“Good.” He stared down hard at our test strips and then grabbed mine. “Hey look, you’re AB negative.”
I scanned the info sheet we’d been given with the test strips. “What’s that mean?”
“It means you’re the rarest blood type in the world. It figures.”
My gaze shot up to his. “What figures?”
He put the test down and then winked at me. “I always knew there was something special about you.”
A balloon filled with liquid warmth burst right beneath my ribcage. I ducked my head, trying to hide my pink cheeks. How many times could a girl blush in a matter of an hour? It had to be a condition. An unhealthy one. My face was starting to feel sunburnt.
“By the way, are you free tomorrow night?” Gabriel asked, looking at his own test and scribbling something in the margins.
Excitement danced in my stomach. Did he want to get together? Was he asking me out? Wednesday night was a little weird for a date, but I wasn’t opposed to a school night. Or any night with Gabriel. It would give me the extra time I needed to make up my mind on what I wanted to do.
I sat up a little taller and leaned forward on the desk. “Yeah, I’m totally free.”
“Good, let’s get together after practice and finish our anatomy project,” he said, folding the paper in half.
It was a good thing he was so intent on his test because he didn’t get to see the way my face fell. I sat back in my seat, feeling the disappointment wash over me. Totally not a date.
“Yeah, that works. At the rink again?”
“That works for me.” He slid the folded paper toward me on the table. The bell rang and he jumped up, pulling his bag over his shoulder. “See you then.”
“See you.” I watched him walk toward the exit, feeling utterly helpless at the sight.
He definitely knew how to make me forget about the tournament and that whole world domination thing. It was far too tempting to abandon my plans whenever he touched me. Or smiled. Or even looked at me.
When he was finally gone, I opened the paper he’d slid to me and stared down at the doodle he’d scribbled in the margin. It was a picture of a girl with a Gryffindor logo on her chest and a cape flapping out behind her. She held her fist high and her wavy hair fell over her shoulders. She was smiling victoriously, as if she had everything in the world figured out.
A smile touched my lips. I folded the paper drawing back up and hugged it close to my chest, feeling the warmth that it brought spread to my limbs.
“Whatcha got there?” Charlotte asked, bouncing toward my desk with her textbook in her arms.
“Oh, it’s nothing. Just my blood type results.”
Suppressing my smile, I followed her out of the classroom and down the hall. All the while, my heart and brain were whirling.
I’d figure out what to do.
One way or another.
Chapter Fifteen
My attention wasn’t into the algebra or AP History homework I’d brought home to do tonight. It wasn’t into the dozens of TV channels I flipped through on my TV in my room after supper. It kept wandering toward the doodle I’d pinned up on my cork board—the one Gabriel had slid across the desk toward me after class. Every time I looked at that thing I couldn’t help but grin and feel a fuzzy warm glow in my stomach. I wanted to see him again. Tomorrow was too far away for a study date. I needed to talk to him now.
And so when my computer suddenly dinged with an incoming message, I scrambled to the keyboard, near
ly overshooting the seat of my chair. It was from the Battlegrounds app. I pulled it up and bit back a smile when I saw Battlescar13’s name blinking with an unread message.
Battlescar13: Hey what up?
So maybe this wasn’t exactly my preferred way of communicating with the boy who’d gotten me all dizzy, but it was better than nothing. I typed in my reply and stared eagerly at the screen.
CurrerBfighting: Not much.
Avoiding homework. You?