He snorts from the back of his throat. “How about you? What was your first kiss like?”
“Well, his name was Trent, and it was at a skate park.”
“So he was a skater boy?”
“Yes.”
“Did you saysee you later, boy?”
I groan into my palm, smiling. “Avril Lavigne would be so disappointed, but no, I did not.”
“So how’d it happen?”
“I asked him to show me some tricks after school. I was better than him, actually. I pretended I wasn’t, though, which was dumb of mebuta classic move of the time. He told me I could thank him for the lesson with a kiss, and I did. We never really hung out again. I can’t remember why. Other than the kiss being nothing to write home about.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“Do you think we would have been friends? In high school?” he asks.
“I think so. You probably would have joined Caleb’s nerd legion, and Sarah and I would have met you through him.”
“I would have been in the grade above you all, though.”
“Yeah, but then I could have said I was dating an older guy. It would’ve given me major cool points.”
Bo’s face lights up as he pouts his lips in an effort to not smirk, nodding like a bobblehead. “Oh,really?” he says, elongating each syllable. “So we would have dated, huh?”
Shit, did I say that?“What?”
“You said dating.”
“Nope, don’t think I did.” I close my eyes and look away from him as I feel a blush creep over my skin.
“You definitely did,” Bo singsongs. “You would have dated me in high school.”
“With those saxophone moves? Of course,” I say, flipping the attention back onto him. It doesn’t work. Bo’s smiling brighter than the damned sun, and it’s fucking contagious.
The embarrassment washes away with the sight of his hopeful, giddy expression. It seems as if my little slip-up could lead to an admission from Bo, like a neon arrow pointing to an opened door.
Suddenly, it feels like I’m on the edge of a cliff, about to be handed either a parachute or an anvil. And based on the look on Bo’s face, it feels like he’s got a parachute with my name on it. One of his own, too.
You jump, I jump.
One of us just needs to fucking jump.
“You know… I still have my sax—”
“Winnifred McNulty?” a technician calls from the entrance.
Bo clears his throat, his smile faltering as he hangs his head for a second.
I stand, one had extended into a wave toward the technician, and turn back over my shoulder and smile at Bo. He watches me walk away with a bouncing knee and a steadfast, encouraging smile.
“Follow me,” the technician says sweetly as I approach the doorway.
Thirty minutes later, the tech finishes taking all the required measurements and images and excuses herself to fetch Bo from the waiting room.
