“I don’t have a girlfriend anymore.”
The relief was undeniable. My body even felt lighter. But the wordanymoregave me pause. “Since when?” I asked.
Leon swayed his head from side to side. “A month. Or so.”
“That’s like yesterday. What happened?” I tried to say it in a sweet tone, but it was pure fake.
He breathed in, then exhaled slowly. “It ran its course.”
“Are you sad?”
“Not really.”
What wasnot reallysupposed to mean? “Aw, that’s too bad.” I acted aloof, pretended I didn’t care, even though I cared far too much.
It got weird when he didn’t respond. He looked down at his muddy high-top tennis shoes, wouldn’t even make eye contact with me. “Shelly is ... complicated,” he finally said.
Still feigning indifference, I fidgeted with the tail of Livy’s pink top—now brown—all the while conjuring an image of whatShellymight look like. Livy’s face flashed in my head, along with her big boobs. “Lots of girls are complicated,” I said, thinking about Livy, not me.
Leon peered at me earnestly. “Are you complicated?”
Was this an interview question? If so, I had to give the correct answer. I tugged at my earlobe. “Not particularly. In some ways, maybe, but I think I’m pretty normal.”
“Normal’s good,” Leon said, as if there was no other way to be.Note to self.
“I agree.”
“So what about you?” he asked. “Do you have a boyfriend back home?”
Without missing a beat, I lied straightaway. “We broke up.” I blinked. “At the end of the school year.”
“Areyousad?”
I twisted my mouth, playing like I was giving his question serious thought. “Sometimes.”
When neither of us spoke, creating a long awkward pause, I was sure I’d blown it. I cursed myself for lying. Now I’d have to tell even more lies to make sure I wasn’t caught in the first one. What’s worse, I always got paid back when I lied. Like what had happened in my closet the night I’d left home. What would God’s punishment be this time?
We both looked away, wondering what to say. More seconds passed before he broke the silence. “Looks like we’ve got something else in common, Suzie Q.”
Determined to hide my deceit and even more determined that it would be my final fib, I forced myself to look at him. His somber expression had changed to a grin. It no longer felt awkward between us.
He tilted his head, letting his face drift toward mine. As heat rushed up my body, I lifted my chin and closed my eyes.
At that second a stoner stumbled past, high out of his mind, tripping down at our feet. I nearly fell on top of the dude, trying to get out of the way.
Leon bent down to help him. “You okay, man?”
Without a response, the dude pushed up on his forearms and stood. After he regained his balance, he wobbled back down Ho Chi Minh Trail toward the Hog Farm, never even saying he was sorry.
A wave of more people streamed past. Maybe they had heard about the free kitchen too. At that moment, I didn’t care if anyone got fed. They were interrupting a crucial moment. Leon may have kissed me for real. It sure seemed like it.
Once we were alone again, instead of kissing me, he gave my head another damn knuckle massage. “What do you say we find Johnny and Livy to let ’em know they’re friends with a star?”
Thisknuckle massage was the biggest disappointment of all. It made me think I was imagining the whole thing and that friendship was all he wanted. Maybe Livy was all he wanted, and he was using me to get to her.
Whatever the case, Leon slung his arm around my shoulders, tucking me in close. He sang a bit of “Suzie Q,” letting me know he liked the way I talked and the way I walked. Then he cracked up at himself. “If John Fogerty could hear me, he’d send me to jail for murdering his song.”
I’d heard Creedence sing “Suzie Q” on Thursday, in the car with Livy. If someone had told me in less than forty-eight hours a boy as beautiful and wonderful as Leon Wright would be singing the song to me, much less tugging me in next to his beautiful body, I may have had a stroke and died on the spot.
