So do I!I thought, the back of my neck prickling. Honor roll wasn’t the only proof of being a hard worker.Learning two instruments from YouTube tutorials alone deserved some credit! Not to mention the compositions that helped me get into BU…
Well, to be fair, only Isa and my school guidance counselor knew about those.
I tried not to stiffen when my mom lightly kissed the top of my head, feeling her hover afterward—probably wondering why I’d decided to take a dip in the pool. But she didn’t linger, not with work waiting. “Sleep well, my sweet girl” was allshe whispered before retreating down the hall. “By the way,” I heard her say to my dad, “I’m going to call Stanley Steemer. The carpet’s looking worse!”
I stayed buried under Grace’s covers until the front doorbingedand its lockclicked.Naturally, Rooney was shooting me daggers from the doorway when I flung them back. “Downstairs,” I pointlessly ordered him before glancing at Grace’s alarm clock. Class resumed in five minutes.
Do I race back and take a tardy?I wondered.Or do I stay here and wallow away the rest of the day?
Choices, choices.
In the end, I picked school. Not to rejoin the riveting world of academia, but to get my phone back. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to find my friends.
I just had to change into dry clothes first.
Chapter 18
Grace
Our Uber had left us? Outside the art museum, Isa and I stood dumbfounded on the curb for ten seconds before we took action. “You order another,” I said, “and I’ll handle the hat.”
Ev did not surrender so easily. “No way,” he said, rising to his full height. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—”
I jumped on his back and tried to snatch the Mets cap off his head. “We have lunch reservations,” I replied as he stumbled a moment, then righted himself, “that I workedveryhard to secure, and if we’re late…”
“We’re in front of the east entrance,” Isa was saying, phone pressed to her ear. A car must’ve already been circling for passengers. “Standing right on the curb.” She sighed. “Yes, I’ll be the one waving.”
“I’m not letting something like your sports allegiance ruin this!” I told Ev, the two of us still in a struggle. I had wrapped my legs around his waist, and he was holding his hat down with one hand while using the other to bat away both of mine.
But then I did something I shouldn’t have. With Isa focused on the traffic, I stretched and pressed a kiss to his jawline, a light kiss that I now knew would set us both on fire.
Ev conceded immediately.
I grabbed his hat and dropped back down to the sidewalk in victory.
His eyes had grown wide and glassy. “What was that?” he whisper-asked, a catch in his voice.
“What was what?” I whisper-asked back because I didn’t know what else to say. It was taking some serious mental concentration to keep my hands from shaking.Whyhad I just done that?!
Ev turned away from me to rub his neck. It was flaming red with awkwardness.
Because itwasawkward—awkward andconfusing.How could it not be? We’d kissed like we were the only two people in the world earlier, yet I’d gone running through the museum maze afterward, terrified of what we had done. It seemed like all had been righted by the fountain—we were still friends—but I had a sinking feeling that our habitual affirmation wouldn’t be enough anymore. Kissing Ev had felt like being lit up from the inside, a firework bursting in the night sky.
And now that I knew Ev liked kissing me too…I didn’t want to stop kissing him, and I didn’t think I had the strength to stop kissing him. Had the situation been so dire that I’dneededto plant one on his cheek? No, definitely not. I could’ve found another way to snag the cap.
Had Iwantedto kiss him? Well…
“Are you guys ready?” Isa asked, her tone almost making me jump. It was what James called her CEO persona, an all-business voice that sherarelyused with me. And I sensed some irritation laced in her professionalism. My stomach squirmed. She hadn’t noticed Ev and me nudging each other earlier, had she? Or caught me kiss his cheek just now?
She couldn’tknow,could she?!
I hurried to ask Janet—our new Uber driver—the necessary questions, and after passing the test, we climbed into her white Toyota Corolla. Ironically, Janet was wearing an orange Philadelphia Flyers T-shirt.
“Please keep things civil,” Isa whispered to Ev.
The Adlers were also hockey fans. The Flyers were in the NHL playoffs this season, and of course were playing none other than the New York Islanders.
Go figure.
