The Fragile Ordinary

  It was so cocky that even I couldn’t stop my eye roll. Nor could I stop the pink blooming on my cheeks, which only made him chuckle.

  Flustered, I stared studiously at the address he’d written down.

  After another moment’s silence, Tobias said, in a surprisingly gentle tone, “Okay, don’t get all worried-looking. We’ll work out other times to do the assignment when you come over tonight.”

  Before I had a chance to think up a reply, the bell rang for the end of class. I shoved my stuff into my bag in one sweep and shot out of my chair. A minute later—because I’d moved that quickly—I was halfway to the cafeteria.

  I needed distance from the American, and I needed a few moments to gather myself before Steph and Vicki teased me about my presentation buddy.

  * * *

  “So tell me, does Tobias King smell as good as he looks?” Steph said without preamble as she and Vicki sat at my table in the cafeteria.

  I shot her a droll look and she giggled.

  “Don’t, Comet.” Vicki shook her head adamantly. “Don’t let her encourage you. Tobias King is the last boy you want to crush on. Guys like him are users.”

  Hearing the bitterness in her words, I felt a pang of sadness for her. And more than a pang of anger toward Jordan Hall. Ever since he’d made Vicki cry, she’d had moments of ragey bitterness. It had been only a few weeks since the incident, and I was hoping time would heal her wounds.

  “Boys can be dipshits.” She stabbed her straw into her carton of orange juice. “I’m giving them up.”

  Steph looked horrified. “No way.”

  Determination blazed in Vicki’s eyes. “Yes way. I need time to forget he who shall not be named, and then I’ll be cool. But I’m not falling for just anyone.”

  “So...” Steph frowned, obviously not sure how to process the idea of a world without boys. “What are you going to do with yourself?”

  Vicki burst out laughing while I struggled not to roll my eyes. “I’m just concentrating on me and design school. Parsons may be a long shot but the London College of Fashion is not and I’m going there if it takes all my blood and sweat. But no tears!” Vicki shook her head vehemently. “Tears just hold you back.”

  Frowning at her, I really, really hoped time would heal the wound Jordan had cut into her. Until she’d cried in my arms, and the subsequent moody days since, I’d had no idea how much Vicki had liked Jordan. If he were in front of me right now, I might have kicked him in the nuts. And I wasn’t a violent person by nature.

  “Well, just because you’ve given up boys, doesn’t mean the rest of us have.” Steph huffed. “We’re allowed to talk boys.”

  Vicki just shrugged.

  Steph turned to me and grinned. “You guys are meeting up, right? To do the presentation?”

  The thought of going to Stevie’s house that evening to work with Tobias made my skin prickle with a cold sweat. Tobias King inhabited an entirely different planet from the one I lived on. It would be like trying to talk to someone who didn’t speak a language known to man.

  “He’s Stevie’s cousin. I’m going there after dinner—”

  “Second cousin,” Steph interrupted.

  “What?”

  “Tobias is Stevie’s second cousin. Their mums are first cousins.”

  “How do you know that?” Vicki said.

  Steph threw her a mysterious smile. “I know everything.”

  “Well cousin, second cousin, whatever. The point is that I’m not crushing on Tobias,” I semi-lied. “We’re working on this presentation and that is it. Sorry. No boy talk from me.”

  Her lips parted at my announcement but then they pinched together for a few seconds before she let out an exasperated, “You two are no fun.”

  “There are other things to talk about,” I reminded her. “Like the school play.” Only last week, Steph had landed the part of Roxie Hart opposite Lindsay Wright, the sixth year playing Velma Kelly. And thankfully, Heather was in the chorus.

  Steph’s face lit up, and Vicki shot me a grateful smile. For the rest of our lunch we sat and listened patiently to our friend as she divulged the trials and tribulations of putting on a grand show.

  Although all the while angry butterflies fluttered wildly in my stomach.

  * * *

  All I could do was stare at the building. I willed my feet to move but it was proving difficult. Stevie lived on a street that bordered Portobello and Niddrie. It was a good thirty-five-minute walk from my house on the beach, and our situations couldn’t have been more different. While I lived in a midcentury seafront home, Stevie and Tobias lived in a drab building that housed six flats. Stevie’s flat was on the ground floor. The gray pebble-dash render on the building, along with the overlong front lawns and toppled rubbish bins, gave the place a depressing feel.

  It bugged me that Tobias lived here, and I couldn’t explain to myself why that was. I wondered why he and his mum had to live with Stevie. What happened to them back in the US?

  And suddenly Tobias was there, standing in the open entrance to the building. His face was in shadow, but I knew it was him by his height and the way he held himself. He wore only a T-shirt and joggers, no shoes, just socks, and he had his hands stuck in his pockets. “You plan on coming inside anytime soon?”

  I jolted at his question, and to my everlasting mortification I blushed again, before finally making my feet move toward him. “I wasn’t sure I had the right house,” I lied.

  He smirked. “Right. You’re one of the smartest girls in school but you don’t know how to read a street sign.”

  I ignored his sarcasm. “How do you know I’m one of the smartest girls in school?”

  “Stevie told me. Plus, you can’t exactly get into the classes you’re in if you’re stupid.”

  “True. So why do you pretend to be?” The question was out of my mouth before I could even think about it.

  Tobias looked as surprised as I felt. He also did not deign to answer me. Instead he led me inside the ground-floor flat, and the lingering smell of Chinese food hit me as I stepped into the narrow hallway. I followed him, dodging the several pairs of shoes that were strewn in the hall near the entrance.

  As we passed an open doorway, I glanced in and saw two women lounging on a couch. There were empty Chinese takeaway containers on the coffee table in front of them. One of the women was thin with wispy fair hair. Her neck was bent at an awkward angle, and it appeared she’d fallen asleep. The other woman met my gaze as I passed. I got an impression of pale skin and dark hair, but we were moving too quickly down the hall for me to observe anything else.

  “Tobias, where are you going?” The woman’s voice rang out just as he put his hand on the knob of a door around the left-hand corner at the end of the hall.

  “Room,” he called back. “I told you I have an assignment to work on.”

  “Well, I’d like to meet your friend. Where are your manners?”

  He shot me an exasperated look like it was my fault. If only he knew I was even less inclined to meet the person I was guessing was his mother. The less I knew about Tobias King, the better. He gestured for me to go back the way we’d just come, and I drew to a halt at the sudden appearance of the tall brunette from the couch. She had big, sad, dark eyes and chin-length dark hair, pale skin and freckles across her nose that, along with her trim, slender physique, made her look too young to be the mother of an almost seventeen-year-old boy. Appearance-wise there was very little of her in Tobias. I wondered if he took after his dad. And then I wondered where his dad was.

  She looked at Tobias and raised an eyebrow.

  He sighed heavily, as if she were forcing him to do something unpleasant. “Mom, this is my English presentation partner, Comet Caldwell. Comet, my mom.”

  “Hi, Mrs. King,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Call
me Lena, please.” She spoke with a Scottish accent muddled by an American one.

  “Okay.” I smiled, but it faltered as her gaze drifted over me in an assessing manner and I suddenly realized I should have perhaps dressed more conservatively for coming to Tobias and Stevie’s flat. I was wearing a dark green velvet skirt with a black-and-green striped top with arms that were tight at the wrist and then puffed out in balloon sleeves. On my feet were green flats with an oversize yellow bow on the front.

  Not giving away her thoughts, Lena turned to her son. “Carole is worn-out. Try to keep it down.”

  “Where’s Kieran?” Tobias asked.

  If I remembered correctly, Kieran was Stevie’s little brother. He was around six or seven years old.

  “In Carole’s room reading. I’ll keep an eye on him. You just get your homework done like you promised.”

  “That’s what Comet’s for,” he said.

  Ass.

  His mum seemed to think it was a crappy comment, too. “Don’t you leave all the work to Comet. Promise.”

  “I could make that promise, Mom, not keep it and you still wouldn’t do jack about it. That’s what you’re good at, right? Being a liar and doormat.” He didn’t wait for her to answer, just turned and bulldozed his way into the room behind us.

  Lena stared after him wearing an expression of embarrassment and hurt.

  Me? I was in shock and wondering what the hell I’d walked into.

  “Are we doing this or what?” Tobias called, presumably to me.

  His mother slid me a wary look and I gave her a shy, pinched smile before I darted into the room.

  “Leave your bedroom door open a little,” Lena called.

  Tobias got up off his bed and immediately shut the door.

  Okay.

  I was guessing he and his mother didn’t have the best relationship. Or Tobias was just a dick.

  I was suddenly very much aware of the smell of too much teenage boy in one room, and I realized why when I saw the two beds and the floor around the bed nearest the window littered with clothes and football stuff.

  “I share a room with Stevie,” Tobias explained as I unwillingly stepped farther into the boy pit. The walls were a dark gray and covered in posters of football players around the messy bed. The walls behind and opposite the bed that was made and had no crap around it were covered in Lego and Minecraft posters. I raised an eyebrow, and Tobias smirked at me. “This is Kieran’s bed. Until Mom and I find a place, I’m in here with Stevie.” He gestured to the pit side of the room, “Kieran’s in with his mom, and my mom’s on the couch. It’s a little crowded.” He sat down on his bed, picked up his copy of Hamlet and his notepad from his bedside table and shuffled back against his pillows and the wall.

  “Where is Stevie?” I asked instead, gingerly placing my bag on Tobias’s borrowed bed.

  “You can sit, too.” He smirked at me, like he knew I was uncomfortable being this close to him.

  I sat on the bed. I could feel Tobias watching me, and all I kept thinking was that this was probably the first time he had a girl in his room to do homework. I wondered if he could guess that this was the first time I’d been alone with a boy, or furthermore alone with a boy in his room.

  I squirmed, wishing I was at home with the book I was currently reading instead.

  “Stevie’s out,” Tobias finally replied, drawing my gaze to his. He narrowed his eyes at me. “Disappointed?”

  Disappointed? That Stevie was out? Why would I be disappointed? “Excuse me?”

  He seemed to assess me and then finally shook his head. “Never mind. Let’s get started.”

  It was difficult to concentrate on anything but the fact that I was on Tobias King’s bed, sitting across from him, feeling his gaze on me as I took out the notes I’d already started making. To my surprise, as we worked, Tobias gave a lot more input than he’d suggested he would.

  After about an hour of study we’d pulled a number of quotes from Hamlet’s soliloquies to back up our analysis of his character development. We worked easily with each other—another surprise—seeming to grasp Hamlet with a similar understanding.

  “I’m going to grab a soda. You want one?” Tobias asked.

  It was the first thing either of us had said that didn’t relate to Shakespeare, and I noted, to my further shock, that I’d lost the restless, squirmy feeling I’d had earlier. The easy way we collaborated had distracted me from my discomfort. “Um...sure.”

  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 loo
k 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.