“Whatever you do, just don’t do that one where you make me listen to some annoying song over and over for seventy-two hours.”
“Look, it’s the only way to force you to learn the proper lyrics. I think ‘Baby Shark’ is sure to push you over the edge.”
He snorts. “Sheesh. You really hate me.” In the moonlight, I see a slight crease in his forehead.
Our eyes snag and my shoulders drop. “I don’t hate you, Renner.” And it’s the truth. Regardless of how much he’s impeded my bucket list, I’ve never truly hated him.
“Well, you severely dislike me. Every time I walk into a room, you get this look on your face like you’re using every last bit of strength not to end my life.”
I cover my eyes with my hands. “Are you saying I have a murderous face?”
“Yes. Yes, you do.” He pretends to inch away from me.
“You’ve been known to drive me to homicidal rage.”
“See? Exactly my point.”
I shrug. “For the record, this is just my face. I don’t mean to make you fear for your life. But to answer your question, I guess it all started when you stood me up at homecoming for another girl.”
He tilts his head. “Wait. What? I never stood you up for another girl.”
“I beg to differ.”
“But I didn’t. I had a family situation,” he explains, brows knit.
“Then why would Kassie tell me you were seeing Tessa from Fairfax?”
“I don’t even know a Tessa.”
I blink, eyeing him suspiciously. “Then why would Kassie lie to me?”
“I don’t know,” he says, frowning. There’s a flash of anger in his eyes. “But it was a complete lie. Maybe she was trying to get back at me for turning her down.”
“You turned her down? When?”
“After we first met. I wasn’t interested in her that way, and I told her straight up the next day. This was right before school started. Before she even met Ollie.”
I nod. I still remember Kassie, clear as day, telling me she wasn’t interested in him after their makeout session. “But she always tells me everything,” I say, catching myself midsentence. “I mean . . . at least she used to.”
Renner runs a hand through his hair. He has a horrified expression, as though someone’s just punted a baby across a field of AstroTurf. “I’m telling you the truth, Char. I turned her down. Not the other way around. And I never stood you up for someone else.”
I’m stunned into silence, trying to come up with a logical explanation. When I think back, she and Ollie started flirting immediately during that welcome assembly. Maybe she was doing it to make Renner jealous. But believing Renner over Kassie feels unnatural. Then again, this whole situation is unnatural.
“To be fair, I could only go off what Kassie told me,” I say, raising my shoulders in defense.
“You really hated me all this time because Kassie lied and told you I was into someone else? Wild. All this time we could have—”
I hold my hand up to stop him from continuing. “All right, slow your roll. I’ll have you know I had other reasons.”
“Like what?”
I realize that all my other reasons seem ridiculously petty, and I look away. “I don’t know, Renner. I guess it was also all the little things along the way. Mostly because you’re annoyingly likable.”
He gives me an adorable, knowing look. “Oh, come on. People like you too.”
“Not in the same way. I have to work so hard to make people like me.”
“Honestly, I do try. Harder than you think.”
I think about the Wendy’s cashier. The exchange just seemed so natural for him. “Are you saying your charm isn’t some generational family witch curse?”
He laughs. “Sadly, no. Actually, I have a phobia of people not liking me. Like, Mrs. Webber, the school librarian, hated my guts in ninth grade after I messed up her bookshelves. And it took me years of groveling, giving her compliments, and bringing her those magazines to make her like me.”
“Why go to all that effort? If people don’t like you, it’s on them.”
“Dunno. I’ve always been that way. Ever since my sister . . .” His voice trails.
I hang my head. When Kassie first met Renner, she told me how his little sister passed away when we were ten. She’d gotten hit by a car playing outside. It’s kind of an unspoken thing that no one brings up. To be honest, I’d almost forgotten. “I’m so sorry, Renner. What was her name?”