can’t be good to keep it all bottled up inside like that.”

This time it was Zach who came to my defence – just maybe
not the way I would like him to have done it. “I told her she should punch that
Sandy girl in the face. But apparently violence solves nothing,” he joked,
laughing to himself.

Having heard enough and not wanting to get caught listening,
I pulled out my phone and snuck up to my room, needing to get one of the things
cleared up, or at least set the ball in motion. I text Luke, asking him to come
over at about eight o’clock so we could talk. He replied immediately with a
yes, as I knew he would. I sighed and headed downstairs and was grateful that
the conversation seemed to have turned to something other than me.

They were talking about Zach’s freerunning and the
disciplines of it. Zach was trying to convince my dad that it was, in fact, a
sport even though it wasn’t classed as it. That it was basically gymnastics,
mixed with martial arts and a lot of other things thrown in.

I stood in the doorway, just listening to him talk. He was
so passionate about it, the way he waved his hands as he spoke, the way his
mouth pulled up into a smile or his forehead creased with a frown. If I could
just get him to apply the same passion to his schoolwork he’d probably be an
A-student. He had already proved with a couple of things that he said to me
today that he wasn’t a brainless moron. There just had to be some reason why he
wasn’t connecting with classes. Maybe he liked the attention of being a
delinquent; I’d heard that a lot of people did. Maybe he was starved for
attention at home or something – though that wasn’t true from what I’d seen
this morning with his aunt. She certainly had a fond smile for him, but then
again, maybe he hadn’t been living with her that long. Maybe the lack of
attention was a by-product of why he lived with his aunt in the first place. I
guess only he knew for sure.

He turned to look at me then; he’d caught me staring at him,
trying to work him out. He smiled his cocky little smile and raised one
eyebrow.
Wait, does he think I’m checking him out?
The knowing smirk
that slipped onto his face clearly indicated that he thought he’d caught me looking
at him for a reason other than the truth. Even though that kind of thing had
never even entered my head, I felt my cheeks heat up and my eyes dropped to the
floor. Both of those reactions probably confirmed his theory that I was lusting
after him.
Damn it, what is wrong with me? Can’t I just make it through one
hour without embarrassing myself?

I sighed and stepped into the room, stubbing my foot on the
doorframe and tumbling into the room, catching myself on the table.
Huh,
apparently I’m struggling to make it through a minute without embarrassing
myself, not an hour.
Zach’s smirk grew bigger as Alex laughed and chirped,
“Epic fail, Maze-Daze!”

I righted myself as my mom passed steaming plates of pasta
to the three laughing males in my house. Even my dad was having a little
chuckle at my expense. Perfect.

Sitting down and looking only at my plate, I silently hoped
that talk wouldn’t turn to me and Luke again. I tried my hardest not to think
about him coming over later and how that painful conversation was going to go
down. Luckily for me though, Zach steered the conversation to sports, and the
whole meal was spent with the three males talking about freerunning, kickboxing
and football.

When we were finally done eating I looked at Zach
expectantly. “Want to work out a schedule now or something?” I offered, hoping
he’d say no. Then again, maybe tutoring him would keep my mind from wandering
to other things; he seemed to be able to keep my mind off of Luke pretty
easily.

He nodded but then offered to help clear the table. My mom
waved him off, smiling. “I got it; you go do your tutoring thing. I assume
that’s what this is about?” she asked, smiling kindly.

He nodded and rolled his eyes. “Yep. Apparently your
daughter is one of the smartest students at school so I have to be humiliated
by being tutored by someone younger than me,” he replied, shrugging.

I laughed at that statement. He was repeating a year;
therefore, everyone was younger than him. “Come on then, let’s hurry this up, I
have something to do tonight,” I suggested, eyeing the clock worriedly. It was
almost six thirty already, and Luke would be here at eight. I turned and headed
out of the door, knowing he would follow me. I stalked up to my room, rummaging
through my schoolbag for a binder or notepad or something that we could work
with.

When I found everything, including coloured pens to make it
easier to make him up a studying schedule, I turned to find him stretched out
on my bed looking the picture of ease. I frowned and he raised one eyebrow,
putting his hands behind his head, kicking off his shoes.

“So, shall we get down to the really gritty stuff?” he
offered, smirking at me suggestively.

I sighed and stomped over to my bed, gripping his legs and
shoving them out of the way so I could sit down at the foot of my bed, glaring
at him. “If you’re not going to take this seriously then you can just find
someone else to tutor you, Zachary,” I stated, dumping all of the books and
pens on his legs.

A frown slipped onto his face. “Stop calling me that, I hate
that!” he snapped.

I’d definitely hit a nerve there with the name thing. “Fine,
I’ll stop calling you that, seeing as you asked me so nicely,” I replied,
rolling my eyes at him. “Are you going to work hard at this or not, because I’m
not wasting my time if you’re not going to bother.”

He sat up and pushed all of the stuff off of his legs. I
thought he was going to get up and walk out, but he didn’t. Instead, he nodded
and rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I need to graduate this year otherwise
I’m screwed.”

“Screwed, how?” I asked, frowning and trying to work him
out. He was such a complicated person at times. Sometimes he came across with
his devil may care attitude, but just now he actually looked a little
vulnerable, worried even.

He blew out a big breath and closed his eyes. “I’ve been
offered an opportunity, an awesome opportunity, but the offer is only good if I
graduate.” I raised one eyebrow, prompting him with my silence to continue. He
chewed on his lip and seemed to be weighing his options before he spoke, “I got
offered a job, my perfect, dream job actually. Stuntman for an upcoming action movie,”
he explained.

My mouth popped open in shock at that little bit of
information. “Holy crap, really?” I gasped.

He nodded, smiling proudly. “Yeah, but because of certain
things that I really don’t want to talk about, I need to finish high school to
prove to them that I can stay focussed. So far, I don’t seem to be able to stay
focussed enough to stick to anything. So, if I can’t graduate in a couple of
months then I’m screwed like I said.”

Wow. Am I sitting on the bed with a future movie star?
That thought was a little weird actually. “Well I guess you’d better work hard
this time then, huh?” I teased, picking up a pen and throwing it in his direction.
He caught it effortlessly and smiled, rolling his eyes.

For the next hour he actually took me seriously. There were
no cocky jokes, no snide remarks, and no slutty comments. I was more than a
little proud of his effort. We’d talked through his weak points, discussed
action plans, and finally drew up a schedule so we could get together and
study. We also made up a homework planner for him too, so that he could do that
on his own. I was really hoping he’d stick to it, but I guess only time would tell.
When we’d done all the hard work and had a planner for both of us, he grinned.

“You’re such a nerd. Why did we have to colour it in? This
isn’t art class,” he teased, laughing at his sheet that was all boxed in and
coloured to make it easier to understand.

I snatched it out of his hands and flopped down onto my
stomach. “The red ones are the most important staple subjects that take
priority. The blue ones are second, and the green-” I started to explain, but
he jumped in and cut me off.

“Third, I get it. I think I can see where this is going,” he
joked, nudging me over on the bed as he laid down next to me.

“Exactly. The white bits are where you have free time.
Yellow is for less important things that you don’t actually require to
graduate. With this like this then you can see where you are and if you have a
spare half an hour then you can work on the yellow or something,” I suggested,
shrugging and smiling at his schedule proudly.

It had taken a long time to work out when we would meet up.
His freerunning training took a lot of his spare time, also the fact that he
didn’t want to go to the library was a bit of a pain, but we’d gotten there
eventually. We both had free periods at the same time on Tuesdays and
Wednesdays for an hour so we would do it then at school. On Mondays and
Thursdays it was to be afterschool, either at my place or his. The only thing I
didn’t like about those two days was that he said he’d drive. I didn’t have a
car, so it was the back of the bike for me for two days a week so that we could
get home to study.

Fridays were the biggest pain to sort out. He went freerunning
with his training group on Fridays afterschool for at least an hour where they
would plan out their weekend activities and what they would jump over. So that
left us with two options on Fridays, I either waited at school and let him pick
me up - which he freely admitted that he’d probably be late for, or, I went
with him to his training session and I could get on with my own schoolwork
while he was doing his thing. We agreed to see how it went each week, to stay a
little more flexible on Fridays. I actually could have just waited at school
and had Alex drive me home, but he normally had some desperate girl hanging all
over him ready for the weekend. I didn’t really want to sit in the car with him
getting pawed by some hoe he would drop by the time morning bell rang on
Monday.

“If I get free time it won’t be spent on the yellow
sectioned crap,” he stated, shaking his head fiercely.

I laughed and looked over at him. He was grinning happily
and actually looked pretty cute, not like a badass at all. “So what will you be
spending it on? Hooking up with easy girls or smoking your life away?” I joked,
propping my head up on my elbow and waiting for a little more information about
him. So far he’d been fairly secretive.

He shrugged. “I don’t hook up with easy girls.”

I snorted at that, remembering him leaning in and flirting
with the girl outside of gym earlier, also the
‘I’ve got four girls’ numbers
already’
comment at lunch. “Uh-huh, and I like to smother myself in whipped
cream and run naked in the street,” I said sarcastically.

He raised one eyebrow. “Now that I could watch in my free
time.” I laughed and slapped his shoulder which made him laugh too. “Honestly
though, I don’t hook up with easy girls,” he repeated.

“So you like the harder to get ones then?” I joked; picking
up that he’d said the word easy twice now.

He smiled. “Think what you want. Your opinion makes no
difference to me, little rebel.”

I frowned. “If I have to stop calling you Zachary, then you
have to stop calling me names that link in with what happened on Friday night,”
I instructed.

He pouted at me. “But I like calling you that. I like the
fact that I’m the only one that’s seen you do something naughty.”

I laughed because of how dirty the word naughty sounded just
because it came out of his mouth. I smirked at him. I wasn’t a totally innocent
girl, Luke and I had gotten a little naughty at times. But he was right in one
way; I’d never broken the law before Friday. “I’ve done plenty of naughty
things,” I corrected.

He smiled and leant in closer to me, his breath blowing
across my lips, his eyes doing a kind of smouldering thing as his gaze held
mine. “Oh yeah? What kind of things, and would I be able to either get a full
description or maybe join in next time?” he purred seductively.