“It’s okay.” I wiped my mouth with my sleeve. (Somewhere, Angelo was clutching his heart and wincing.) “Okay, help me understand this. You threw a party?”
“Obviously.”
I made a face at him. “You threw a party that you wanted me to attend?”
“Another secret out of the bag.”
“And you didn’t even bother to invite me? Are guys always like this?”
“Um. Kind of?”
I threw my hands into the air. “This is why the world’s a mess!” I yelled. “Because no one can just say what they want to say!”
“I think that’s a John Mayer song,” Jesse pointed out.
“It is not. And don’t change the subject. Why didn’t you just invite me?”
Jesse looked around the room, probably praying that Roux would storm through it, doing her best whirling dervish impression, and get him off the hook. “Well, I mean, it’s not like anyone was invited. People just sort of show up.”
“But what if I didn’t show up? What if I stayed home and handed out candy or played Angry Birds instead?”
“You like Angry Birds? What’s your score?”
“Stop changing the subject!”
Jesse just started to laugh, though. “Were you an interrogator in a past life? Calm down, everything worked out. You’re here, I’m here, it’s all good.”
I took a deep breath and leaned against the (really uncomfortable, oh my God, who designed this place?) stair railing. “It’s not going to be all good for Roux tomorrow,” I pointed out, “but wait. Why didn’t you say anything?”
Jesse shrugged and ran his hand through his hair in a way that was not adorable or charming. At all. “Well, um, you’re kind of intimidating?”
I was definitely intimidating, but not for any reason that Jesse Oliver would or should know about. “What do you mean?”
“Well, in class you’re always taking notes … and frowning?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“See?” Jesse protested. “You’re really argumentative, too.”
(Is it weird that hearing him use a polysyllabic word gave me butterflies? Yes, that’s weird. Forget I said anything.) “But it’s kind of cute,” he continued. “You always get this little wrinkle when you’re taking notes.” He scrunched up his forehead in what was apparently an imitation of my notetaking face.
The butterflies had quickly turned into a teeming mass of electric eels, and I felt the heat creep into my cheeks. This was the first job I had ever had that made me blush. I didn’t even know I could blush! “Oh, um, okay. Thank you?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Jesse cracked up even as I swatted at his hair. “Hey, watch the ‘do!”
“Don’t make fun of me!” I cried. “No one’s ever called me cute before! I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”
He kept smirking in his smirky way. “Do you always know what to say?”
I did.
And that was the problem.
But before I could say anything, right or wrong, I heard a commotion coming from the media room. Roux had gotten her hands on a red Rhone blend and had retreated there to watch a movie by herself.
And judging from the noise, apparently the movie had ended.
“Does Roux always drink like this?” I asked Jesse. “Or is it just a holiday thing?”
“It’s a party thing. Ever since we were twelve.”
“Twelve? Does she still have a liver?”
“Well, to be fair, she hasn’t really been at any parties lately. You know, the whole …” He waved his hand toward the library where the huge confrontation had taken place between Roux and Julia.
“Yeah, she told me all about that. I think she feels really bad about it.”
Jesse glanced at me. “I think she’s glad to have a friend again.”
I nodded. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“Bang.”
“You are such a dork.”
“Am not. But it’s about Roux and Julia and that dude.”
Jesse snorted. “You mean Loser Jake?”
“Thank you!” I said. “The whole time they were arguing over him, I was just, like, ‘Really?’”
“He’s a tool. He cheats on Julia practically every week. But Roux used to be her best friend, so I guess that got everyone all upset.”
“So why does Julia stay with him?”
“Who knows?”
“Ridiculous,” I said. “So damn ridiculous.”
The commotion in the media room was getting louder, and I was pretty sure I could hear someone singing “Tomorrow” from the musical Annie, someone who sounded a lot like a drunk Roux.
I looked over at Jesse. “Please don’t tell me …”
“Oh, yes.”
“Oh, no.”
“Who doesn’t love karaoke?” he asked.
“I’ll give you twenty bucks if you go shoot her with a tranquilizer dart.”
“I’ll do it for ten,” he said. “Holiday sale.”
By the time we got the media room, there was a circle of people around Roux, who was clearly having a grand old time with the family karaoke machine. (And nowhere in the research did it say that Armand Oliver enjoyed a nice round of karaoke, by the way. That would have been good to know.) “Maggie!” Roux cried when she saw me. “This song is such a metaphor for life!”