I shove my feet into my boots and throw on the sweatshirt I left hanging on the railing.
Outside the dusky sky is nearly dark enough to be nighttime, but daylight still burns at the edge of the horizon, which is only visible because everything around here is so damn flat.
“It was cool of your mom to let me come over,” says Mitch, once we’re a safe distance away from my house.
“It would have been even cooler if she would have let me go out.”
“Haven’t you already been everywhere in this town?” he asks.
“Well, sure,” I say, “but isn’t the whole point of a date so you can show me some magical hidden gem of Clover City that I’ve never seen?”
“Would it be horrible of me to say that maybe you’re the hidden gem of Clover City?”
“Very cheesy,” I tell him, but I look away and do that thing where you stretch your jaw out to stop from smiling.
“Well, then I won’t say that.” He bites down on his lips until they disappear.
“Okay, good,” I say. “I mean, at the very least, we could have made out in the back of your car.”
He clears his throat, and his cheeks turn so red they’re practically purple. “I... uh... that’s not why I asked you out. Of course it’s not like I don’t want to do that. It’s just that... it’s not... I don’t think you’re some kind of—”
I laugh a little too hard and touch his arm. I can almost feel his heart beating right there in his bicep. “Hey, I was just messing with you. Chill.”
He lets out what appears to be a long-held breath.
We reach the end of my street and I lead us toward the aging man-made water feature at the center of my subdivision that’s supposed to be a lake with tons of fountains, but the fountains haven’t been turned on in years.
A few ducks splash around in the water and then chase each other onto land and then back into the water.
“You wanna sit here for a bit?” asks Mitch.
“Sure. My ankle monitor electrocutes me if I go any farther.”
“A joke,” he says. “I got that one.”
I cock my head to the side and nearly tell him he’s kind of cute, but I fear it might send him into a frenzy all over again.
He takes off his letter jacket and lays it on the grass for us both to sit on. “You don’t have to do that,” I tell him.
“I don’t have much use for the thing anymore,” he says. “I finally quit the football team.”
“Wow. Really? But you only have one year left. I mean, you could probably not even go to college and just be like a spokesperson for one of Bryce’s dad’s car dealerships for the rest of your life. Is that why I haven’t seen you at the gym much?”
“Partly.” He pauses for a moment. “But that wasn’t the only reason.”
“I don’t do well with coy,” I tell him.
“Well, I quit the team. And then things were weird with us.”
“Which was your doing,” I tell him. “And what was that about anyway?”
“I don’t want to make you mad,” he says.
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” I laugh. “I’m always a little mad about something.”
He clears his throat. “I had a sort of falling-out with Patrick and all those guys. They were planning some awful hazing prank for the incoming freshmen at spring training. It wasn’t right. I’ve known for a long time that I didn’t like the kind of people they’d become and the way they treated others, ya know? It’s embarrassing how long it took me toact on that, though. Like, I’ve been over their bullshit for a long time, but I just played along, because I was scared of not having friends. Not having a place to sit or whatever. And then you told me to start looking for new friends, and it just made me really think.”
“Well, good for you,” I say. “Those guys are pretty big assholes. Especially Bryce. Not like I’m biased or anything. But what does that have to do with you shutting me down?”
