Read Solving for Ex for Free Online

beautiful. It reminds me of you.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, when I think of your summer. At camp.”
    My smile was so wide, I thought my cheeks would break off, crash into the floor and embarrass me in a totally new way. But when I glanced up and saw him still looking through the photos, I breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t even noticed.
    He shook his head, smiling and setting the tablet on his desk. “Look at you and your incredible brain. How do you keep it all in there?”
    “Oh, come on, Mr. Math Genius,” I scoffed, reaching out to push him playfully on the shoulder, then instantly berating myself. Any time I touched him, I worried about three things: one, I’d blush and he’d see it, two, he’d think I was trying to flirt, and three, he’d think I was comfortable with just being friends.
    I was definitely not okay with just being friends.
    “No, but seriously, Ash,” he said, looking up at me. “I’m good at math, and I have a head for science. I get good grades otherwise, because I’m too damn stubborn not to. But you and that brain of yours…you’re like fast and talented at the math stuff and the art stuff.”
    “Yeah, well,” I said, drawing my knees to my chin, “It’s the same brain for both things, you know. It’s all ‘brain stuff.’”
    “You amaze me,” he said, still smiling that same stupid smile.
    I looked down at my feet, and rested my chin on my knees. “You think I’ll make the team?”
    “Ashley, are you kidding me? Yes. Yeah, you’ll make Mathletes.”
    He reached behind me and started rubbing my shoulders. “I can’t imagine the team without you.”
    I let myself fall to the side and into him, closing my eyes and letting the warm shocks of his touch run through my muscles. “Aren’t you worried about people starting rumors?”
    “About what? Me playing favorites?”
    I really meant about us being together. At that point, I wouldn’t have minded the rumors at all, actually. Maybe they would have forced Brendan to finally make a freaking move.
    “Yeah, I guess,” I said, still staring at my shoes.
    “Nah. Everyone knows you’re my favorite. And everyone knows that you’re good at this stuff, Ash. And fast. What would the team do without you?” His voice lowered as he looked at me. “What would I do without you?”
    That was it. I couldn’t take any more. I had to make a decision about what signal to send to him, and I absolutely couldn’t make it now, even if it meant staying locked out of the house. I was chickening out, just like every other time I hung out with Brendan and I thought I saw something in his eyes that may have meant he felt the same way.
    May have.
    I stood up, too fast probably. “I’ve gotta be back. Kristin wanted to take me to lunch.” Kristin did not, in fact, want to take me to lunch, but it was the only excuse I could think of.
    “Okay,” he said, wearing that stupid smile that confirmed exactly how oblivious he was. Dude was crazy smart when it came to school, but when it came to people? He was dumber than a ton of bricks. “See you in the morning.”
    Riding to school with him was awesome, even though it made my stomach flip. “Bright and early,” I said.

apt to expect too much
    It was only the second week of Junior Honors English, which was basically the next lowest form of hell before we would descend into Senior AP English the following year. I’d seen the reading list for AP, with such delights as Moby Dick, Notes from the Underground, and Middlemarch. So you’d think that our Junior English professor would let us read some lighter stuff.
    No chance. She plunked down a shiny new copy of Mansfield Park on each of our desks on the first day.
    “I’m not trying to be cute,” she said, her sentences punctuated with the thunk of each book on a desk. “Okay, well, maybe I am. I do love that our school shares a name with my very favorite Austen novel. But that’s not why it’s my favorite. Compared to Pride