“As friends,” she clarifies, testing the waters. “I’m inspired by how friendly everyone is around here.”
Ian tells her he’s busy this weekend and then Ashley blabs about something else I don’t care about. I’m too busy watching her spoon my goddamn pudding into her mouth. She dribbles a little bit on her lip. I chew on my fingernails. She licks the spoon and I resist the urge to slap the container out of her hand. Then—THEN—she doesn’t even finish all of it.
“Ugh, I’m so full.”
My fingernails dig into my palm so hard, I draw blood.
Ian is smart enough to buy me a chocolate bar from the vending machine on the way back to our classrooms. He slaps it into my hand and tells me to eat it all.
“And calm down. No one cares about what we’re doing. You’re being paranoid.”
He’s right, I am being paranoid, but it doesn’t matter. Soon, my life implodes on itself anyway.
14
S A M
The INCIDENT is largely Ian’s fault. I will blame him because it feels better to deflect, and really, it is his fault. The day after our shower fight/love sesh, I think Ian’s going to kiss me. When he doesn’t, I grow restless. I try to get creative. After his soccer practice, I show up at his house in a trench coat. I’m wearing clothes underneath, but he doesn’t know that. I think he’s going to fall to his knees and beg for it, but he doesn’t. In fact, he completely turns the tables on me because when I arrive, he’s just out of the shower, shirtless and wet and tan and how does someone have such clearly defined muscles?
I reach for them like a toddler reaching for candy. Gimme. He shakes his head, drops his hands to my shoulders, and locks his arms, holding me at a distance like I’m contaminated waste. He deposits me carefully on the couch and then goes to put a shirt on. When he’s finished, he drags me out of there with the promise of pizza.
It’s intentional on his part.
“Did we leave your house so nothing could happen?” I ask in between bites of pepperoni. “Because I don’t have any qualms about doing it in the bathroom at a sleazy pizza joint.”
He swallows his bite and stares at me like I’m from Mars.
“You have sauce on your chin, and on your shirt, and there’s a little on your cheek too.”
Point taken—I’m not at my sexual peak while shoving stuffed crust down my throat. Next time, I’ll order a salad.
After pizza, Ian drives us back to his house and leads me straight to my bike. He hoists me onto the seat and leans down. I brace for it. THE KISS. I’m going to rock his world. I’m going to do things with my tongue he’s only ever read about on the dark web.
Then I realize he’s buckling my helmet for me and making sure it’s secure.
“Go home, Sam. This weekend, we’ll go out on our first date. Saturday morning, I’ll pick you up and take you to breakfast and I’ll ask you about your hobbies.”
“I don’t have any hobbies.”
“After, we’ll hold hands and stroll around the park.”
“Will this park have dark corners for doing dark deeds?”
“It’s going to be 85 and sunny. Children will be flying kites.”
“It better not be the park where I learned how to rollerblade. I still get funny looks.”
“It’ll be any park you want it to be.”
“And then after?” I ask, urging him on.
“After, we’ll go back to my house and I’ll kiss you for as long as you want to be kissed, and maybe we’ll see about getting to second base.”
“Can’t we just start at home plate? The batter starts there anyway. That way you don’t have to bother running around those pesky bases.”
“Sam, I swear…”
He pinches his eyes closed and I poke his chest.
“I’m kidding.” Kind of.
Anyway, that’s how we leave that night, and to his credit, Saturday is great. It’s one for the books. We meet at our favorite breakfast spot in the morning. I’m there early, sitting in a booth and chewing my fingernails down to nubs. At 9:30 on the dot, Ian strolls in, and I reach for my coffee so I appear calm and casual rather than deranged and lovesick. He spots me and smiles. Dimples flare and my stomach flips and I hold up a hand to wave at him—wave, like I’m on a parade float.
“Morning,” he says as he slides into the opposite side of the booth.
“Hello.”
“That your first cup of coffee?”
It’s my third.
“Yup.” I shrug coolly. “I just got here a few minutes ago.”
Our well-meaning waiter blows my cover. “Oh, look! Here’s your friend. I was beginning to wonder if you’d been stood up.”
Ian smiles like he’s just discovered some deep, dark secret of mine.
I tell him I think our waiter is on something.
After breakfast, Ian fulfills his promise to take me to a park, except we never make it out of his car. It’s too hot to take a walk and I’ve been a good girl, sitting across from him all morning long, completing full sentences when what I really wanted to do was toss my scrambled eggs and bacon at the wall and leap over the table at him.
Now, we’re in the parking lot at the park and Ian is about to open his door, but I reach over and grip his forearm. It’s solid, strong…more tantalizing than a simple body part should be.
“Don’t.”
He pauses and turns to face me, brow arched with interest.
“I don’t want to take a walk.”
“What do you want to do?”
A slow, devious smile spreads across my lips.
We make out in his car for what feels like hours. I straddle his lap and my elbow hits the horn so a roving group of kids turn and stare at us. A minivan pulls into the spot beside us and a family of five scrambles out. I fold my body down, trying to hide, but one of the kids presses his face right up to the window.
“Mommy, come look! She’s sitting on his lap! Is he Santa Claus?”
Ian hauls ass out of there before the police get called.
Unfortunately, come Monday, we’ve still only done a lot of kissing. The kissing is great, but I’m ready for more. So, being the impatient idiot that I am, I decide to tease Ian a little.
He emails me a recipe that morning before school, asking if I can grab a few things from the store on the way to his house. They’re innocuous items: oregano and olive oil. I email back: Sure, but what’s for dessert? ;)
FletcherIan@OakHillHigh: Have any ideas?
After a stroke of genius, I email back a photo of myself shooting whipped cream into my mouth. It’s cheeky and hot. There’s a teensy bit on my nose too. Below it, I type, I’m all out of chocolate chips. We’ll have to get creative. It’s not really meant to be sexy. It’s meant to make him laugh, but, I mean, if it turns him on then all the better. Bonus: I got to have whipped cream for breakfast.
I don’t think twice about it until I’m sitting in my classroom before first period and the teacher one classroom over, Mrs. Orin, dips her head past the doorframe.
“Hey, Sam. I think it’s really brave of you to show up today. Most people wouldn’t have the guts.”
Then she holds up a fist for solidarity.
Okay, well, that was the weirdest experience of my life.
Ten minutes later, Logan comes by. For some reason, he can’t meet my gaze. “Hey, sorry, I would have never asked you out if I knew you and Ian were together. Friends still?”
All of the blood drains from my face. What the HELL is going on?
When he leaves, I scramble for my phone and check my email only to find that the worst possible thing in the history of the world has happened to me: I didn’t send the whipped cream photo to FletcherIan@OakHillHigh. I send it, along with the rest of our conversation, to FullStaff@OakHillHigh.
NO.
NOOOOOO.
NoOoOooOO0O0O0O0O0O0O.
I clutch my chest. I can’t catch my breath. I look around for some kind of defibrillator, but there’s only a fire extinguisher. It won’t help in this situation unless I hit myself in the head really hard and give myself brain damage. Actually…that’s a pretty great idea.
Here’s exactly how this happened:
I thought I hit reply, but I must have hit forward.