Granted those two sluts didn’t deserve any respect but still. Didn’t he have any respect for himself? If those girls were so ready to jump in his truck just minutes after meeting him, surely this wasn’t the first time they’d done something like this.

Reality kicked her in the gut as she walked in the room and the very first thing her eyes saw was Hector standing around with Walter and some of the other guys in the class. He glanced at her for a moment and smiled when their eyes met. The visual of him and those two girls in the parking lot thwarted what should’ve been all out bliss that he’d actually showed up and she’d be seeing him this close every day now.

Charlee smiled back but looked away quickly. Her only hope now was that, aside from being a pig, he was a conceited jerk, because, honestly, who would blame any guy for taking up girls offering a threesome?

Feeling the irritation overwhelm her, she took a seat at one of the tables furthest from where Hector and the other guys were standing. For the past three days when he didn’t show up to the meetings and just a few minutes, ago she was so ready to mentally lynch him from her thoughts that she completely disallowed herself to have any more fantasies about him. Now here it was only the very first time she’d seen him since being witness to that shameless parking lot scene, and she was already making excuses for his behavior.

A few nights this past week, she actually wished she hadn’t seen him that night with those girls so she could continue her harmless fantasizing. But seeing him now only reaffirmed that being around him every day might not make those fantasies seem so harmless anymore. It was also painfully obvious from the way he’d handled those girls that it hadn’t been the first time he’d been in a situation like that.

This could be bad news. Her hopes that maybe he’d changed his mind about joining the school team had been crushed. Falling for someone like Hector would not only be hopeless but, in her case, it would be bad. She could feel it already, and she’d barely spoken to the guy.

Glancing up when she heard the group of guys laugh, their eyes met again. Even as he laughed, he’d been watching her from across the room. Turning away this time not returning the smile, she began to set up her chess pieces. She was really beginning to get a bad feeling about this.

She sunk in her seat a bit. Her assumption about him being a conceited jerk was also slowly flying out the window. This whole week when he hadn’t showed up, she’d played out a few theories in her head: perhaps making the U.S. team was obviously commendable but joining a college chess team wasn’t cool enough for him, or maybe he was so arrogant as to think he didn’t need to show up to the meetings or labs for the school team. Maybe just like he had on Saturday, he could show up at just the tournaments and blow everyone out of the water. She’d even imagined him walking in, completely full of himself and unapproachable.

Now here he was not only socializing and looking as down to earth as the next guy but he genuinely seemed to be enjoying the company of these people—her people—people she would’ve never in a million years thought would be intermingling with someone like him. He’d taken two girls home Saturday night for crying out loud. Most of the guys here looked as if they’d never taken a girl home period. Still, for someone her mother would probably refer to as a lady-killer and who’d won the way he did Saturday to actually come in here and not act superior in any way, well, it was just infuriating!

It wasn’t even just about looks. She and Walter were the only other two on the school team who were also on the U.S. team with him. Nobody else in here had even been invited to play in the tournament. Hector was superior to mostly everyone in here in more ways than one. She’d hoped to see that he was stuck-up, arrogant—at the very least a little smug. Instead, he was being mindful of everyone. He’d even smiled at her—twice.

She hadn’t realized how lost she was in her thoughts until someone pulled the chair across from her out. “Hey,” Walter said as she looked up.

“Hey,” she smiled then went back to setting up her board.

In the last few days, Walter had been talking to her a little more often than before. It seemed his sitting with her and Drew at the tournament then bringing Hector over to meet them after had sort of made them friends, not that she hadn’t been nice to him before. The Monday after the Ross incident, she’d gone right up to him first thing when she got to the chess lab and asked how he was. She’d even thanked him for what he’d done once again, although he didn’t seem too thrilled to be talking about it. But he did mention having to go to the emergency room the day after. Of course, she felt terrible, but he’d changed the subject quickly. She got that he was evidently embarrassed. She didn’t want to embarrass him further, so she’d stopped asking him anything related, except for the few times she’d asked about Hector.

This week, she’d made it a point not to ask about Hector at all until yesterday morning. More out of hope than anything, she’d asked if Hector had decided not to join the school team after all. Walter said he hadn’t talked to him since.

Walter began arranging the chess pieces on his side of the board. “Kind of cool to have someone like Hector on the team, huh?”

She stopped arranging her pieces and looked up at him again. Hearing the man-crush in his voice only added to her already conflicting feelings about Hector. “What do you mean someone like Hector?”

Walter smiled a little bigger this time but still looked every bit as nervous as he always did when he talked to her. Charlee would never hold his weirdness against him. In a small way, he reminded her of herself. She, too, did dumb stuff to hide her embarrassment or feeling out of place. Only now, there was an added oddity to Walter’s normal weirdness. “I told you he boxes, right?” She nodded, pushing away the visual of Hector shirtless and in the ring. “So he’s fighting tomorrow night, and he said if we go, we can all get into the after party right there at 5th Street.” He leaned in, wincing a little as if in pain. “His brother is Abel Ayala. Not sure if you know anything about boxing, but he’s getting pretty famous around East L.A. and in the boxing world.”