“You think I don’t havevices?”
I made a bitchy, skepticalsound.
“Cream soda,” hesaid.
“What?”
“Cream soda,” he repeated. “Got a major cream soda vice. When I feel shitty, I go straight for the creamsoda.”
I stared at him. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve everheard.”
“Stupid, maybe,” he said. “Buttrue.”
“Why creamsoda?”
“Don’t know. Tastes good.” He was silent a minute. “Reminds me of summers when I was a kid, before my parents split up. Just tastes likememories.”
“Goodmemories?”
He shrugged. “Good.Bad.”
I considered that, looking him over. He was wearing a T-shirt under his Kings cut, and his muscled arms weren’t exactly dripping with fat. He didn’t look like someone who overindulged in cream soda. “You feel shitty a lot?” I asked, stillskeptical.
“Not a lot. Sometimes.” His dark eyes narrowed at me a bit. “Everyone feels shitty sometimes. It’s called beinghuman.”
I made another bitchy, unimpressed sound. I would never show him I was impressed with his anything. His cleverness, his muscled arms,whatever.
I was still kinda sore, maybe, that he’d kissed me at a party, once, and never tried it again. Even though it would’ve complicated things and I’d told myself it was Piper for me, not Jude… It felt like rejection, and I didn’t do so well withrejection.
“You know,” he said slowly, his dark eyes never leaving mine, “you’re a pretty girl, Roni, under all the makeup. Some girls aren’t. And you’re smarter than most people probably take youfor.”
“Is that so,” I said, trying not to feel good about thecompliments.
He nodded at the house behind us. “There’re weapons in this place,drugs…”
“Wait a sec,” I said, really cranking up the bitch, “are you talking Kings secrets with me? You know I have a vagina, right? Aren’t you worried they won’t patch you in if you go talking to me likethat?”
“Not secrets,” he said evenly, still watching me. “All that shit’s out in the open, right on the coffeetable.”
“So?”
“So, what are you doing here? You don’t needthis.”
“Maybe I don’t,” I said. “Maybe Iwantit.” I stared at him, all seventeen-year-old attitude anddefiance.
He stared right back at me with those hellfire eyes of his. That deep, molten brown, just watching me. He’d been watching me like that for a whole year. From adistance.
I told myself it was because he watched everyone likethat.
But then he leaned in, just a little. All it took was a little; we were that close. I could feel his breath on my face. He paused, then touched his lips gently tomine.
And it was the softest, softestkiss.
Oh,damn… when had a man’s lips ever felt thatsoft?
It was exactly like I remembered it, like the first time he’d kissed me. His lips felt the same. I’d sometimes told myself I must’ve misremembered it, because no man kissed likethat.
Judedid.
