Counting Down with You(7)

“And what about it?” Cora says, flipping her hair. “But seriously, Ace Clyde?”

“Yes,” I say, sighing. “Ace Clyde. Now can you stop saying his name over and over? I feel like he’s going to appear over my shoulder like Bloody Mary.”

“Nandini, I think I’m going to faint,” Cora says. “How is she so calm?”

“Honestly? I think she’s in shock,” Nandini says, shaking her head. “Maybe she doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation.”

“Oh my God, yes, I understand,” I say, shoving her halfheartedly.

Cora and Nandini are infinitely more in tune to Midland High’s social life than I am. It doesn’t help that we have over two thousand students. Everyone usually sticks to their own grades and their own social circles. Aside from the people who have been in my classes through the years, I know only a handful of freshmen because of my brother, and know is a stretch.

But even with my small social circle, it would be impossible not to know the big names of our junior class. Ace is one of them.

His older brother, Xander Clyde, is Midland High’s student body president. He’s a senior, and beautiful, rich, popular, and intelligent. Almost all of the girls—and some of the boys—want to date him. Everyone else wants to be him.

Ace is also beautiful and rich. Whether he’s popular and intelligent are debatable.

He’s definitely infamous among our classmates, though. He sits alone at his own table, tells everyone who looks at him wrong to fuck off, wears leather jackets over designer sweaters, and spends half his time pissing off the school faculty.

“I really don’t feel like you get it.” Cora shakes my arm. “Do you know who he is?”

“Yes, Cora. And I know this is going to be a nightmare,” I say bitterly. Of all people, I had to get stuck with the school’s resident preppy bad boy. “Why would Miss Cannon do this to me?”

“How are you complaining right now?” Cora says, throwing her hands up. “Ace is the hottest guy in our grade.”

“I hate enabling Cora, but she’s right,” Nandini says, shrugging when I give her an incredulous look. “Have you seen him? Karina, he’s literally gorgeous.”

My friends are ridiculous. I love them, but they really are.

“Yeah, well, I’m tutoring him. Not dating him. I’m more concerned that this dude never pays attention in class. How am I supposed to teach him anything?”

“Karina, you’re the worst,” Cora says, pouting. “How can you think about studying at a time like this? We’re talking about Alistair Clyde! Oh my God, you have to get him to fall in love with you so we can live vicariously through you. Karina, this is what your entire life has been leading up to.”

“Stop clowning around,” I say, shaking my head. “The last thing I have room for in my life right now is a guy, much less Ace. It’ll be a miracle if I can even talk to the dude without making a fool of myself.”

“Karina and Alistair sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Cora sings, swaying side to side. I give up, knowing it’s a lost cause when she gets like this.

I turn to Nandini for support, but she’s staring at me in contemplation. The look in her eyes makes my skin crawl, because she looks like that only when she’s scheming.

“I’m tired of you both,” I say, flipping them off before returning to my pizza. “I need new friends.”

Cora laughs but Nandini taps her chin thoughtfully. “I wonder what we’ll wear to the wedding. He’s white, which is a tragedy, but maybe you can convince him to have a brown wedding.”

“Putting aside how senseless all of that is, you think my parents would let me marry a white boy?” I ask incredulously. “Have you met them?”

Nandini considers that for a moment. “Maybe we just won’t invite them. Samir could walk you down the aisle instead.”

I sigh, shaking my head. “Say less. Say so much less.”

“I’m just pointing out that there’s a lot of potential here,” Nandini says, holding her hands out in defense.

“What potential? You think that all the people in our school who throw themselves at Ace, he would decide to date the random brown girl tutoring him in English? You’ve lost the plot,” I say, before pointing a finger at her. “Earlier you said something wild happened during gym. Let’s talk about that instead.”

“You’re no fun.” Cora wrinkles her nose, but she also turns her gaze toward Nandini, which means the conversation is effectively over. Alhamdulillah.

As Nandini talks about some dude from her gym period who flashed the whole class, my mind drifts.

I shouldn’t be surprised Ace is struggling with English. I am surprised he reached out for help.

I just wish I wasn’t the one stuck helping him.

Ace doesn’t show up.

I sit in the library, waiting for a whole thirty minutes, and he doesn’t show up. It’s beyond frustrating and, if the thought didn’t tie my stomach into painful knots, I’d head upstairs right now to tell Miss Cannon.

But I don’t want her to think I gave up before I even tried.

I wait a few more minutes, then decide to check out a US History textbook so I can work on my homework in my newfound free time. If I have to be here, I can at least be productive.