Jeremiah continued, “So you don’t mind when her lips touch dead animal and then they touch your, um, lips?”
Susannah chuckled lightly and said, “Jere, give the guy a break.”
“Yeah, Jere, give the guy a break,” I said, glaring at him. I kicked him under the table, hard. Hard enough to make him flinch.
“No, it’s fine,” Cam said. “I don’t mind at all. In fact—” Then he pulled me to him and kissed me quickly, right in front of everyone. It was only a peck, but it was embarrassing.
“Please don’t kiss Belly at the dinner table,” said Jeremiah, gagging a little for effect. “You’re making me nauseous.”
My mother shook her head at him and said, “Belly’s allowed to kiss.” Then she pointed her fork at Cam. “But that’s it.”
She burst out laughing like it was the funniest thingshe’d ever said, and Susannah tried not to smile and told her to hush. I wanted to kill my mother and then myself. “Mom, please. You’re so not funny,” I said. “No more wine for Mom.” I refused to look anywhere near Jeremiah’s direction, or Cam’s, for that matter.
The truth was, Cam and I hadn’t done much else besides kiss. He didn’t seem to be in any big hurry. He was careful with me, sweet—nervous even. It was completely different from the way I’d seen other guys behave with girls. Last summer I caught Jeremiah with a girl on the beach, right outside of the house. They were frantic, like if they hadn’t been wearing clothes, they’d already have been having sex. I gave him hell for it the whole rest of the summer, but he didn’t really care. I wished Cam would care a little more.
“Belly, I’m kidding. You know I’m open to you exploring yourself,” my mother said, taking a long sip of chardonnay.
Jeremiah busted out laughing. I stood up and said, “That’s it. Cam and I are eating our dinner on the porch.” I grabbed my plate and waited for Cam to stand up too.
But he didn’t. “Belly, calm down. Everybody’s just joking around,” he said, loading up his fork with rice and bok choy and shoveling it into his mouth.
“Way to keep her in check, Cam,” Jeremiah said, nodding at him. He really did look kind of impressed.
I sat back down, although it killed me to do it. I hatedlosing face in front of everyone, but if I did walk out by myself, I knew no one would come after me. I would just be little Belly Button, off pouting again. That was my name when I was being a baby, Belly Button—Steven thought he was such a genius for thinking that one up. “No one keeps me in check, Jeremiah. Least of all Cam Cameron.”
Everyone hooted and hollered then, even Cam, and all of a sudden, it was all very normal, like he really belonged there. I could feel myself start to relax. It was all going to be okay. Great, in fact. Amazing, just like Susannah had promised.
After dinner, Cam and I took a walk on the beach. For me there was—is—nothing better than walking on the beach late at night. It feels like you could walk forever, like the whole night is yours and so is the ocean. When you walk on the beach at night, you can say things you can’t say in real life. In the dark you can feel really close to a person. You can say whatever you want.
“I’m really glad you came,” I told him.
He took my hand and said, “Me too. I’m glad you’re glad.”
“Of course I’m glad.”
I let go of his hand to roll up the bottoms of my jeans, and he said, quietly, “It didn’t seem like you were that glad.”
“Well, I am.” I looked up at him and gave him a quick kiss. “See? This is me, being glad.”
He smiled and we started walking again. “Good. So which one of those guys was your first kiss?”
“I told you that?”
“Yup. You said your first kiss was a boy at the beach when you were thirteen.”
“Oh.” I looked up at his face in the moonlight, and he was still smiling. “Guess.”
Immediately he said, “The older one, Conrad.”
“Why’d you guess him?”
He shrugged. “Just a feeling, the way he looks at you.”
“He hardly looks at me at all,” I told him. “And you’re wrong, Sextus. It was Jeremiah.”
chaptertwenty-eightAGE 14
“Truth or dare?” Taylor asked Conrad.
