I wandered along the length of the breezeway, looking out at the sun-soaked courtyard without really seeing it. Maybe, I thought, Father D. was right. Maybe it was better this way. I mean, let’s say, just for a minute, that Jesse liked me back. Better than liked me. Loved me, even. Where was it going to go? It was like Paul had said. What were we going to do? Date? Go to the movies together? I would have to pay, and it would just be for one ticket. And if anyone saw me, to all appearances sitting by myself, I would look like the biggest dork in the world. How lame.

What I needed, I realized, was a real boyfriend. Not just a guy people besides me could see, either, but a guy I liked, who actually liked me back. That was what I needed. That was exactly what I needed.

Because when Jesse found out about it, it might make him realize what a colossal mistake he had just made.

It’s kind of funny that as I was thinking this, Paul Slater suddenly leaped out at me from behind a column, and went, “Hey.”

chapter

fourteen

“Go away,” I said.

Because the truth was, I was still sort of crying, and Paul Slater was just about the last person in the world I wanted to see me doing so. I was totally hoping he wouldn’t notice.

No such luck. Paul went, “What’s with the waterworks?”

“Nothing,” I said, wiping my eyes with my jacket sleeve. I’d used up all the tissues Father Dom’s secretary had given me. “Just allergies.”

Paul reached out and jerked my hand away. “Here, use this.”

And he passed me, of all things, a white handkerchief he’d pulled from his pocket.

Funny how, with everything else that was going on, all I could focus on was that white square of material. “You carry a handkerchief ?” I asked in a voice that cracked.

Paul shrugged. “You never know when you might need to gag someone.”

This was so not the answer I expected that I couldn’t help laughing a little. I mean, Paul creeped me out a little…okay, a lot. But he could still be funny sometimes.

I mopped up my tears with the handkerchief, more conscious than I wanted to be of the proximity of its owner. Paul was looking particularly delectable that morning in a charcoal cashmere sweater and a chocolate-brown leather coat. I couldn’t help looking at his mouth and remembering how it felt on mine. Which was good. More than good.

Then my gaze drifted toward his eye, the one I’d jabbed. No mark. The guy didn’t bruise easily.

I wished the same could be said of me. Or of my heart, anyway.

I don’t know if Paul noticed the direction of my gaze—I suppose it had been pretty obvious I’d been staring at his mouth. But all of a sudden, he lifted his arms and placed both hands against the three-foot-wide column I’d been leaning against—one of the columns that hold the roof of the breezeway up—sort of pinioning me in between them.

“So, Suze,” he said in a friendly way. “What did Father Dominic want to see you about?”

Even though I was definitely in the market for a boyfriend, I wasn’t so sure Paul was the guy for me. I mean, yeah, he was hot and all, and there was the whole mediator thing.

But there was also that whole thing where he’d tried to kill me. It’s kind of hard just to let something like that go.

So I was sort of torn as I stood there, imprisoned between his arms. On the one hand, I wouldn’t have minded reaching up and dragging his head down and laying a big fat one on his mouth.

On the other hand, giving him a good swift kick in the groin seemed equally appealing, given what he’d put me through the other day, what with the hot pavement and the Hell’s Angel and all.

I didn’t end up doing either. I just stood there, my heart beating kind of hard inside my chest. This was, after all, the guy about whom I’d been having nightmares for the past few weeks. That kind of thing doesn’t go away just because the guy put his tongue in your mouth and you sort of liked it.

“Don’t worry,” I said in a voice that didn’t sound at all like my own, it was so hoarse from all the crying. I cleared my throat, then said, “I didn’t tell Father Dom anything about you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Paul visibly relaxed as my words soaked in. He even lifted one of his hands away from the wall and fingered a coil of my hair that had been curled against my shoulder.

“I like your hair better down,” he said approvingly. “You should always wear it down.”

I rolled my eyes in order to hide the fact that my heart rate, when he touched me, sped up considerably, and I started to duck beneath the one arm he still had caging me in.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, moving to corner me once more, this time by taking a step closer, so that our faces were only about three inches apart. His breath, I was close enough to note, still smelled of whatever toothpaste he’d used that morning.

Jesse’s breath never smells like anything, because, of course, he’s not alive.

“Paul,” I said in what I hoped was an even, completely toneless voice. “Really. Not here, okay?”

“Fine.” He didn’t move away, though. “Where, then?”

“Oh, God, Paul.” I lifted a hand to my forehead. It felt hot. But I knew I didn’t have a fever. Why was I so hot? It was cool in the breezeway. Was it Paul? Was it Paul who was making me feel this way? “I don’t know, okay? Look, I have…I have a lot of stuff I have to figure out right now. Could you just…could you just leave me alone for a while, so I can think?”

“Sure,” he said. “Did you get the flowers?”

“I got the flowers,” I said. Whatever it was that was making me feel so feverish also forced me to add, even though I didn’t want to, since all I wanted to do was run away and hide in the girls’ room until it was time for classes to change, “But if you think I’m going to forget about what you did to me, just because you sent me a bunch of dumb flowers—”

“I said I was sorry, Suze,” Paul said. “And I’m more sorry about your feet than I can say. You should have let me drive you home. I wouldn’t have tried anything, I swear.”

“Oh, yeah?” I looked up at him. He was a head taller than me, but his lips were still only inches from mine. I could meet them with my own without much of a problem. Not that I was going to. I didn’t think. “What do you call what you’re doing now?”