She looks away and begins fiddling with her rings. “I could go to small claims court,” Jenna was muttering. “I could win that case.”
I frown, shifting my eyes to her. “Would it be rude to ask you why you put the tiara up to secure a loan?”
She’s still for a moment, but then she reaches over, breaks the roll in half and dips it into the gravy of her stew. “It’s not rude to ask, no. I told you. I needed the money.”
I puzzle this for a moment, rubbing at the whiskers on my chin. I usually don’t shave while I’m at an overnight outing. It bothers me to have itchy whiskers, but it’s more tolerable than trying to shave in ice-cold water while we are camping.
“You’re not in some kind of trouble, are you? Because I’d help you if you are.”
Her hand pauses, the bread immersed in the gravy. Then she slowly begins moving it again, and I follow the path of that drenched morsel of bread from the bowl to her mouth. Jenna has lovely pale pink lips, as elegant and refined as the rest of her. She presses the piece of bread to those lips and opens her mouth to take it in.
A familiar buzz of heat and excitement runs through me, and now I’m thinking about what it would be like to kiss her. I’ve kissed other women. It was all right. But I think it might be different to kiss Jenna.
“I’m not in trouble.” She grimaces. “Not how you’re thinking, anyway.”
“Hey, kids!” Someone plops down suddenly beside Jenna, and I turn to see that it’s her best friend and roommate, Alex. “That smells good. I’m ‘a get me some of that.”
“Here, have the rest of mine. I’m not super hungry.” Jenna pushes the bowl toward Alex after only three bites.
Alex turns to me, speaking between scooping up spoonfuls of the stew and swallowing. “Hey, William. That was such a good fight. I’m sorry you didn’t win.”
I shrug. “You needn’t apologize. You are not responsible for my loss.”
Her spoon pauses on its way to her mouth. “No—I…uh, I mean I feel bad that you didn’t win.”
I don’t know how to respond to that comment. Should I thank her or nod? Instead, I move on in the conversation. “It was unfortunate. I didn’t follow the rules. I was distracted by the crowd. I’ve been training a great deal and I judged that Doug and I were equals in skill level, but the distraction caused me to make an error and injure Doug’s shoulder. I apologized to him during the bout and explained my difficulty with the crowd, but he still seems quite angry, even though he won.”
“Wil, why did you tell Doug that the crowd was bothering you?” Jenna asked.
“To explain my reasons for breaching the rules.”
“He used that against you to win.” I frown, failing to understand her logic. She sighs. “I purposely agitated the crowd in the second and third bouts, trying to get us to cheer louder. When he came over to ask for my favor, he said he was having trouble hearing us through his helmet.”
“What he did was not against the rules,” I observe.
Jenna’s open palm slaps the table. “But he was exploiting your weakness.”
“Also not against the rules.”
“But the jerk wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t been so open with him.”
“That is a dick move.” Alex pushes a lock of dark, curly hair behind her ear and looks between Jenna and me a few times. Then she turns to Jenna. “You, uh, seem pretty unhappy with Doug. Did you two have a fight?”
Jenna glances at me and then away. “I broke it off with Doug.”
Alex’s mouth twists and she rubs her jaw. She looks like she’s thinking, but Jenna appears irritated—well, I think that’s her irritated look, anyway. I’ve seen that look often enough that I should probably know it by now.
“Don’t say it, Alex.” Jenna stares at her roommate between narrowed eyes.
“You know I’m going to say it.” Alex laughs. “What’s the date? That’s three months on the dot, right?”
Jenna rolls her eyes. “I’m not in the mood.”
I’m completely confused—not at all an alien feeling. There is subtext between these two that I am not picking up. And since I often have difficulty with regular text, subtext is far beyond my meager abilities.
As she often does, Alex picks up on my bewilderment. I’m grateful. I’ve observed that Alex has a keen knack for social behavior and perceives a great deal that isn’t being said with words.
“I’m just teasing Jenna because of her pattern,” Alex says.
“Her pattern?” I ask.
“Shut up, Alex,” Jenna says with a sigh.
“She doesn’t go out with guys for very long, and I’ve taken to graphing them. Six weeks here, three months there. Her longest was five-and-a-half months, because I guess six would have been considered too long-term.”
“I don’t like to settle down.” Jenna shrugs, her cheeks and neck turning a very becoming shade of pink. “Drop it, okay?”
Alex and Jenna share a long look filled with more unspoken words. If they were touching, I might assume it was some kind of Vulcan mind meld between roommates. But Vulcans can’t read minds out of nowhere. They need to have skin contact in order to share the thoughts of another.
Sometimes I wonder if everyone has the ability to read thoughts except for me. It feels like I’m deaf in some ways, missing half of what’s going on around me. I can’t tell what people’s faces and gestures are trying to say, what words they’re using that aren’t coming out of their mouth. It seems like another language, one I’m not familiar with.
“So if you broke up with Doug, then do you want to head home with me this afternoon? I’m sure you won’t be sharing his tent tonight.”
Jenna looks away, fidgeting. “I have my sleep roll. I can just camp out next to the fire tonight. I’d like to stay and participate in the evening activities.”
“It’ll be too cold for you to camp outside tonight,” I say. Both heads turn toward me.
Alex’s mouth stretches into a wide smile. “Do you have room in your tent for her, William?”
Jenna blushes and punches Alex in the arm. “Ow!”
“I can’t allow you to sleep out by the fire tonight, Jenna,” I say. “That would be unchivalrous of me. There is room in my tent, and I have a comfortable bedroll mattress that I made myself. It’s period authentic and it’s comfortable. You can sleep there and I’ll take the floor.”