Good Boy Gone Bad

52 ➵ Ash

♞ Ash ♞

"Caught two teens going at it in the tower last night," Yoshi says after our shift lifeguarding. "Ran off before I could threaten them with calling the cops."

"That's too bad," I sigh.

"What's your problem of the day?"

"Nothing."

"Being Doctor of Romance came with a major in observation and a minor in lie detecting. You knew that, didn't you?"

"Cut me some slack, Yoshi."

We walk down the street to get some lunch at Elio's, as is our usual routine after an afternoon session. I haven't done Wednesdays in a while, holding onto hope that Danielle will ask to resume our 'tutoring'. I don't want her chances at Med school to be fucked because of everything that happened between us.

"Just tell me what you're thinking about. Why do you have to be so closed up all the time?"

You don't know the fucking half of it. "I'm just not very talkative."

"You weren't like this last year."

"A lot can happen in a year."

He rolls his eyes. "Hey, isn't that the girl you're obsessed with?"

I turn, expecting to see long brown hair and some kind of dorky outfit.

Surely enough, there she is. Walking across the street opposite us, with a stack of books in her hands. She goes to cross the street in our direction, being overly cautious. She checks about fourteen times. Always fours.

"You should go talk to her," Yoshi nudges me.

All that checking she does proves useless. A car tears its way down the street – easily tripling the speed limit.

It only takes me a few strides to be directly in her path and I grab her by the coat, pulling her backwards into me and off the road. She fumbles her weight on mine, grabbing onto her beanie and books, then looks up like a deer in headlights.

"Oh my goodness," she says, her hand over her heart.

"Are you okay?" I pull my eyes away from hers to try and catch the drivers' plates.

"That's happened twice now..." she says absently.

It sends a trickle of suspicion through me. "Do you watch where you're going?"

"Yes!" she says defiantly, then stepping off of me says, "I'm sorry for inconveniencing you." She finds Charles (who somehow got caught up across the street at an ice-cream cart), and walks off.

I watch her figure as she grips Charles by the elbow and sashays away. Did she just...

"And there she goes," Yoshi says, appearing by my side like a comedic narrator. "Real smooth, kid."

"Thanks for that observation."

"Anytime."

.

.

.

Sitting in Rosalind's office was not the way I wanted to spend my afternoon. I wish it wasn't mandated.

"There's a note on file that your mother is a defence attorney."

"Yeah."

"How is your relationship with her?"

"Is this part of my evaluation?"

"Will you only answer if I say yes?"

"Probably."