“Oh,” I say, my tongue feeling thick in my mouth. I don’t really want to talk to Myles about Gregory. I don’t even want to talk to myself about Gregory right now.
“Well, only one guy has asked me out this summer,” I say, forcing playfulness into my voice as I bump his shoulder with mine. “And I’m with him right now.”
“His loss.”
I smile back at him and ask him about his classes next year, and we keep walking and talking, hand in hand, until it’s time to head home.
When he pulls up in front of my house, he turns off the car and looks over at me, one hand rubbing across his jaw. “I, um, don’t want to make this weird, and I know it takes all the romance out of it to bring it up like this, but I… I was hoping to walk you to the door and kiss you good night. If—if you wanted to, I mean. But after what you said about your parents, I can’t stop picturing them, like, waiting at the windows and peeking through the curtains. What if your dad tries to kill me?”
I can’t help it, I laugh. My dad would never. “He might want to meet you at some point, but he’s not one of those ‘clean his shotgun on the porch’ kind of dads.” I clear my throat and rub my hands down my thighs to soothe my nerves. “But, um, just in case, we could just say goodbye in the car. If you want.”
He smiles and nods, and I can feel my heart beating all the way to my fingertips as he unclips his seat belt and shifts his muscular body to face me.
I unbuckle myself too and lean across the console. For a split second I wonder if the position will be too awkward, but as soon as his hand slides across my cheek and his lips touch mine, my eyelids slide closed and his mouth is all I feel.
It’s soft, and it’s sweet, and even when he takes it a little deeper and I curl my arms around his shoulders, it’s comfortable and undemanding.
He pulls back, and I open my eyes, and we smile at each other.
“Thanks,” I say. “For tonight. I had fun.”
His hand slips from my face. “Me too. I’ll text you later, okay?”
I nod, step out of the car, and prepare myself to face the inquisition.
32PLAYLIST:the comeback
MY MOM IS WAITINGfor me, just like I knew she would be.
At least she made my dad go on to bed. I don’t think I could handle both of them launching questions at me. She mutes the television when I plop down on the couch beside her, Margarine immediately sitting at my feet.
She gets straight to the point. “A date, huh?”
“Yes, Mom. A date.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
I stare down at my fingers scratching Margie’s ears. “Because he only asked me two days ago. We just went to the pier. It wasn’t anything big.”
Her eye twitches like it does when she’s trying to keep herself from saying something. She does it a lot when she talks to my dad.
I don’t know what she’s holding in, but she finally settles on, “How did it go?”
“Good. It was fun.”
“You haven’t been on a date like that before. Where a boy comes to pick you up and all that,” she says, then cocks her head. “At least, not that you’ve told us about.”
Ari—my first kiss—and I hung out a lot after freshman homecoming and before he moved, but usually in groups. My parents never met him, and they definitely don’t know we used to sneak away to make out under the pier, and I intend to keep it that way. Before Myles, Ari’s the only boy I’ve ever kissed, so it’s not like there’s a long list of secrets I’ve kept.
“No, that was a first,” I say. “But I gotta start sometime, right?”
She purses her lips, like maybe she’d be fine if I waited longer. “Is it serious? Does your father need to meet him? Should we start gathering your dowry?” Now she’s grinning.
“God, Mom. Of course it’s not serious. This was just our first date. Take it down a notch.”
“Hey, I’m out of my element here,” she says with a laugh. “Do you need a sex talk refresher?”
My eyes go wide, and I cover my face with my palms. My “No!” comes out muffled through my fingers, and she just laughs.
