Hard Facts by Penny Clarke

9

Summer

“Look who I found!”

If Grayson’s surprised by the announcement, he disguises it well. Apart from one blink, his face stays impassably blank when he sees me climbing up the bleacher steps behind Rylie.

It’s the girl sitting next to him, on the other hand, who frowns. “You said you were meeting up with Levi.”

Rylie bites her lip, as I say, “What she means to say, is that I found them.”

Grayson sighs. Apparently, this is nothing new.

“You guys never do it where I can catch you.”

“We don’t plan these things, Natalie,” Rylie says, directing the pink-haired girl to move over. When she waves for me to sit, I’m confused, until I realize she’s letting me take the spot beside Grayson. “It just happens.”

As the other girls bicker, Grayson leans over. “We have support groups, if you feel particularly scarred by what you saw.”

“My eyes need a thorough cleansing, but I’ll be fine,” I reassure. “They’re not the first I’ve come across doing it. Guarantee they won’t be the last. Grayson James, do you not know how many horny students are on this campus?” As his eyes widen, I check that his friends are still in deep conversation before leaning even closer. “Is this okay? I tried to get out of it, but…”

“Rylie didn’t give you much of a choice, did she?” he blows out an aggrieved breath. Could it be possible that he’s facing the same questions from his friends that I am from my sisters? Probably, if I base it off the amount of information Rylie wanted to know about me over dinner.

As for my being here, he pauses. Glances over me, then quickly looks out over the football field. “Yeah, it’s—You’re good. It’s fine.” Then, he ducks down to adjust his glasses and mutters, “Not much you can do about it now, I guess.”

Well, that sure boosts a girl’s spirits, doesn’t it?

Just as I’m about to suggest getting a drink—and never coming back if he feels that lackluster about my presence—I feel a nudge on my foot. When I look down, Grayson taps my shoe with his again. “No heels?”

“In these stands?” I scoff. “I’m blonde, Rowe. Not an idiot.”

Also, I made that mistake freshman year. Face-planted right in front of the marching band. A lot of band geeks got an eyeful that night. Since then, I’ve learned to always have a spare on hand. Or on foot, as may be the case.

“How about you?” I shoot back, tugging aside his overshirt to the Lakewood Leopards tee beneath. “What, do you not have a shirt that properly conveys your love of football and advanced calculus? No trigonometric depictions of how to make touchdowns?”

One week, I think again. It’s disorienting, how in such a small space of time, I’ve already grown used to his nerdy stylistic choices. I’d even looked forward to our tutoring lessons all week, wondering just which one he’d be wearing that day. A couple, I reluctantly admit, I enjoyed. Like the light blue one with a shining lightbulb. Turn down for watt. Or oh, the maroon raglan. Not because I understood whatever in-depth algebraic joke it’s detailed design was making. But the way it clung to his shoulders…

Grayson brushes my hand away, clearing away a wrinkle in his shirt and my mind from the gutter. “If such a shirt existed, Levi would’ve found it by now.”

“Who knows? You do have a birthday coming up,” I tease, propping my elbows on my knees and my chin on my hands.

Swaying a little, I glance over the rest of him. We’d spent our lessons this week boxed in tiny library study rooms. Focusing on science and math. It’s too soon to tell, but with Grayson’s help, the subjects I’ve always struggled to grasp seem a little less confusing. Statistics still makes me want to throw the textbook across the room every time he brings it out, but chemistry…

At the risk of sounding like one his many STEM-punned shirts, chemistry is where Grayson Rowe’s most in his element. Whether it’s describing atomic theory. Defining chemical bonds. Clarifying matter structures. He disassembles the grand puzzle that is chemistry. Breaks it into chunks. Sorts it into understandable pieces. Then puts it all back together again, connecting ideas and interlocking concepts until—like he once told me—it all just makes sense.

But it’s not just his explanations for each theory and construct. It’s the absolute physical manner in which he brings the subject to life. Like how he’d formed an entire volcano out of thin air—Grayson uses his hands for everything. They’re constantly in motion as he talks, supplementing his teachings with invisible fabrications. It would be distracting, if it wasn’t so damn fascinating to watch happen. How his eyes light up. How a grin dances on his mouth. How he throws his whole body into it, without even realizing he’s doing it.

And after getting to see that Grayson all week, it’s just as compelling to see him here. Outside the bubble of our sessions, where he’s completely absorbed in his teachings. Here, he’s relaxed. Body no longer in agitated movement, but still with a calm ease.

There’s a part of me that likes this. Seeing him like this. Casual. Not in tutor mode. A regular guy, at a football game, spending time with friends. In a Leopards t-shirt, leaning back on the bench, and a—

“Hold up,” I grab the notebook on his lap. “Are you doing homework?”

He grabs it right back, wedging it under his leg. And despite that I’d caught him red-handed, he laughs. A light breeze drifts over the stadium, tossing up strands of brown hair. Even after it dies down, they stay up, forever mussed by the wind. Rolling my eyes, I reach up to smooth them back down—

He smacks my hand away, laugh instantly dying in his throat.

“Hey. Lovebirds.”

Fuck. If there’s a surefire way to go about making his friends believe we’re dating each other, I’m pretty certain that’s not it. Did Natalie see Grayson’s complete rejection of my touch?

Annoyed, I thrust my hand back to stubbornly settle those wayward strands.

“Ow!” Grayson says when I whack him in the head.

Hiding a wince, I turn to the girl beside me. “Yes?”

Natalie watches with that ever-present frown as Grayson fumbles for the glasses I’d knocked off in my haste to prove that we are one of those touchy-feely couples. Is it just my imagination, or do her eyes narrow when she looks at me?

“Gray won’t tell us anything about you,” she finally says. “And you don’t have any social media.”

Neither does he, I’d say if I wasn’t blind-sided by her easy admission of cyberstalking me, so she continues, “Looks like we’ll have to do this the hard way.”

“Natalie—” Gray groans on my other side.

“Favorite school subject.”

At the tinny clatter of metal on metal, I glance down at the jumble of bands circling each wrist. She crosses her arms, bracelets jingling again as she flips magenta bangs from her face, eyes on me. Waiting.

I shrug. “Anything but math.”

“What are your thoughts on the Juggernaut paradox of turbo Magneto transmissions?”

“Is that even a thing?” Rylie asks.

“It’s not,” Grayson answers. “If you’re trying to sound smart, Natalie, don’t use X-men characters.”

Natalie waves that off, and it’s onto the next question. Preferred beer (None. I like cocktails). Who I spend my time with (My sisters). I have sisters? (At the mention of sorority, her nose wrinkles).

These aren’t like the questions Rylie asked me over dinner. Standard ‘tell me about yourself’ ones about where I’m from or what shows I binge. By comparison, Natalie’s are specific. Targeted. The more she asks, the more I start to note an underlying theme. And it’s as she asks for my favorite periodic element (Uh, oxygen, I guess?) that it dawns on me what that theme is.

Natalie Mason—Senior psych major. Bracelet connoisseur. Lives off-campus with Rylie Stone and Kennedy Walsh in a house called Tipsy Turvy. Best friend to the most desirable, and unattainable, bachelor on Lakewood’s campus. Known, not for any particular skill or accomplishment or scandal, but by what color her hair happens to be any given week—is trying to determine how well a match I make for Grayson.

Ridiculous. Completely, totally, absolutely ridiculous. The idea that she needs to interrogate me to determine my intentions for her friend are just, they’re just so—So laughable. And I would laugh—

If it didn’t bristle so much.

Whether it’s her disapproving stare, the thought that she finds something in me lacking, or even the simple fact that I hate people asking me such pointed questions—I sit taller. Square my shoulders. Feel the need to rise to her challenge. To prove myself. For what, I’m not quite entirely sure.

But she’s fucking on.

“What do you consider the most important scientific invention ever invented?”

“Only one? Why not my top five?”

“If you had a superpower, what would it be?”

“You mean a remarkable ability to find dresses with pockets doesn’t count?” I stick my hands in said pockets and ruffle my skirt.

“Best dessert.”

“Don’t answer that,” Grayson cuts in. “It’s a trick question.”

Rylie gives a helpful nod. “Natalie thinks every dessert ever is the best.”

“True,” Natalie holds up a hand to shush them. “Also, I would have accepted donuts. What do you like about football?”

“I like a man in uniform. Isn’t that why you come to these things?” I send a wry look down the oversized navy jersey tucked into her shorts. With a golden number two emblazoned on the front, and a name on the back that matches one golden-haired player on the field. Rylie pointed him out when we made our way through the stands.

Which, by now, have only grown more crowded since Rylie and I arrived. The home crowd waves theirs flags and homemade banners, aggressively chanting for the game to start. So much so that Natalie’s had to raise her voice throughout her inquisition, even as we’re packed like sardines, shoulder to shoulder.

Meaning that Grayson’s so close, I feel his whole body tense at the next question.

“What did you first notice about Gray?”

Without thinking, I drop a hand on his knee. Squeeze it for reassurance.

“Bees,” I state, simply and honestly.

That tension’s still there. I smooth my hand over his thigh, willing it to ease away. Trying to tell him without words that our cover’s safe, I won’t blow it.

“Ugh, bugs.”

“Insects,” Grayson and I correct. With a conspiratorial grin, I turn to him, but he stares out at the field, a hard set to his mouth.

Natalie snaps her fingers to get my attention again. “Okay, that’s worth a point.” Wait, there are points? “Now, how big is his—”

“You definitely don’t have to answer that,” Grayson whips around. Leaning past me, he snaps, “Natalie, enough.”

There’s silence between them after his outburst, and Natalie’s arms tighten over her chest. Grayson runs a palm over his lap, shoving my hand off his leg. At the last second, I catch his hand in mine, unwilling to let him reject me again. Not when we’re supposed to present a united front.

Natalie spots that. The way he tries to tug his hand away, until I lace my fingers through his.

She opens her mouth, but it’s Rylie who speaks next. Looping her arm through Natalie’s, she says, “Let’s see Kennedy real quick before kickoff.”

Rylie doesn’t mention that we’d already waved to the redheaded reporter, spotting her on the sidelines where she’d been taking close-up photographs of Spencer Armstrong putting on his helmet. Natalie gives one last suspicious look to mine and Grayson’s joined hands, then leaves with her.

“Well?” I ask when they’re gone. “Did I pass or what?”

“I am so sorry about that.” Grayson runs his hand through his hair. It sticks on end, but I make no move to fix it. I’ve learned my lesson. “I should’ve known she—Natalie’s got some boundary issues.”

“Some? I’ve had less invasive exams with my gynecologist.”

“Yeah, I—” He lets out a weary sigh. “Sorry. Again.”

I shrug. Hopefully, that’ll be the last I have to deal with Natalie Mason’s apparent nonexistent filter. And I thought I was snoopy.

Matter closed, he asks, “How are you doing with that problem set, by the way?”

I groan at the reminder of my weekend assignment. I’d barely started it, but what I had… “Not great. I’m having trouble with frequency distributions.”

“No problem. Luckily, football provides a prime example,” he says, pulling out his notebook. “Here, we can go over—”

He lifts his left hand, eyes widening as he realizes it’s still holding mine.

I release him, tucking my arms around my waist as I lean forward. Despite the balmy night, I curl my fingers, savoring the last of the dissipating warmth on my palm.

Clearing his throat, he flips through notebook pages until landing on one taken up entirely by a meticulously drawn table. He holds it between us for me to study, nodding at the field below as he begins explaining each column of touchdown scores, interceptions, and passing yards.

“From here,” he explains. “We can see that he’s more likely to score three times in a single game, but advance on the field by—”

“Who’s he?” When Grayson looks confused, I poke the open notebook. “You said ‘he’. Whose stats are these?”

“Oh,” he says. “Morris.”

“You track your roommate’s football scores?”

He leafs through the notebook to show pages of more tables. Boxes, big and small, dutifully noted with proper numerical order. Divided rows and columns, a place to input each data point and track each variable. “Morris, Levi, Spencer… I do it for all of them.”

I stop him on a page riddled with tally marks, labeled in a shorthand that makes absolutely no sense to anyone but the one who wrote it down. LH, it reads above the table. “What about this one? That’s a lot of touchdowns.”

“That’s, uh…” His brow furrows, looking for the right way to explain it, before he gives up and sighs. He taps the table header. “This one’s for Levi. For how many times he feels the need to lose articles of clothing at any given moment.” He scans ahead to another table. “Spencer. How, despite a limited vocabulary of grunts and growls, he’s able to so skillfully use fuck in every part of speech while maintaining perfect syntactic function.” Then he’s on to more datasets. Kennedy’s coffee consumption. Rylie’s apparent love for cat puns.

When he skips a whole middle section, labeled only TM/NM, I stop his hand. “And those ones?”

Grayson searches the field. It’s getting close to game time, and on the sidelines, Natalie and Rylie wave goodbye to Walsh. “I don’t think there’s a football game long enough to explain Natalie and Morris.”

Before I can ask, Grayson moves on, pointing out other pages for his roommates, their girlfriends, his roommates and their girlfriends. On and on, until he nears the end, and I see one page, littered with hashmarks, and ask, “What’s that one for?”

He flips right back to the beginning of the notebook.

“This is why numbers are so amazing. So useful,” he explains, and for a moment, I wonder if he even heard my question, his gaze is lost in another mathematical soliloquy. “By analyzing the object, interpreting its data, you start understanding its behavior. Every habit, every oddity, all of the idiosyncrasies that make up a single person—track them by numbers and you begin to recognize the patterns. And once you know those, you can estimate what they would do in any particular scenario.”

“You use numbers… to guess what your friends will do,” I summarize in a daze. “Are they aware that you do this?”

He laughs. “I have been told, on numerous occasions, to not use them as research material. But when they provide such an interminable resource of data, how can I not?” He gestures to the notebook. “It’s like counting cards, you know. Know the math, win the game.”

I swallow. “How often do you win?”

Why do I even ask? Because from the data I’ve collected on him in just a couple short weeks, I should be able to predict his answer as surely as he says it.

Especially as that smug grin unfurls in response to my question.

“Always.”

An ache alerts me to look down at my lap. At some point, I started gripping my skirt, so hard that my knuckles are white. Slowly, I unfurl my fingers, running them over the thin material in hopes to soothe their shaking.

He uses numbers. To predict human behavior. To understand others. Their actions. Why they do the things they do.

I should be weirded out, because it is, without a doubt, one of the weirdest things a guy’s ever shared with me.

Except I’m not.

I get it.

Because don’t I do the same—with my mental catalog? By knowing everything about everyone, even if I have yet to meet them?

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him rifle through his notebook again. I sneak a look at him, with his brown eyes concentrating on notes and completely ignorant of my gaze on him. He brings his thumb to his mouth. Flicks his tongue to wet the tip. A page rustles as he turns it, but my eyes are glued to his lips, pressing smooth and slender against one another. They part, and I imagine that small slip of tongue, darting out again—

“Summer?” Honey-brown eyes clash with mine. “What’s wrong?”

Another breeze wafts over us, bringing with it the scent of fresh cut grass and popcorn and memories of a field and a big screen filled with monster sharks and a shadowy car pulsing with sensual potential. It ruffles his hair even more, and my restless hands, with nothing to do but itch, itch to dive right into the thick of that hickory-colored mess and muss it up even more.

A breath catches in my throat. “What do you mean?”

“You look perturbed.”

Because if there’s one word a girl wants a guy to describe her as, it’s that.

Common sense floods back to me, washing away all those perturbing things coursing through my body. Needs and wants and cravings. For him. For his eyes on me and his mouth on mine. I take them all, and I tuck them away, never to be felt or thought or known, for as long as it takes for me to completely forget they ever existed.

And since he’s looking at me, so damn concerned about how perturbed I must be, I quickly blurt out, “We need to make a small modification to our contract.”

“What?” he asks softly, and it’s lost in the roar of the crowd as the game begins.

But Grayson’s eyes don’t leave mine. Are they—Did they just drop to—No, he’s looking at his notebook again.

“My sisters are curious about you,” I duck my head to say in his ear, unable to look directly in his face anymore, lest I see things I only want to see. “Quid pro quo, Rowe. I’m here with your friends. Can you spare some time to meet mine?”

He stills when I place my hand on his shoulder. Once, sharply, he nods.

And at the same moment Natalie and Rylie return, I lift my hands and keep them to myself for the rest of the game.