“Trying to make her feel better, were you?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Or deluding yourself.” He smiled, but his eyes were sad. I wanted to hug him. Or shake him. I wanted...
I kissed him, surprising us both.
After a moment of stillness, he kissed me back.
He smelled like rain. He tasted like tea and, faintly, of cigarettes, and his kiss was as far beyond my experience as the moon. I closed my eyes, fitting myself to his angular, unfamiliar body, the sound of my heart rushing in my ears like the sea.
Twelve
Sam stood outside the lecture hall, a thin sweat under his arms and in the small of his back.
He didn’t want to be here. He’d left nine years ago. It didn’t help that Fiadh had teased and Janette had urged him to come.
But Dee had kissed him. He’d kissed her. In Sam’s mind, he owed her. When their lips had parted, her eyes, which had been so soft and dreamy, sharpened.
“Well?” she’d asked.
For a second, he’d been confused. “Well, what?”
“Are you coming to the lecture?”
He didn’t know what to tell her. It sounded suspiciously like a date, and he didn’t do dates. It was at the university, and he was done with university. Common sense and experience—that had been Dad. Sam didn’t pretend to be a better man than his father.
But she was such a nice girl, and the kiss... Well, that was better than nice. After that kiss, Sam’s brain couldn’t come up with a convincing reason to say no fast enough. Hurting the girl’s feelings without good reason was a dick move. So he’d made some vague statement like,If I can get away, and she’d smiled at him as if he’d promised her the moon.
For the next two weeks, every time she came into the shop or he saw her on the sidelines of Aoife’s games, she’d worn the same damn smile. Happy. Hopeful.
He should have found a way to tell her he wasn’t what she thought. Not boyfriend potential, any of his usual hookups could have told her. Not university material, his old guidance counselor would have said. But Dee never asked. Anyway, she was headed back to America when her year was up. So there was this temptation, right? To pretend, for a little while, that this could be something else. That he could be something else.
He wanted a fag. He thrust his hands into his hoodie, surveying the square.
“Fancy yourself too smart for us,” his da used to say, joking, back when Sam thought he had a future here.
At least this wasn’t the regular lecture crowd. Fewer gray-haired alums and book club mums, more families with kids. He could have brought Aoife and fit right in. But he wasn’t using his little sister as camouflage. He didn’t need a chaperone.
“Sam!”
He turned in relief toward the sound of Dee’s voice. She was hurrying across the cobblestones, bright smile in place. He smiled back before he noticed the two with her, her pal Reeti and that Tim fellow, clean-shaven and self-assured and wearing a fecking jacket like a proper grown-up. So she’d brought her own chaperones. Or support.
Dee kissed his cheek—she smelled like lemons—and then Reeti did, too. Tim held out his hand.
Sam shook it. “What’s with the fancy dress?”
“Oh, the kids’ costumes.” Dee beamed. “Aren’t they cute?”
Now that she mentioned it, Sam noticed a bunch of tweens wandering around with dark clothes and rainbow hair.
“Those are the Shivery Tales fans,” Tim said.
“The what?”
“Shivery Tales. The series?”
“Never heard of them.”
