The call ended before Tammi could get another word in. It always did. Still, she lowered the phone from her ear and stared at the screen for a few seconds before letting out a long breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Even the tension in her shoulders eased slightly, though not nearly enough.
Max wasn’t happy.
He hadn’t yelled. He rarely needed to. Disappointment worked just as well, sometimes better, and he was very good at expressing it.
To be fair, he understood the situation. He had said as much himself. If getting close to Naruto’s students had been easy, he wouldn’t have handed her so much freedom in the first place. The whole reason she was here was because brute force wasn’t an option.
That didn’t make the conversation any more pleasant.
Tammi dropped onto her bed and rubbed a hand over her face.
Weeks. She had been at Winslow for weeks, and what exactly did she have to show for it?
Greg liked her.
She was almost certain of that.
Any idiot could see it whenever she sat beside him. The guy practically lit up whenever she paid attention to him for more than thirty seconds. He laughed at all her jokes, even the bad ones. He found excuses to talk to her between classes, and remembered random things she’d mentioned days earlier.
His crush on her should have made things easy, but she was still stuck outside looking in.
Greg talked about training, Naruto, the other students, and chakra often enough that she was starting to understand half the terminology through sheer repetition alone. Yet every conversation stopped at the surface. There were no invitations to join, no offers to teach her how to access chakra, and no, “Hey, you should come meet everyone.”
Nothing.
Tammi rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
Maybe Naruto had told them to be careful. That seemed possible. Or maybe Greg was smarter than she gave him credit for, but that seemed less likely. It was more possible that he still didn’t trust her enough.
Trust.
The word annoyed her.
She already spent more time with Greg than she did with half the people she actually liked. She listened to his stories. She laughed at his jokes. She sat through long explanations about chakra exercises that made her want to slam her head into a desk. What more did he want?
Then again, if she were being honest with herself, she probably knew the answer.
Greg wasn’t complicated. Awkward? Absolutely. A little weird? Definitely. Complicated? No.
He liked people. He liked having friends. He liked belonging. And despite all the time they’d spent together, there was still a substantial distance between them. Enough that he hadn’t brought her any deeper into his life.
Tammi groaned and threw an arm over her eyes.
This mission sucked. And the worst part was that she couldn’t even blame Greg for it. Instead she was left with the uncomfortable realization that Max was right. The mission wasn’t failing because of bad luck or because Greg was suspicious.
It was failing because she hadn’t gone far enough.
Slowly, she lowered her arm and stared at the ceiling again.
People opened up when they trusted you. They invited you into their lives when they cared whether you were there. So Tammi considered her options. Most of them sounded exhausting, others annoying, but there was one that sounded surprisingly easy.
A smile slowly spread across her face.
Well. If Greg Veder wanted trust, she could work with that. And honestly, there were worse things than spending more time with him. He was awkward, sure, but he was also funny without meaning to be, and easy on the eyes besides.
It wasn't exactly a hardship.
The decision settled into place with surprising ease as she reached for her phone.
She would go on a date with Greg Veder.