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3. Gia

three

Gia

I sprawl out in the center of my queen bed, my back propped up on a pile of goose-down pillows with a bag of frozen peas strapped to my puffed knee. She's All That plays on the TV again for what seems like the hundredth time. I turn the volume all the way down until the only sound that echoes in my room is the rain outside my window. I flick the remote next to me and wince.

My knee pulses with a heartbeat of its own.

The x-rays showed nothing broken. Thankfully. However, I was mid-cheer with my raised leg bent when the blunt force met my knee, and it dislocated my pelvis. Now I'm stuck home on the night of the biggest dance of the year with a giant stabilizing belt strapped around my hips. My cheer squad all called to express their concern, but they sure didn't slow down their plans on my account. I can't believe I'm missing the Homecoming dance. Not to mention, I didn't get to take North up on that dance I promised him.

That one hurt the most.

For two weeks, I had washed dishes at my dad's pizzeria to earn money for the perfect mermaid-silhouette dress. The stylish garment hangs from the back of my closet door as a taunting reminder—tonight is not going how I had envisioned it. My friends are all at the dance, wearing their dresses. I can almost see them with their hair and makeup done, and dancing with the biggest smiles on their faces. I want to be happy for them, but it stings to think I'm missing out.

Major FOMO.

Worst of all is the nagging thought in the back of my mind that North's dancing with someone else. Clenching my eyes, I gulp another lungful of air and hold it as I struggle through the tears. Junior year is supposed to be one of my best years, but so far this year has been hellacious. One month in and I'm nearly disabled. So much for the cheer team.

What else can go wrong?

A soft knock comes from my bedroom door.

Really? I arch a suspicious brow. I wasn't inviting something else to go wrong. How's this happening?

"What?" My voice drips in nasal-ly inflections, but I don't reach for a tissue. I'm so over everything.

The door pushes open, and I'm expecting my dad, or my brother, but it's neither.

It's North.

My eyes immediately skirt over the dirty cheerleading uniform I'd lazily dropped when I changed. My soggy shower towel still lays mid-center on the floor, as I was too disgruntled to bother to hang it up. It's all so cringe, but I can't even move to try to nonchalantly kick those things under my bed. My eyes bug out of my head as an inventory of all the childish stuffed animals I still had lined up on my dresser runs through my head. Can't a girl get a warning? I force a calm smile and lock my gaze back to him.

That did absolutely nothing to calm my nerves, because while I'm laid up, looking like a spicy disaster, he is killing all the looks categories. He's so tall and fit, he looks like a football model in his letterman jacket, and his tousled hair only makes him look more smoldering, drawing me in like a magnet. My palms are pouring out sweat, my hands growing sticky, as I try to casually wipe them on my blanket all the while my cheeks flush with anticipation.

North is here.

In my room.

To see me.

Of course, this is about what happened. More than likely it's a welfare check, but my heart is already making wedding plans. I can't for a second be mad at him for running into me because it was an accident. His brow lowers as his gaze glides from my pea-encapsulated knee back up to my face. "I'm sorry, Gia. I honestly didn't see you there until it was too late."

"It's okay." I sigh, hoping I will be okay.

"Rocco said nothing is broken." His athletic-build shoulders fall, as if he is giving himself permission to let go of his own anxiety. I find myself staring at them. If things had been different tonight, I would be at the dance with my arms wrapped around those brawny shoulders, spinning around the dance floor…

Heat creeps over my cheeks and I blink my way back into this conversation. "Nope. Nothing is broken. I get to rest a lot and start some physical therapy." It's never hard to form a sweet smile for him. His eyes are so wide with concern, molten honey hues sparkle out of the center like the deepest espresso. They are more decadent than a morsel of the most desired candy, and all I want to do is study them until I have a Ph.D. in his eyes. I struggle not to blurt out how handsome he is. "I'm going to be fine."

He stuffs his hands in his letterman jacket pockets and rocks back on his heels. Need I comment on how doing something as simple as that makes him that much hotter? Anything he does adds another layer of handsomeness to him. He's clearly won the gene pool lottery for every feature of his face, but the fact that he's humble about it magnifies his handsomeness by a billion. "I, ah, brought you something."

My head springs back, and I give him another quick once over. He's not holding anything. "You did?"

"Yeah, I left it in the hall because I wanted to check on you first." He sticks one of his Nike sneakers back out the door, before softly calling back, "I wanted to make sure you were awake first." When he pops his head back in, he's got a half-crooked smile on his face—the one all the girls talk about—and he's carrying a toddler-sized , reptilian, stuffed animal. It's bubblegum pink with three horns sticking out on each side of its head. He has an open mouth grin on his face, he's literally the cutest lizard I've ever seen. "I hope you still like stuffed animals."

The memory of our first meeting slams into my brain, and my cheeks rage with fire. I can't believe he still remembers. And yes, I'm still obsessed with stuffed animals, even though I'm supposed to be past that age. I'm stunned into silence, rapidly blinking to see if I'd somehow opened my eyes to an alternate reality. One where this isn't happening, because this doesn't happen to me. I take the stuffie into my arms and squeeze him tightly as if this alone has the power to heal me. He takes up my whole lap, but I don't set him next to me. I can't stop holding him. It's comforting to have something weighty on me.

"It's an axolotl," North is now standing so close to my bed, I can smell his deodorant. It's like miles of evergreen forest doused in rainwater, mixed with the embers from a recent campfire. I've never yearned to be a Girl Scout more in my life. I blink, forcing myself out of my distraction, again , North is still talking, "—a special type of salamander who's endangered. They make the best pets because they always look happy, and my goal is to get a real one someday."

I cling to my stuffie, peering at North over his adorable head, the kindness of his gift sweeping into my heart with the speed of a desert windstorm. I really didn't hear more than a few words about his weird amphibian hobby, but I had never been more ecstatic to pretend to care about something boring. "That's awfully sweet of you, and so fascinating." I bat my lashes, and I continue to gush. "I saw you skip lunch a few times for the science Olympiad, but I didn't know you were such a fan of lizards."

"What's not to love?" He gives me a masculine one-shoulder shrug before tacking on, "I was hoping he'd make you smile."

"Thank you." Despite my knee pulsating like a strobe light, my lips are about to crack down the center as I'm beaming brighter than a spotlight. After a pause, I force a change of subject, "How was the dance?"

"Ah, I never made it there. I was worried about you."

"Oh." A magnified ping—that was more like a clang of cymbals—vibrates in my gut. I hadn't considered North's visit to be anything more than an obligation to clear the air. The dance is the biggest event in school and everybody and their dog goes. My voice is tiny, as if afraid to mingle with the air when I echo, "You didn't want to go to the dance?"

"Nah." He passes his hand through his hair, ruffling it even more. "The only reason I wanted to go in the first place was to get a chance to dance with you, but since I ruined that, there was no reason for me to go."

My eyes skirt my room. He really is here to see me. He could easily have sent the stuffed animal home with Rocco if he had wanted to go out, but he didn't.

He came here.

The hottest guy skipped the biggest dance of the year to see me. That means something, right? If I had known that blowing my knee would summon the hottest boy in school over to my bedroom, I'd have hired my own hitman.

My heart motors against my ribcage as I take a risk and motion to my desk chair. "Did you want to hang out? I can put something better on the TV."

"Yeah, I would." He glances down at his Nikes for a split second, before bringing his gaze back up, his beautiful eyes trapping mine. "I ah, actually, am, wondering if maybe sometime, you'd—"

"Gia!" My dad manifests in my doorway behind North, holding a plate up near his ear like the perfect waiter. I love my dad, but I want to shoot daggers out my eyes at him as he has the worst timing. Could he not have eavesdropped first to find out we were about to have a moment! "Pizza's here." Dad gestures to the plate he's holding, as if nobody on the planet has ever seen one of those. Of course it's pizza. It's clearly not a chicken. Add to the fact that dad always has a pizza.

He's owned a pizzeria called Bella's—named after our last name—since he was fresh out of school. He always jokes that since my mom died, pizza is his one true love, and the only thing he knows how to cook. He's not a man of many words, but he loves to use food as a point of connection, and this is clearly his way of cheering me up.

"Hi, Mr. Bella," North bleeps as he straightens his posture and darts his hand through his hair again.

"It was a good game." Dad obviously ignores the bigger issue as he pats North on the back with his free hand. "We almost had them." Another one of Dad's loves is football. North is clearly a third. He has a heart for many things, and he's never been one to hold a grudge. He also isn't one of those overbearing dads. He's the dad who effortlessly smooths everything out. "Did you see they patched Gia back together?"

"Yeah." North's dimpled chin moves up and down, fire on his cheeks. "I'm so sorry for all the trouble I caused."

"Not your fault. Accidents happen." Dad gently waves off North's apology. "There's plenty more pizza in the kitchen. Go back and help yourself. I brought extra home so the kids can stop over to eat after the dance."

North's gaze bounces back to me, and then on Dad. "Ah, I—"

"Grab a slice and bring it back." Dad jerks a thumb over his shoulder toward the kitchen. "Gia's not going anywhere." Dad advances to the chair I had moments earlier offered North, and plops down. "I'm here, too. We can all hang out."

"Th-thank you." North stammers before scurrying down the hall. Dad slides my plate over to me, his gaze snagging on the axolotl. "Did North bring you that?"

I nod, as I blot the top layer of grease off my pizza with a napkin Dad had tucked under my slice. I've never kept any secrets from dad as we had a very open and chatty relationship.

While scratching his neck, Dad stares back to the empty hall. "That boy has always had a serious case of puppy love for you."

"—Dad!" My cheeks glow warm as I rush to cut him off in a hushed voice. "He can hear you."

"Nothing wrong with what I'm saying. He's a nice guy. Just too shy. He needs to get over it and just come out and tell everyone how he feels about you."

My gaze slides to my knee. "He said he feels awful."

"I wasn't talking about your knee." Dad scoffs as North's footsteps return in the hall, but he doesn't shut up. "We all know there's more going on in that boy's head than feeling awful."

Dad's words drop off right as North returns, and an echo reverberates in the room. I fight the urge to crawl under my blanket. I love my dad dearly, but some days he's so cringe. "Come on in." Dad's boisterous voice fills in the pulsating silence, and I suffer through the next twenty minutes of listening to him tell North all about the new mixer he got at the pizzeria. North's a good sport and doesn't let a stray eye linger my way as he stays glued to dad's every word, leaving me to wonder if it will ever be my turn to talk to North.

Truthfully, it's very unlikely as he just seems so shy about some things. The fact that he came here at all is really a miracle.

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