I smiled arrogantly and struck a pose, showing off for him. “You are my stylist, so you probably deserve some of the credit.”
He shook his head. “That stuff is superficial, but this…” He traced the shape of my rib cage and kissed the top of my stomach. I kind of wanted him to go lower. “The first time I saw you…” He drifted off as if remembering. “It made me physically ache. I thought you were new to the neighborhood. I couldn’t believe you’d been just a couple of blocks over this whole time. And then I thought, what are the chances you’d be into guys? It was like lightning struck twice.”
“And that’s when the great seduction began,” I teased.
He smiled and shook his head. “Yeah, something like that. You aren’t exactly the type to hit it and quit it.”
“I’m flattered?” I drew his free hand to my chest and used his nails to scratch myself. He kept the nails of his right hand long, for picking his guitar. He was great as a back scratcher.
“You should be. You made an honest man out of me, Hiroku Hayashi.”
That struck me as funny, so I laughed. Seth tickled me into submission, then grappled me in a big bear hug.
“But I never expected this,” he said.
“It’s like we already knew each other,” I answered.
“Our birthdays are almost exactly six months apart. You know what that means, don’t you?”
I shook my head, still smiling. Astrology was another of Seth’s passions. He explained to me that astrology was based on a duodecimal system, like music, and our signs, him a Leo and me an Aquarius, were 180 degrees apart on the astrological chart.
“That’s the farthest away we could possibly be,” I argued.
“Opposites attract. You are the air to my fire.”
He petted my head, and I drew him down into a long, languid kiss while hooking my leg around the backs of his thighs to press his growing erection against mine. I didn’t give much thought to Seth’s horoscope mumbo-jumbo, but I liked that he’d put in the time and effort in trying to figure us out.
“It’s written in the stars,” I murmured.
Seth nodded, his eyes electric. “Yes, it is.”
“What’s going on with you and Seth?”
We were at lunch when Sabrina said this to me. I glanced up from my PB&J to stare at her, not knowing how to answer. Sabrina knew we were together—the whole school knew—but I never really talked much about our relationship. Sabrina didn’t approve—not that she’d ever said it outright; it was just something I sensed from the things she said about him and the way in which she said them. I also didn’t want to be one of those people who got a boyfriend and talked nonstop about it.
“Nothing. Why?”
“Yesterday during lunch, I followed you.”
I choked a little on my food. Seth and I went for a walk to the edge of campus, behind the cafeteria where the school keeps its dumpsters. There were no cameras in the alleyway that ran along a brick wall, a space just wide enough for two people.
“We were just talking,” I told her. We were not talking.
“Behind the dumpster?”
I shrugged. “All right, we were making out.” We were doing more than making out.
“Again, behind the dumpster?”
I was already embarrassed by it, and my humiliation grew exponentially as her disbelief turned to pity. My whole face flamed up at the thought of what we were doing, how reckless it was, how willingly I went along with Seth’s very risky idea.
“I don’t think he’s good for you, Hiroku.”
“Why not?” I assumed that like Mai, she was worried about his drug use or sporadic school attendance.
“He’s too controlling.”
“What? Controlling? No, he’s not.”
