He got off the bed and left the room, and I took the opportunity to look around again. Tobias’s side of the room wasn’t neat as a pin—there were clothes strewn across a chair in the corner and piles of schoolbooks on the floor. But compared to Stevie’s side, it was tidy and clean. My room could get messy, too, especially when I was caught up in schoolwork or a series of books. Unlike Vicki and Steph, I had no one on my back telling me to clean my room. I wondered if it was the same for Tobias and Stevie, or if their mothers’ requests for them to tidy the room were continually ignored.

My curiosity over the boys’ situation annoyed me. Stevie was just a step up from a thug, and Tobias was not only his second cousin but apparently his friend. That really said it all.

But why then was Tobias here, doing his homework with me, when he could be out with Stevie causing mayhem or whatever it was Stevie got up to?

Tobias strode back into the room holding two glasses of Coke. “Here.”

“Thanks,” I said, taking one.

My eyebrow nearly hit my hairline when he sat down on the bed, this time so close that our knees were almost touching. I could feel the heat of his body, and I desperately tried not to blush yet again due to my stupid awareness of him.

“So why are you here?” I blurted out in an attempt to steer my wayward thoughts back on a decent course.

Tobias smirked. “Is that a philosophical question?”

See! Much more intelligent than he’d have other people believe. But why? “You’re obviously smart but you don’t seem to care about class. So why are you doing this presentation with me when you could be out with Stevie?”

He shrugged. “My mom has been giving me a hard time lately. I thought if she saw me pretending to put a little effort in at school, she might lay off. That’s why I asked you to come here instead of going to your house or meeting somewhere. If we studied somewhere else she probably wouldn’t have believed me about meeting up with you to do homework.”

I wasn’t totally buying it.

Reaching across the bed, I picked up the copious notes he’d made. “This is pretending, is it?”

He glared and took the notes back from me. “As long as we get it done, why do you care?”

“I don’t.” I looked down at my own notes. “I just think maybe you like this stuff more than you let on.”

“No one likes Shakespeare, Comet.”

My head jerked up, my eyes flashing in indignation. “I do.”

Tobias chuckled. “I stand corrected.”

There was a knock at the bedroom door and it opened. The top half of Lena’s body appeared around the door. “One, I told you to keep this open,” she said to her son. “Two, it’s getting dark outside and time to wrap this up.” She looked at me. “How are you getting home, Comet?”

“I’m walking so, yeah, I better go.” I said, gathering my notes and sliding them into my bag. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to walking home in the dark.

“I’ll walk you,” Tobias said.

The thought of having to endure a thirty-odd-minute walk with the American sent me into a fluster. “No, that’s okay.”

“Tobias will walk you, Comet, no arguments,” Lena said before turning to her son again. “Where’s Stevie? I’m going to help Carole to her bed and she hasn’t seen him all day.”

I glanced from one to the other, curious over the strange look that passed between them. Why was Lena helping Carole to her bed? Was she sick?

“Out, I guess. I’m not his keeper.”

Lena sighed. “Fine. Good night, Comet.” She disappeared before I could return the sentiment.

“So...” Tobias dragged a pair of trainers out from under the bed. “When are we doing this again?”

“When are you free?” I asked, watching him shove his feet into the trainers and not do up the laces correctly. I’d noticed it was the fashion among Stevie and his friends to not tie their laces. I didn’t get it. Who wanted their shoes to be flopping off their feet all the time?

“You’re frowning.”

“I’m not,” I denied.

His lips curled up. “Okay, whatever you say.” And then he further surprised me by holding the door open for me and gesturing for me to walk out ahead of him.

Very gentlemanly.

When we passed the sitting room I saw that it was empty, and once again I wondered about the situation here. Why was everyone crammed into this tiny flat? What was wrong with Carole? Where was Stevie? And where was Tobias’s dad?

“So I want to get this presentation out of the way,” Tobias said as he closed the front door of the flat behind us. Although I was dreading the walk home with a cute boy who flustered me, I was suddenly very glad for his presence. Outside, there was a group of boys I didn’t recognize, one on a bike, the others sitting on the wall of the building next to Stevie’s. They looked at us as we approached, their loud conversation halting, and I noticed two of them were holding bottles of cheap wine. They couldn’t have been much older than us, perhaps even our age.

“Awright, King?” The one on the bike gave Tobias a chin lift.

Tobias merely nodded, but I felt him shift closer to me.

“Who’s the bird?” The blond with one of the bottles in his hand called out, and my gaze flew to the ground as I found myself center of their attention. “Gie us a look at ye, then. Nice legs.” He whistled loudly.

I tensed as we passed, listening to their laughter.

“Keep walking,” Tobias said under his breath, like I needed to be told that.

“No’ in the mood for sharing the night, King?”

“Not tonight. Later.”

It was only when their laughter was a distant noise that I let myself relax marginally.

“Like I said, I want this assignment over with. Think we can get it finished up if you come here after school tomorrow?”

The thought of traversing his neighborhood again made me anxious, but I wanted the presentation finished, too. “Possibly. We’ll need more than an hour. But if we get the work done I can type it up, and then we could get together to practice it before our talk date.”

“Fine. Can you come here straight after school? That way I can walk you here. Then get one of your parents to pick you up?”

Right. Like that would happen. “They’re busy. I can walk.”

He was silent a moment. “I’ll walk you.”

“You don’t—”

“You want to be alone, passing guys like that?” he interrupted me, sounding snarky.

I shot him a look of annoyance. “Fine, you can walk me.”

For some reason that made him smile.

THE FRAGILE ORDINARYSAMANTHA YOUNG

8

Those are my words, my thoughts, my soul,

You took them from me without apology.

So why do I want to forgive what you stole,

And hope that you like my ideology?

—CC

It took me a while to fall asleep that night. The walk with Tobias had been mostly silent, the quiet between us broken only by passing traffic and my murmurings of “It’s this way” and “We need to cross here.”

He’d insisted on walking me right to my door, and he’d stared at my town house for so long that I wished I knew him better so I could work out what his expression meant. Eventually, he’d looked at me and shrugged. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Then he’d started to walk down my garden path.

“Uh...can you find your way back okay?”

Tobias glanced over his shoulder. “I’m good.” He pushed open the garden gate.

“Uh...well...”

He looked back at me again, and this time I did recognize his expression. Impatience.

“Thank you for walking me home.”

The impatience melted out of his features and his gaze dropped to my feet before it moved up my body to my face in a way that made my skin prickle. Something softened in his expression.

“You’re welcome, Comet.”

I hadn’t been able to get the sound of his voice saying You’re welcome, Comet out of my head as I lay in my bed. It seemed totally unfair that the first boy in real life to make my cheeks warm and my belly fizzle would have to be Tobias King.