He smiles at me as the lock pops open and he throws the door wide. “After you.”
The Last Bookstore is the epitome of old-fashioned charm. Cedar shelves stretch way over our heads so that a rolling ladder has to be used to access the books on the top. Velvety red carpeting covers the spiral staircase that twists up to a second floor, and the ceiling is painted in an elaborate fantasy mural. The scent of musty books and coffee beans linger in the air.
He takes my hand, his big and warm and callused around mine, and I feel the thrill of it like it’s the first time I’ve ever had my hand held by a boy. Thoughts of Mom and Paige and Cruz and Aunt Penny push into my mind, but I push them right back out, because I need this right now. I need normal. As normal as breaking into a bookstore after closing time is.
He leads me upstairs, through the aisles, to a door set into a back wall. The door opens to a staircase. We climb up, and when we emerge through the door at the top, we’re on the roof. I suck in a breath. Los Angeles unfolds before me, a city teaming with palm trees and vibrant-colored buildings and life. And beyond it all, set into a lush mountaintop, is the Hollywood sign.
“So we’re not reading on our date,” I say.
“Did I have you worried?”
I grin at him. “A little bit.”
He reaches into his bag and pulls out a big red blanket, then fans it out in front of him.
“Have a seat, m’lady,” he says. I smile coyly at him and duck into a spot on the blanket. He reaches back into his bag and pulls out a box of Pop-Tarts, followed by a package of juice boxes and some Fruit Roll-Ups.
“What is that, Mary Poppins’s bag?” I ask.
“Nope, no magic on this date,” he says. “It’s a one hundred percent normal date. Or else I wouldn’t be serving PB&Js for the main course.” He produces a bag of smushed sandwiches.
“Oh, whoops,” he says.
I can’t help giggling.
I watch my boyfriend, his brow furrowed in childlike concentration as he arranges our ghetto picnic across the blanket, and all I can think is that I wouldn’t be happier if he’d taken me to a five-star restaurant.
And God, there it is again, that guilt stamping down my happiness. Here’s my boyfriend, doing all of this for me after every awful thing I put him through. After Cruz.
He catches my wrist suddenly, and I gasp.
“Don’t,” he says.
“What?” I ask, heat staining my cheeks.
“Don’t think about it. Everything that happened is in the past.”
“But, but there are things you should know….” I force myself to look up at him, letting the guilt show through in my eyes. His throat moves up and down as he swallows.
“It’s okay,” he says finally. His dark eyes burn into mine, and in this instant I know he knows. He knows I did something wrong—not exactly what—but he doesn’t care. Or if he does, he forgives me. I nod, and he lets go of my wrist.
“Now turn that frown upside down,” he says. “We’re having fun tonight.”
I force a smile and dig into a package of Pop-Tarts, cradling one in my lap as Bishop pulls the wrapper off the straw of his juice box with his teeth. He spits it out over his shoulder and punctures the top with the straw.
“So, what’s your favorite color,” he asks cheerily, like we didn’t just have this intense moment.
I tilt my head, thinking, the setting sun warming my face. “I dunno. I guess I don’t really have one.”
“If you had to pick.”
“I guess red,” I say. “I like red lipstick and red nail polish.”
“Red’s a bangin’ color,” he says. “Mine’s black.”
“Black’s not really a color.”
“Depends who you ask. What’s your favorite movie?”
“Easy. She’s the Man.”
“She’s the Man?” he asks dubiously. “I’ve never heard of it.”
I laugh. “It’s this totally awesome comedy about this girl who dresses up like a boy so she can try out for their soccer team. There’s this one scene where one of the boys on the team finds a tampon in her bag, and she sticks it up her nose and pretends she uses it for nosebleeds….” I trail off at the look of horror on Bishop’s face. We both burst into laughter. “It’s much funnier in the movie.”
“We have to watch it sometime.”
I smile. “I’d love that.” A beat passes in comfortable silence. “So,” I say finally. “What’s your favorite movie?”
“Don’t have one,” he answers.
“If you had to pick,” I say.
He thinks for a moment. “Then it’d be a three-way tie between The Goonies, Super Troopers, and I Love You, Man.”
“Super Troopers? I love that movie! ‘All right, meow, hand over your license and registration.’?”
“?‘You boys like Mex-i-co?’?” he adds. We both roar with laughter.
I can’t believe we have the same taste in stupid one-star comedies.
“How ’bout books?” he asks.
“Hmm. That’s hard. Maybe Gone with the Wind?”
“Really?” His eyebrows get lost in his hairline.
“Why is that so shocking?” I ask.
“Isn’t that, like, three thousand pages?”
I slap his arm, and he laughs.
“So what are you going to do now? With me back at school and everything.”
He shrugs. “I dunno. I guess drown my sorrows in booze and strippers.”
I mock-scowl at him, and he laughs, but it dies quickly and unexpectedly turns into a sigh. He traces a pattern on the roof with a finger. “I have thought about it, actually. There’s this boarding school…for witches and warlocks.” He looks up at me from behind a twist of hair that’s fallen in front of his face.
I sit up a bit straighter. “Yeah. Penny told me about that.”
“I was thinking about applying there. Like, as a teacher.”
My mouth drops open.
“Flies are going to get in there.” He reaches over and closes my jaw.
I sputter for words. “Wh-where is that?”
“New York.”
“New York!” I repeat.