Shifting Gears

13. Calling In the Favor

"Who are you looking for?"

I had been staring outside the window in Gabbie's room at the empty driveway. I dragged my gaze back to her. She had a purple shirt on to match her purple skirt. Her new purple stuffed animal sat on the desk. Two purple elastic bands held up her curls.

"Um, nobody, I was just spacing." I offered her a smile. She accepted that answer, and bent over her notebook once more, little whispers pulling from her mouth as she sounded out the formula. I leaned back in the little purple chair I sat in, biting my lip.

While waiting for her to finish writing, I absentmindedly pulled my ponytail out, my mind distant as I weaved the blond strands together into a braid that fell around my shoulder.

"Are you looking for Grey?"

I whipped my head back around to her, realizing my eyes had strayed out the window once more.

"No." My reply was short, and so unbelievable even this six-year-old girl raised an eyebrow.

"He's not here right now," Gabbie chirped. "He asked me this morning if you were coming to tutor him and I said yes and then he said he was going to be at the practice track all day riding his big bicycle."

I chuckled softly, watching her as she recited the story in the span of maybe three seconds. 

"Do you like him?" Her eyes were as innocent as her words.

"No—what? No, I don't—I don't like him. What do you mean?"

Absolutely not.

Gabbie looked back at her paper, continuing to scratch answers onto the paper with her purple pencil.

"Why did you ask that?" I pushed.

She shrugged her little shoulders, her pigtails swinging. "You just look for him a lot when you're here. And he makes you mad but then makes you smile, like papa does to mama."

I cleared my throat. "Well, no, I don't like him. I don't even think we're friends, really."

"You're not friends?" she asked, glancing at me. "Why?"

"Well...you know my brother is a racer at the same competition as Greyson. They just—don't like each other very much."

"So you can't be friends with Grey because your brother doesn't like him?"

Well, I sounded pathetic. "Yeah."

Her bottom lip pushed out thoughtfully. "Huh. Well, I think he likes you."

For some reason, that opened a cage of tiny little butterflies in the pit of my stomach. "Why do you say that?"

Gabbie cocked her head, and a little smile graced her lips. "He talks about you a lot."

I raised an eyebrow. "Does he? Does he say nice things?"

"He says you're pretty."

Nope. I forced the butterflies back into the cage, reminding myself of all the times he's grossly hit on me and that there's nothing else there. He's just trying to rile me up, to in turn rile up my brother. It wasn't going to work.

Plus, there's absolutely no way I could even see him as a friend. Much less "like" him. 

Yes, he was attractive.

But being attracted to someone was different from liking them.

And I wasn't even attracted to him, per se.

The inner lawyer was shut up abruptly when Gabbie asked me a question about the formula she was working on, and I latched onto the change of subject.

A half hour later, I was on my way out the door, lost in thought. She often forgot what we'd reviewed the prior week when I would arrive, but she was progressing—just slowly.