“Well, have I got some good news for you…”
I grinned at him. He grinned at me. This was the kind of perfect, delightful flirtation I loved: the kind where you could tell you were both into each other, and you knew it would go somewhere, and the only question was how and when.
“Hey,” he said. “I wanna show you something.”
Ah. Now, and with a cliché. “Seriously? Does that line work for you?”
“It’s not a line,” he said, mock-offended. “I reallydowant to show you something.”
I raised my brows to show him what I thought of that. But since I did, in fact, want to be shown, I simply said, “Okay.”
“Come on.” He stood with an easy grin on his face, and I returned it, my smile so wide it felt like it would break my face, like it shoved my cheeks open and crinkled up my eyes and made my teeth hurt like a sugar rush.
God, Ilikedhim. He was fun and goofy and hot and Ilovedliking someone.
At first, a tiny little part of me reminded the rest.And then they break your heart and then you’re sad.
Moot point. Nothing would happen with this guy beyond the ferry.
“Where are we going?” I asked as he pulled me down a back staircase I hadn’t been aware of, open to the air but currently unused—a sterile place of metal and unexpected privacy.
“Right here.” He paused on the stairs, near the bottom. He turned so he stood on the same stair as me, my back to the wall, his body right in front of me.
“Oh?” I couldn’t get the grin off my face. “And what did you want to show me?”
“This,” he said, and I laughed because it wassucha line and he grinned and was kissing me.
Godwas he kissing me.
Normally, I wasn’t into first kisses. I wasn’t into tender anticipation, intodoes-he-like-me, does-he-want-to?All the self-doubt and stomach flutters and quivering nerves: no thank you. First kisses were usually mediocre and filled with irritating, nervous uncertainty—I would rather squash all of those and move on.Secondkisses, and third: that’s where the going got good, where you didn’t have to feel obnoxious feelings but could concentrate on the good stuff.
This skipped straight to the good stuff.
I twined my arms around his neck and pulled him close. Heat ran beneath my skin, a dizzy, heady fog obscuring the rest of theworld so I focused on immediate sensation. His hands ran over my back and slid up my neck, and his fingers dug into the base of my skull, tugging on my hair with just enough pressure to be interesting.
Someone clattered, pointedly loud, down the stairs.
I let out an embarrassed giggle and hid my face in his shoulder, delighted to be caught, delighted to have someone to hide my face in. “I can’t believe we’re making out in a stairwell.”
“I can.” He grinned at me. “I mean, I can’t believe my luck in catching your attention, but having done that all I want ismoremaking out in the stairwell.”
“I think we can arrange that.” I pulled his face back to mine.
The next thing I knew, people were coming into the stairwell, lining up to exit the ferry, and we broke apart. I swallowed unsteady giggles. Chair Boy kept his hand on the small of my back as we joined the disembarking passengers. I hadn’t even watched the island approach, which I’d meant to. Instead, my first glimpse of Nantucket came from the top of the ramp connected to the ferry’s doors—a sea of busy streets bounded by shops and restaurants.
The boy stayed beside me as we shuffled down the ramp. “Want to trade numbers?”
Did I want to trade numbers?
Of course I did. Of course I wanted a steady supply of a hot, funny guy to make out with all summer.
Except I wasn’t going to hook up with anyone this summer. And even if I had been, this boy was wrong for me.
When I was ready to date again, I wanted a different kind ofboy. A soft boy, a cinnamon bun of a boy, warm and pliant and loving. A Peeta to smother me in cakes and to hold me when I fell apart. A boy who didn’tmakeme fall apart. I didn’t need a boy who I thought about for days and days as he never texted me back, who made me act like somebody I wasn’t just to hold his attention.
“I’m sort of in a weird place right now,” I told Chair Boy, honestly as I could. “So while this wassuperfun—”
“I get it.” He stepped back, tone cooling. We’d reached the bottom of the ramp, and we moved aside as other passengers flowed off the ferry. “Just thought I’d ask.”
