Something in the Way: A Love Saga (The Complete Collection) Page 7

  “And you do homework for fun.”

  I made a face. “I do not.”

  “Just don’t be naïve. Corbin’s a nice guy, but he can have any girl he wants, which means he probably does. He’s a heartbreaker.”

  Maybe I did focus too much on school, and maybe I had no clue about boys like Tiffany thought. But I didn’t want Manning to know that. “I’m not as innocent as you think,” I said.

  Tiffany laughed and hugged me from the side. “Yes, you are.”

  Okay, so she was right. I’d experienced embarrassingly little—less, even, than my friends, and they were mild compared to most girls at my school.

  “Innocence is good,” Manning said, sounding funny, as if his teeth were clenched. “She has the rest of her life for parties. For punks like that guy.”

  Tiffany ruffled my hair as if I were her child, not her high school-aged sister. “What should we ride next, Manning?”

  “You want that stuffed animal?” he asked.

  Her eyes lit up. “Do you really think you can win it?”

  I tasted metal. It was as if I wasn’t even there. They acted like they were my babysitters. I should’ve paid more attention to the guys Tiffany had dated in the past. How long did it take for her to lose interest and move on to the next? To me, Manning seemed as untouchable as the glossy celebrities taped to Tiffany’s wall, so why did she get to touch him?

  Manning and Tiffany turned to the booth with the stuffed animals, ignoring me. As long as I sat there being my quiet, innocent self, they could carry on with their lives.

  I stood, brushing dirt off the seat of my shorts. “I’m going to see if Corbin wants to ride the Ferris wheel with me.”

  Manning turned around first. “What?”

  “I said—”

  “I heard you.” He glanced at the ride and back at me. “I thought you were scared.”

  “I was, but you said I could do it, so I think I’m ready.” I wasn’t ready. Not to go it alone, and if I wasn’t riding with Manning, I might as well be by myself.

  Manning’s expression didn’t change, but he cracked a knuckle. “Maybe it’s better to wait.”

  I crossed my arms over myself. When Manning ignored me, everything hurt, but when he looked right at me, like now, the contents of my stomach turned upside down, as if my insides were doing acrobatics. “I’m going to do it now. With Corbin.”

  “You like him,” Tiffany teased. “I don’t blame you. All the Swensons are totally gorgeous.”

  Manning put a firm hand on my shoulder, physically keeping me where I stood. “I’ll go with you.”

  I cocked my head. I had no intention of hunting down Corbin—maybe he wasn’t as intimidating as I thought, but I wasn’t about to approach one of the most popular guys in school for a kiddie ride. Manning didn’t want me to do it, though, and fighting with him was better than being ignored by him. “You already went. With Tiffany. Remember?”

  His hand warmed the entire left side of my body. By the look on his face, the sarcasm in my comment didn’t amuse him. “Do you want to ride it or not?”

  “Yes. With Corbin.”

  Manning shook his head. “You’re too young to be alone with someone his age—”

  I opened my mouth to protest, but Tiffany beat me to it. “It’s a Ferris wheel, not Seven Minutes in Heaven. Don’t you remember being sixteen?”

  “Too well. That’s why I’m saying no.”

  “You can’t tell me no.” I scoffed. “I’m not a kid, and even if I were, you still couldn’t tell me no.”

  He looked at me a moment, then pulled me to his side with one strong, heavy arm around my shoulders. It wasn’t an intimate gesture. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took a page out of Tiffany’s book and rumpled my hair. Still, I was pressed against him, surrounded in his soapy scent, his hip against my side, his enormous hand squeezing my shoulder.

  “I’m going to win you a prize,” he said. “Anything you want. Pick it, and I’ll get it for you. No matter how big it is.”

  He no longer sounded angry or jealous or even cautious, and that was a first. Was this how Tiffany always got what she wanted from men—by doing what they told her not to? “Really?” I asked.

  “What’s your favorite animal? Frogs?”

  I couldn’t help my laugh. As kids, my friends and I used to catch and release toads in the street—but I wasn’t a kid anymore. “Whose favorite animal is a frog? They’re slimy.”

  He shrugged one shoulder and pulled me along with him toward a hit-the-target game. “So, nothing slimy then.”

  Manning paid the carnie, received three baseballs and missed the target three times.

  I smiled at his effort. Just that alone was worth being happy over. “It’s okay if—”

  “No it’s not. I promised you.” Manning called the man over again. “Another round.”

  I almost missed Tiffany’s glare, but when I caught it, I just about told her to take a hike. To go find Corbin Swenson, her number one admirer. Being the center of Manning’s attention was as heady as I thought it would be, and I didn’t want to share the spotlight.

  Tiffany turned away on her own, though, leaving us to go talk to the man operating the booth.

  Right as I turned back, Manning reared back and pitched the ball in a perfect line. It bounced off the cardboard around the target.

  “These games are rigged,” he muttered.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

  “I am worried,” he teased. At least, I thought he was kidding. He spoke lightly but also focused intensely on the target. Maybe something did have him worried.

  Gearing up for his second throw, his t-shirt sleeve rode up his bicep. The skin there was whiter than the rest of his arm, smoother. His muscles strained the fabric.

  Tiffany glanced over at us.

  Manning missed. “God d—” His neck reddened and after a deep breath, he snatched the third baseball. He threw it so hard, everyone jumped when it smacked the target. Manning wiped his hairline with his sleeve and nodded. “There we go.”

  The attendant barely looked away from Tiffany. “Pick any from this side,” he said, gesturing toward a wall with small stuffed animals and toys.

  “What if I want a bigger one?” Manning asked.

  “You have to hit the target twice.”

  “I don’t want a bigger one,” I said immediately, taking a step closer to Manning. I looked up at him, proud. I’d never seen anyone hit the target directly, not even my dad, and he’d played this game before.

  “You sure?” he asked. “Because I’ll—”

  “I’m sure.” I pointed to the first thing I saw, a white-and-blue pelican. “That one.”

  Manning leaned over the counter to wrestle the toy off the wall. “It needs a name,” he said.

  My cheeks flushed. “I don’t name my stuffed animals.”

  He passed it to me. “I think you should.”

  I hugged it to my chest. Put on the spot, I couldn’t think of anything clever. “Well, it’s a bird, so . . . Birdy?”

  “Birdy,” he repeated, looking me in the eyes. He ran a thumb over the head of the stuffed toy, his knuckles brushing the neckline of my shirt, the top curve of my breast. He didn’t seem to notice, but I shivered. “You cold, Birdy?”

  It fit perfectly in my arms, the first thing a boy had ever given me—and not just a boy. Manning. “Birdy’s warm.” I nodded. “Birdy’s perfect. Thank you.”

  “Welcome.”

  “Look what I won.” Tiffany strutted over, her arms barely meeting around the middle of a giraffe as tall as her. She grinned. “And I didn’t even have to throw a single ball.”

  “You going to carry that thing around the whole park?” Manning asked. “We’ll have to buy it its own ticket.”

  She laughed. “Of course not. It’s as big as me. You are.” She shoved it at Manning, who tucked it under his arm, looking much less annoyed than I felt.

  When I glanced over at the Ferris wheel, Mann
ing noticed. “Still want me to take you?”

  I curled my fingers into Birdy’s soft, velvety fur. I couldn’t have been happier. “No, it’s okay.”

  Tiffany took Manning’s free arm and guided him away, leaving me to follow behind them. “Thank you for taking care of her,” she whispered loudly. “My dad will love you for it.”

  “Dad?” I asked. “You’re going to introduce them?”

  “No.” Tiffany looked back at me, and then up at Manning. “Well, maybe. Would you, Manning?”

  “Would I what?”

  “Meet my parents.” She squeezed his elbow. “You could come over for dinner.”

  Manning, at the dinner table? With Dad? Tiffany had brought home two guys before—an older man who owned a tanning booth and a guy with dreadlocks. Neither had lasted a week past dinner. Dad didn’t even like Tiffany’s friends, much less her boyfriends. He went out of his way to make them feel small, and Tiffany knew it.

  “I don’t think he should,” I said.

  “Don’t be rude,” Tiffany said.

  “But you know how Dad is.”

  “How?” Manning asked.

  I recited my mom’s excuse for Dad whenever he insulted someone. “People just don’t get his sense of humor.”

  “Manning can handle it,” Tiffany said, trailing her fingers over the giraffe’s neck. “Can’t you?”

  Tiffany’s words from the other night came back to me. The construction workers pissed Dad off, and she liked that. Maybe she even wanted it.

  “Is it all right with you?” Manning asked me.

  “Why should she care?” Tiffany asked.

  “Because I’ll be eating dinner with your family, and she’s an entire quarter of it.”

  “You want to come?” I asked.

  He looked back at me. “Might be a good idea to meet your parents.”

  He said it to me, not Tiffany. He wanted to meet my parents. And while I should’ve felt uneasy about it, the idea that Manning had any interest in my life had the opposite effect.

  It made my heart soar.

  7

  Lake

  My dad rarely took days off, unless it was for something he deemed more important than work. Not much fell into that category, but USC always did.

  That was why, at four o’clock on the Monday after I’d gone to the fair, my dad and I were finishing up our annual visit to the campus. My dad proudly called me a prospective student to the other parents on the tour, and I wore an old Trojans t-shirt that’d belonged to him before he’d shrunk it in the wash.

  This year felt different than our past five visits. I really was a prospective student now, only two years out from starting here. As college sharpened on the horizon, the students around me no longer seemed ancient. They were just a couple years older than me. I’d even gone to school with kids who attended now. Female students wore strapless tops, cut-off shorts, and bared their midriffs. A boy rode by our tour group on a skateboard. I’d never even been on a skateboard, and showing too much skin was a punishable offense at my school.

  When the guide dismissed us for the afternoon, Dad pulled me away from the crowd. “You heard what she said about starting college classes now?” he asked. “Since USC is too far of a drive, we can sign you up at a community college to get some credits out of the way.”

  “My teacher said a college class might be too much at my age.”

  “Your teacher’s an idiot. It’ll be Disneyland compared to where you’re headed. You should have no trouble keeping up.”

  If he believed I could do it, then I’d try. He’d pushed me to take advanced classes all my life, and although they were hard, I’d always earned A’s.

  The buildings were large and named after people. Students came in and out of every door, disappearing around corners or zipping by us. “How old were you when you came here?”

  “Twenty. I couldn’t afford anything other than community college, so that’s where I started, but eventually I transferred to USC on a scholarship. I graduated at the top of my class and went on to complete my MBA. Imagine what you can do starting even earlier.”

  I thought back to my conversation with Manning about my interests and how he’d promised to get me books from the library. “I haven’t decided on a major yet. Do you think I should do business?”

  “You don’t have to. You can be anything you want. Doctor, lawyer, accountant.”

  “Mona wants to be a teacher.”

  “The world needs teachers,” he said as we headed down the concrete path. “But we also need leaders. If you like working with children, like you do at camp, you could be a pediatrician. Then you get to spend all day doing something valuable. Saving lives.”

  I couldn’t remember much about doctor’s offices, but my dentist was in a perpetually bad mood. “Wouldn’t that be sad, dealing with sick kids? What if I can’t make them better?”

  “If you decide to go that route, there’re different paths you can take. You could be an obstetrician. Try being sad while delivering a baby.”

  “How many years of school is that?”

  “Probably eight, including undergrad, followed by a residency. I know it sounds like a lot, but you’re young. And you’re lucky, Lake. Your mom and I are willing to pay for all of it so you can come out debt-free at the end. College loans are a burden, and USC is at the top as far as tuition goes. You won’t have to struggle for years like I did to pay them off.”

  Eight years and then some. I couldn’t fathom it. I’d be twenty-six or older when I graduated, which meant I still had over ten years left as a student. I’d spent my whole life hearing about USC, and how great college was—I couldn’t wait to be around other people who loved school and wanted to learn. But another decade sounded overwhelming.

  “Look, there’s the College of Commerce and Business Administration,” Dad said, pointing as if I didn’t already know the sandstone-colored brick building with majestic arches. “I spent many hours there becoming the man I am today. Let’s go peek inside.”

  On the lawn out front, a small group of students had arranged rubber mats into rows. They were dressed casually in shorts and tanks. A couple of them sat picking blades of grass. One read a book. None of them spoke to each other.

  My dad held open a door, and we walked down the hall. He tried some handles. “Maybe there’s a summer school lecture we can sit in on.”

  “What was your favorite class?”

  “I don’t know if I had a favorite,” he said. “I enjoyed learning about strategy and operations. How to minimize costs and maximize profits.” He peered into a window on one of the doors before continuing on. “You know what I hated? Advanced statistics. It’s an important class, don’t get me wrong, but it was damn hard.”

  My jaw nearly hit the floor. “You hated a class?”

  “Of course I did. You think I enjoyed learning to calculate standard deviation or worrying about variance and outliers?” He looked over his shoulder, saw my expression and said, “Oh, Lake. You do think that, don’t you?”

  The way he talked about college and what was ahead of me, I didn’t think there was anything he didn’t miss about it. “Kind of.”

  He laughed. “I know you think I’m fanatical about this stuff, but I just want to give you opportunities. Do you think I work as hard as I do for any other reason than to take care of you girls?”

  The truth was, I never really thought about it. I just assumed he worked all the time because he loved it. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t realize . . . thank you.”

  He chuckled, took my face, and kissed my forehead. “I’m not asking for a thank you. I’m just trying to explain that if I’m hard on you, it’s because I want the best for you. I’m proud of you, Lake. You have so much potential. I want to give you every chance to realize it.”

  My throat thickened. I knew he was proud, but it felt good to hear him say it once in a while. “I will,” I said. I had no idea how, but I’d always been a good student, always put in the time
to do better, and I didn’t see that changing anytime soon. “I promise.”

  One of the locked doors opened, and a blonde woman who looked a little older than Tiffany leaned out. “Can I help you?”

  Dad turned. “Oh. Sorry if we disturbed you. We were just checking things out.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “My daughter’s a prospective student.”

  She smiled at me. “Welcome. Will you be applying to business school?”

  Dad had told me a few times that in business and in life, it was important to act confident, especially when you weren’t. I straightened my shoulders. “Yes.”

  Dad squeezed my shoulder.

  “Well, I’m an assistant professor in the Business Economics department. Maybe by the time you get here, I’ll have my doctorate and you’ll be in my class.”

  “How about that, Lake?” He winked at the woman. “You already know a professor.”

  She laughed. “Well, not yet . . .”

  “Maybe I’ll come with my daughter, sit in on your class,” he said. “Who knows? I might learn something.”

  “And what do you do?”

  “COO of a little company called Ainsley-Bushner Pharmaceuticals. Maybe you’ve heard of it?”

  She gaped at him. “Of course I have. Forget sitting in on my class—I’ll be shamelessly begging you for a guest lecture.”

  I might as well have left the room. My dad had a weird look on his face he didn’t get around Mom, something I thought might border on flirtatious. Whatever he was doing, I didn’t think I wanted to witness it. “I’m going to go outside and explore a little,” I said.

  “Don’t go too far,” Dad said, releasing me. “We have to leave soon to get home in time for dinner.”

  “So I know all about CEOs and CFOs,” she said as I walked away, “but COO’s are a bit more mysterious. What exactly do you do?”

  Dad had a standard answer to that question, but his tone changed depending on who was asking. Sometimes it was meant to end a conversation. Other times, like this one, it was an invitation to ask more. “A little of this, a little of that.”