My Favorite Mistake (25 page)

“About our date. I know just what you should wear.”

“Are you sure you’re not gay? You have intimate knowledge of my closet.”

“No, I just have intimate knowledge of you. I mean, we do sleep in the same room.”

 It was true. I knew pretty much his entire wardrobe, including his boxers, which I saw way too much of or not enough, depending on the day.

“You look really beautiful today. I mean, you do every day, but I don’t say it enough.”

“Wow, you are really buttering me up,” I said as Marjorie motioned for the TAs to pass around little baskets of condoms. You could do things like that in colleges. I just hoped she wasn’t going to give us a demonstration with a banana.

“Wrap it before you tap it, pass it on,” said Carissa, one of the TAs, as she handed me the basket.

“Think you can remember that?” I asked Hunter.

“You’ll have to remind me,” he said in a way that made shivers crawl up and down my spine.

“I’ll give you a banana lesson later,” I whispered as Marjorie tried to call us to order so she could talk about chlamydia. Delightful.

“Looking forward to it,” he said with a wink.

We walked back to the apartment together, and Hunter was strangely quiet.

“Penny for your thoughts?” I said.

“I was just thinking that my mom would have loved you.”

“What was she like?”

“Beautiful. I have this black and white picture of her I’ll have to show you. She spent most of her time doing charity work, but she also had a degree in architecture. She always joked that people thought she was a trophy wife until she opened her mouth and set them straight. Sharp as a whip, Dad used to say. She had a comeback for everything. I don’t think that woman ever lost an argument in her life.”

“What did she look like?” I pictured dark hair and Hunter’s smile.

“I got my blue eyes from her. And some people say my smile. I look more like my dad than I do her. I have a picture of him too, if you want to see.”

I did. I wanted to see where he had come from, since I couldn’t meet them. If he wasn’t going to let what his father did define how he felt about him, I wasn’t going to either.

“You aren’t mad at him? Really?”

“I was, for a while. I did a lot of thinking and talking with my aunt and therapy and so forth. I used to break things and set them on fire. I was in detention more than a few times.”

“Imagine that,” I said, pretending to be shocked.

“I was a punk for a while.”

“Let me guess,” I said, turning around and walking backward so I could watch him. “You were a skater boy with a Mohawk, and you may or may not have had a pierced ear. Your pants also probably fell off a lot.”

He glared at me. 

“I was not a skater boy. I was just a boy who rode a skateboard frequently.”

“Same thing. So I’m right about everything else?”

“Still have the scar from the earring.”

 He stopped walking and tipped his head down so I could see the minuscule hole that dotted his left earlobe. I turned my head and realized how close my lips were to his and how much they wanted to be attached to his. No. Bad lips. 

I turned and started walking again.

“Do I get to do the same thing?”

“Go ahead.” He’d never get it right.

“Let’s see. I bet you wore torn black fishnets and lots of eyeliner and you were into really deep poetry and studied French.”

“Way off,” I said, scoffing. He wasn’t even close.

“I know. I was just messing with you. I bet you did a little bit of everything. Art, maybe a sport like tennis, and you read a lot and I’m guessing National Honor Society. Oh, and I bet you did dance. You move like you danced at one point in your life. How did I do?”

Holy shit. He’d gotten it exactly.

“Stalker,” I said, walking faster. There was no way he could have known that without doing some heavy research.

“Hold up. I swear I didn’t stalk you. I told you, I’m just really observant. Think of me as Sherlock Holmes, only without the bad social skills and cocaine use.”

“Holmes was into cocaine?”

“How else was he able to stay up all night and solve crimes?”

“True.” He moved into stride next to me. “So you didn’t stalk me?”

“I may have checked out some of your old Facebook posts, but that’s it.” I forgot about that. Damn social networking. No one was anonymous anymore.

“I did dance for a few years, but it got too expensive so I had to stop. I also got kicked out.”

“You got kicked out of dance?”

“Yeah. I kind of told a girl I was going to rip her throat out.”

He started laughing, throwing his head back. 

“Why?”

I sighed. 

“Because she said that my dad had been cheating on my mom even before the divorce, and my mom had something on the side as well.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen. She was just repeating something her mom had said, but she was old enough to know what she was saying.”

“God, girls are bitches.”

“Tell me about it.”

“So anyway, I tried to yank her snotty platinum ponytail out of her head and that was that. I was asked to leave and never come back. Thus ended my career as a dancer.”

“Shame. You’ve still got the moves.” I stopped and did a little shimmy. “You could always take classes.”

“Maybe I will.”

“You should. If you liked it.”

“I did.”

“Well there you go.”

Renee was studying on the couch as Paul was spread out over the dining table with what looked like some sort math conundrum. Paul was crazy smart and was majoring in both mechanical and chemical engineering. Renee always joked that he was going to get a fancy job as an oil baron or something and then she’d be his trophy nurse. All she wanted was to work in a neo-natal intensive care unit, taking care of babies.

“Hey, you made up yet?” Renee said, her eyes not leaving her textbook.

“Sort of,” I said.

“Good.”

“Hey,” Paul said, waving and not looking up from his calculator. Two peas in a pod.

“We’re going out tonight and then back to Paul’s, FYI, so we won’t be here for dinner.”

“Got it. We’re not going to be here either,” I said.

“Oh, really?”

“I am taking Taylor on a date.” Hunter smiled as if he’d won the lottery.

“Good. You owe her about a million dinners. I hope you’re taking her someplace nice.”

“I am.”

“Ooh, tell me, tell me,” she said.

“No way! If I don’t get to know, you don’t get to know,” I said.

But Hunter leaned over and whispered in Renee’s ear.

“Very nice. You have good taste, dude.”

“Thank you. Now, if you don’t mind. We both need to do some homework before said date.”

“Enjoy,” Renee said, her eyes drifting back to her book.

Hunter made a snack while I got my homework crap together. Somehow we were able to function and study without distracting one another. At least, most of the time. Every now and then I’d find him looking at me, or I’d steal a moment to stare at him. I loved watching him concentrate. His face got so calm and beautiful. I couldn’t deny the power of his smirk, but I loved watching him study.

I settled on my bed, propping up my pillows to prepare myself for a bunch of reading for medieval European history, and then I had a bunch of notes to review for French on the subjunctive. Gag me. I was going to do the French first since it was the suckiest. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the country, but conjugating verbs wasn’t my activity of choice.

Hunter came back with my no-fire-required s’mores, which were made with Nutella, Fluff and graham crackers. He also had two glasses of iced tea.

“Here you go, Miss Caldwell. Happy studying.”

“Thank you, Mr. Zaccadelli. Same to you.”

We retired to our separate beds and got to work. Our desks were crammed so tight under our beds that you couldn’t sit comfortably. Bed studying was much preferable.

The only sound was the turn of a page, the scratch of a pen and our breathing. Every now and then I’d feel Hunter’s eyes on me and I’d look up only to meet those intense blue eyes. I always looked away first.

I finished what I wanted to do for French and got started on reading about medieval clothing. It was fascinating, but not as interesting as watching Hunter study his boring economics books. Yum.

“You’re staring,” he said.

“Not for very long. I’m admiring your sexy brain.”

“Go ahead. I don’t mind. I do it enough to you.”

“Yeah, I’m aware,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“If you don’t like it, I’ll stop. You just say the word about anything and I’ll stop.” 

“You don’t have to stop.”

“Okay then,” he said.

We worked for a little while longer, until my eyes were crossing. The lack of sleep the night before wasn’t really helping with my attempt to cram a bunch of information into my brain.

“I’m done,” I said, closing my book.

“Me too. I like economics, but I like you more.”

“I should hope so.”

“You can shower first. I know it takes your hair longer to dry.”

“This is true.” His dried in about five seconds.

I grabbed some clothes and hopped in the shower, singing Taylor Swift as loud as I wanted, knowing Hunter could hear me through the door.

I shaved extra careful, because if we were going someplace fancy, he was going to make me wear a dress. I wiped off the steamy mirror and checked my naked self out, turning from side to side. Meh. Nothing special, but nothing hideous either. Hunter didn’t seem to care, but he hadn’t seen all of me either.

The closest I’d been to naked was a tank top and booty shorts. He’d never seen my stomach, and I was pretty sure he was still unaware of my belly ring. I’d managed to keep that little secret for myself.

I slipped on a robe and padded back to our room, drying my hair with a towel.

“Cruel, that robe is cruel,” he said, looking up from the book I’d bought with Megan at our last mall trip.

“Why?”

“Because it covers everything up.”

“Exactly. That’s what it’s supposed to do.”

 He shook his head and grabbed his shower stuff. I’d never told him, but sometimes when he wasn’t around, I’d open the top of his body wash and smell it, which was weird. He wouldn’t do anything that creepy.

As I waited for him to come back, I scrunched my hair up so it would dry better and kind of wavy. I’d recently seen this cool twist idea online that I wanted to try. Hunter came back to find me jamming bobby pins in my hair.

“What are you doing?” He only had a towel on. Of course. He stood behind me and reached for my hair.

“What are you doing?” I ducked away from his meddling hands. “This took ten minutes to get like this.” 

“Wear it down. It looks better down.”

“I’ll wear it however I want.”

“Okay,” he said, turning away, but stopped and reached out to tug a little piece out so it framed my face. “There. Perfect.”

I studied the effect in the mirror and sighed. The updo was pretty, but it wasn’t me. It looked like me dressing up as a lawyer for Halloween. I was never going to be able to find all the pins.

“Okay, you win. Give me a hand.” Hunter and I spent the next ten minutes rooting though my thick hair to find all the pins. Our hands kept bumping into one another.

“Do you do some special girly hair treatment?”

“No, why?”

He removed his hands and stepped back. We were still wary around each other after the blowup.

“Because you’ve got amazing hair.”

“Good genes, I guess.” I did a mayonnaise treatment every now and then, but I only did it when I knew he wasn’t going to be around. I didn’t care if he saw me flipping my retainer, but beauty treatments were personal.

“There. I think that’s the last one,” I said. My hair tumbled around my shoulders. I fluffed it and called it good.

“That’s what I like to see. Natural. I’m going to get un-naked, so you might want to stay turned around. Unless you want to give me a hand…”

“No, I’m good. I’m going to go, um, brush my teeth?” It sounded like a question.

“Have fun with that.”

I did end up brushing my teeth and came back when I was sure Hunter had enough time to be clothed.

“Wow,” I said. He was wearing a black button up with khakis and even a pair of dress shoes. Where the hell had those come from? I’d never seen them.

“I have my secrets too, Miss Caldwell.”

“You look very nice, Mr. Zaccadelli.”

“Yours is waiting on your bed.”

He’d picked out a black cocktail dress that I’d bought on sale on a crazy whim because Megan had told me every girl needed a little black dress.

“I thought it would look good on you. You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want to.”

“No, no. I like it. I’ve just never had a place to wear it.”

“Now you do.”

“I’m gonna go get ready,” I said, and he left.

I locked the door before I slipped the dress on. It was slinky and fell just short of my knees, but came up high on my neck in the front. It reminded me of Audrey Hepburn. I found a necklace of black beads and some matching earrings that I’d borrowed from Tawny and never returned. By the time Hunter came back, I was putting on mascara.

“Don’t poke yourself in the eye.”

“I think I can handle it.”

“Okay, okay.” He watched me for a moment and then left, probably to give me some more privacy. Good boy. 

I was just about ready when he knocked on the door. 

“Are you ready, Miss Caldwell?”

“Yes I am, Mr. Zaccadelli. You may escort me now.”

He opened the door and even though he’d seen me before, his eyes still popped.  

“Gorgeous.”

“Thank you.”

“Shall we?” He held out his arm. I took it and we left.

“Where’s Darah?” I asked.

“She had to work.”

“Oh. She didn’t say good-bye.”

Hunter shrugged. Huh.

He did all the things he was supposed to do, the door-opening, and the escorting and such. The feminist in me balked at the idea that I couldn’t open a door, but it was nice not to have to do those things for one night. Letting Hunter pull out my chair for one night wasn’t going to set the women’s liberation movement backward. I hoped.