Chapter Two
“Does this look okay?” I ask Chunk when I make it into the kitchen. She turns and looks me up and down, then shrugs.
“I guess. Where ya going?”
I step in front of one of the mirrors lining the hallway and check my hair again. “A date.”
She groans, then turns back around to the table in front of her. “You’ve never cared before what you look like. You better not be proposing to her. I’ll divorce this family before I allow you to make her my sister.”
My mother walks past me and pats me on the shoulder. “You look great, honey. I wouldn’t wear those shoes, though.”
I look down at my shoes. “Why? What’s wrong with my shoes?”
She opens a cabinet, takes out a pan, then turns to face me. Her eyes fall to my shoes again. “They’re too bright.” She turns and walks to the stove. “Shoes should never be neon.”
“They’re yellow. Not neon.”
“Neon yellow,” Chunk says.
“Not saying I think they’re ugly,” my mother says. “I just know Val, and Val is more than likely going to hate your shoes.”
I walk to the kitchen counter and grab my keys, then put my cell phone in my pocket. “I don’t give a shit what Val thinks.”
My mother turns and looks at me curiously. “Well you’re asking your thirteen-year-old sister if you look good enough for your date, so I think you kind of do care what Val thinks.”
“I’m not going out with Val. I broke up with Val. I have a new date tonight.”
Chunk’s arms go up in the air and she looks up to the ceiling. “Thank the Lord!” she proclaims loudly.
My mother laughs and nods. “Yes. Thank the Lord,” she says, relieved. She turns back toward the stove and I can’t stop looking back and forth between the both of them.
“What? Neither of you like Val?” I know Val is a bitch, but my family seemed to like her. Especially my mom. I honestly thought she’d be upset we broke up.
“I hate Val,” Chunk says.
“God, me, too,” my mother groans.
“Me three,” my father says, walking past me.
None of them are looking at me, but they’re all responding like this has been a previously discussed topic.
“You mean all of you hated Val?”
My father turns to face me. “Your mother and I are masters at reverse psychology, Danny-boy. Don’t act so surprised.”
Chunk raises her hand in the air toward my father. “Me, too, Dad. I reverse psychologized him, too.”
My dad reaches over and high-fives Chunk’s hand. “Well played, Chunk.”
I lean against the frame of the door and stare at them. “You guys were just pretending to like Val? What the hell for?”
My dad sits at the table and picks up a newspaper. “Children are naturally inclined to make choices that will displease their parents. If we had told you how we really felt about Val, you probably would have ended up marrying her just to spite us. Which is why we pretended to love her.”
A*sholes. All three of them. “You’re never meeting another one of my girlfriends again.”
My father laughs, but doesn’t seem at all disappointed.
“Who is she?” Chunk asks. “The girl you’re actually making an effort for.”
“None of your damn business,” I reply. “Now that I know how this family works, I’m never bringing her around any of you.”
I turn to head out the door and my mother calls after me. “Well if it helps, we already love her, Daniel! She’s a sweetheart!”
“And beautiful,” my dad says. “She’s a keeper!”
I shake my head. “Y’all suck.”
“You’re late,” Six says when she appears at her front door. She walks out of her house with her back to me, inserting her key in the lock.
“You don’t want me to meet your parents?” I ask, wondering why she’s locking her door this early in the evening. She turns around and faces me.
“They’re old. They ate dinner like ten hours ago and went to bed at seven.”
Blue. Her eyes are blue.
Holy shit, she’s cute. Her hair is lighter than I thought it was last night in Sky’s room. Her skin is flawless. It’s like she’s the same girl from last night, only now she’s in HD. And I was right. She really does look like a f*cking angel.
She steps out of the way and I shut the screen door, still unable to take my eyes off her. “I actually got here early,” I say, finally replying to her first comment. “Holder was dropping Sky off at her house and I swear it took them half an hour to say their good-byes. I had to wait until the coast was clear.”
She slides her house key into her back pocket and nods. “Ready?”
I eye her up and down. “Did you forget your purse?”
She shakes her head. “Nope. I hate purses.” She pats her back pocket. “All I need is my house key. I didn’t bother bringing money since this date was your idea. You’re paying, right?”
Whoa.
Back up.
Let’s assess the last thirty seconds, shall we?
She hates purses. That means she didn’t bring makeup. Which means she won’t constantly be reapplying that shit like Val does. It also means she’s not hiding a gallon of perfume anywhere on her person. And it also means she had no plans at all to offer to pay for her half of dinner, which seems a little old-fashioned but for some reason I like it.
“I love that you don’t carry a purse,” I say.
“I love that you don’t carry one, either,” she says with a laugh.
“I do. It’s in my car,” I say, nudging my head toward my car.
She laughs again and begins walking toward the porch steps. I do the same until I see Sky standing just inside her room with her window wide open. I immediately grab Six by her shoulders and pull her until both of our backs are flat against the front door. “You can see Sky’s window from the front yard. She’ll see us.”
Six glances up at me. “You’re really taking this off-limits order seriously,” she says in a hushed voice.
“I have to,” I whisper. “Holder doesn’t kid around when he forbids me to date people.”
She arches a curious eyebrow. “Does Holder usually dictate who you can and can’t date?”
“No. You’re actually the first.”
She laughs. “Then how do you know he’ll actually get mad over it?”
I shrug. “I don’t, really. But the thought of hiding it from him just seems sort of fun. Is it not a little bit exciting for you, hiding this date from Sky?”
“Yeah,” she says with a shrug. “I guess it is.”
Our backs are still pressed against the door and for some reason, we’re still whispering. It’s not like Sky could hear us from here, but again, the whispering makes it more fun. And I really like the sound of Six’s voice when she whispers.
“How do you propose we get out of this situation, Six?”
“Well,” she says, pondering my question for a moment. “Normally when I’m attempting a risky, clandestine, secret date and I need to escape my house undetected, I ask myself, ‘What would MacGyver do?’”
Oh, my god, this chick just mentioned MacGyver?
Hell.
Yes.
I break my eyes away from hers long enough to hide the fact that I think I just fell for her and also to assess our escape route. I glance at the swing on the porch, then look back at Six when I’m sure the cheesy grin is gone from my face.
“I think MacGyver would take your porch swing and build an invisible force field out of grass and matches. Then he would attach a jet engine to it and fly it out of here undetected. Unfortunately I’m all out of matches.”
She laughs. “Hmmm,” she says, squinting her eyes like she’s coming up with some brilliant plan. “That’s an unfortunate inconvenience.” She glances to my car parked in her driveway, then back up to me. “We could just crawl to your car so she doesn’t see us.”
And a brilliant plan it would be if it didn’t involve a girl getting dirty. I’ve learned in my six months of on-again off-again with Val that girls don’t like to get dirty.
“You’ll get dirt on your hands,” I warn her. “I don’t think you can walk into a fancy sushi restaurant with dirty hands and jeans.”
She looks down at her jeans, then back up to me. “I know this great Bar-B-Q restaurant we could go to, instead. The floor is covered in discarded peanut shells. One time I saw this really fat guy eating at a booth and he wasn’t even wearing a shirt.”
I smile at the same time I fall a little harder for her. “Sounds perfect.”
We both drop to our hands and knees and crawl our way off her porch. She’s giggling and her laugh is just making me laugh. “Shh,” I whisper when we reach the bottom of the steps. We crawl across the yard in a hurry, both of us glancing toward Sky’s house every few feet. Once we reach the car, I reach up to my door handle. “Crawl through the driver’s side,” I say to her. “She’ll be less likely to see you.”
I open the door for her and she crawls into the front seat. Once she’s inside the car, I climb in after her and slide into my seat. We’re both crouched down, which is pointless if you think about it. If Sky were to look out her bedroom window, she’d see my car parked in Six’s driveway. It wouldn’t matter if she saw our heads or not.
Six wipes the dirt from her hands onto the legs of her jeans and it completely turns me on. She turns her head to face me and I’m still staring at the dirt smeared across the thighs of her jeans. I somehow tear my gaze away and look her in the eyes.
“You’ll have to disguise your car next time you come over,” she says. “This is way too risky.”
I like her comment a little too much.
“Confident there’ll be a next time already?” I ask, smirking at her. “The date just started.”
“Good point,” she says with a shrug. “I might hate you by the end of the date.”
“Or I might hate you,” I say.
“Impossible.” She props her foot up on the dash. “I’m unhateable.”
“Unhateable isn’t even a real word.”
She peers over her shoulder into the backseat, then faces forward again with a scowl. “Why does it smell like you had a harem of whores in here?” She pulls her shirt up over her nose to cover up the smell.
“Does it still smell like perfume?” I don’t even smell it anymore. It’s probably seeped into my pores and I’m now immune to it.
She nods. “It’s awful,” she says, her voice muffled by her shirt. “Roll down a window.” She makes a fake spitting sound like she’s trying to get the taste of it out of her mouth and it makes me laugh.
I crank the car, then put it in reverse and begin to back out.
“The wind will mess up your hair if I roll down the windows. You didn’t bring a purse, which means you didn’t bring a brush, which means you won’t be able to fix your hair when we get to the restaurant.”
She reaches to her door and presses the button to roll down her window. “I’m already dirty and I’d rather have messy hair than smell like a harem,” she says. She rolls the window down completely, then motions for me to roll mine down as well, so I do.
I put the car in drive and press on the gas. The car immediately fills with wind and fresh air and her hair begins flying around in all directions, but she just relaxes into the seat.
“Much better,” she says, grinning at me. She closes her eyes while inhaling a deep breath of the fresh air.
I try to pay attention to the road, but she makes it pretty damn hard.
“What are your brothers’ names?” I ask her. “Are they numbers, too?”
“Zachary, Michael, Aaron, and Evan. I’m ten years younger than the youngest.”
“Were you an accident?”
She nods. “The best kind. My mother was forty-two when she had me but they were excited when I came out a girl.”
“I’m glad you came out a girl.”
She laughs. “Me, too.”
“Why’d they name you Six if you were actually the fifth child?”
“Six isn’t my name,” she says. “Full name is Seven Marie Jacobs, but I got mad at them for moving me to Texas when I was fourteen so I started calling myself Six to piss them off. They didn’t really care, but I was stubborn and refused to give up. Now everyone calls me Six but them.”
I love that she gave herself a nickname. My kind of girl.
“Question still applies,” I say. “Why did they name you Seven if you were actually the fifth child?”
“No reason, really. My dad just liked the number.”
I nod, then take a bite of food, eyeing her carefully. I’m waiting for that moment. The one that always comes with girls, where the pedestal you place them on in the beginning gets kicked out from under them. It’s usually the moment they start talking about ex-boyfriends or mention how many kids they want or they do something really annoying, like apply lipstick in the middle of dinner.
I’ve been waiting patiently for Six’s flaws to stand out, but so far I can’t find any. Granted, we’ve only interacted with each other for a collective three or four hours now, so hers may just be buried deeper than other people’s.
“So you’re a middle child?” she asks. “Do you suffer from middle-child syndrome?”
I shake my head. “Probably about as much as you suffer from fifth-child syndrome. Besides, Hannah is four years older than me and Chunk is five years younger, so we have a nice spread.”
She chokes on her drink with her laugh. “Chunk? You call your little sister Chunk?”
“We all call her Chunk. She was a fat baby.”
She laughs. “You have nicknames for everyone,” she says. “You call Sky Cheese Tits. You call Holder Hopeless. What do you call me when I’m not around?”
“If I give people nicknames, I do it to their faces,” I point out. “And I haven’t figured yours out yet.” I lean back in my seat and wonder myself why I haven’t given her one yet. The nicknames I give people are usually pretty instant.
“Is it a bad thing you haven’t nicknamed me yet?”
I shrug. “Not really. I’m just still trying to figure you out is all. You’re kind of contradictory.”
She arches an eyebrow. “I’m contradictory? In what ways?”
“All of them. You’re cute as hell, but you don’t give a shit what you look like. You look sweet, but I have a feeling you’re just the right mix of good and evil. You seem really easygoing, like you aren’t the type to play games with guys, but you’re kind of a flirt. And I’m not judging at all by this next observation, but I’m aware of your reputation, yet you don’t seem like the type who needs a guy’s attention to stroke your self-esteem.”
Her expression is tight as she takes in everything I’ve just said. She reaches to her glass and takes a sip without breaking her stare. She finishes her drink, but holds the glass against her lips while she thinks. She eventually lowers it back to the table and looks down at her plate, picking up her fork.
“I’m not like that anymore,” she says softly, avoiding my gaze.
“Like what?” I hate the sadness in her voice now. Why do I always say stupid shit?
“I’m not how I used to be.”
Way to go, Daniel. Dumbass.
“Well, I didn’t know you back then, so all I can do is judge the girl sitting in front of me right now. And so far, she’s been a pretty damn cool date.”
The smile spreads back to her lips. “That’s good,” she says, looking back up at me. “I wasn’t sure what type of date I’d be, considering this is the first one I’ve ever been on.”
I laugh. “No need to stroke my ego,” I say. “I can handle the fact that I’m not the first guy to ever express an interest in you.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “I’ve never been on a real date before. Guys tend to skip this whole part with me so they can just get to what they really want me for.”
My smile disappears. I can tell by the look on her face she’s being completely serious. I lean forward and look her hard in the eyes. “Those guys were all f*cktards.”
She laughs, but I don’t.
“I’m serious, Six. Those guys all need a good kick to the *, because dinner-talk is by far the best part of you.”
When the sentence leaves my mouth, the smile leaves her face. She looks at me like no one’s ever given her a genuine compliment before. It pisses me off.
“How do you know this is the best part of me?” she asks, somehow finding that teasing, flirtatious tone in her voice again. “You haven’t had the pleasure of kissing me yet. I’m pretty sure that’s the best part of me, because I’m a phenomenal kisser.”
Jesus Christ. I don’t know if that was an invitation, but I want to send her my RSVP right this second. “I have no doubt being kissed by you would be fantastic, but if I had to choose, I’d take dinner-talk over a kiss any day.”
She narrows her eyes. “I call bullshit,” she says with a challenging glare. “There’s no way any guy would pick dinner-talk over a good make-out session.”
I attempt to return her challenging look, but she makes a good point.
“Okay,” I admit. “Maybe you’re right. But if I had my way, I’d pick kissing you during dinner-talk. Get the best of both worlds.”
She nods her head, impressed. “You’re good,” she says, leaning back in her seat. She folds her arms over her chest. “Where’d you learn those smooth moves?”
I wipe my mouth with my napkin, then set it on top of my plate. I lift my elbows until they’re resting on the back of the booth and I smile at her. “I don’t have smooth moves. I’m just charismatic . . . remember?”
Her mouth curls up into a grin and she shakes her head like she knows she’s in trouble. Her eyes are smiling at me and I realize I’ve never felt like this before with any other girl. Not that I have it in my head that we’re about to fall in love or we’re soulmates or some shit like that. I’ve just never been around a girl where being myself was actually a good thing. With Val, I was always trying my hardest not to piss her off. With past girlfriends, I always found myself holding back from all the shit I really wanted to say. I’ve always felt like being myself with a girl wasn’t necessarily a good thing because I’ll be the first to admit, I can be a little over the top.
It’s different with Six, though. Not only does she get my sense of humor and my personality, but I feel like she encourages it. I feel like the real me is what she likes the most and every time she laughs or smiles at the perfect moment, I want to fist bump her.
“You’re staring at me,” she says, breaking me out of my thoughts.
“So I am,” I say, not bothering to look away.
She stares right back at me but her demeanor and expression grow competitive as she narrows her eyes and leans forward. She’s silently challenging me to a staring contest.
“No blinking,” she says, confirming my thoughts.
“Or laughing,” I say.
And it’s on. We silently stare at each other for so long, my eyes begin to water and my grip tightens on the table. I try my hardest to keep my eyes locked on hers but they want to stare at every inch of her. I want to stare at her mouth and those full, pink lips and that soft, silky blonde hair. Not to mention her smile. I could stare at her smile all day.
In fact, I’m staring at it right now so I’m pretty sure that means I just lost the staring contest.
“I win,” she says, right before she takes another drink of her water.
“I want to kiss you,” I say bluntly. I’m a little shocked I said it, but not really. I’m pretty impatient and I really want to kiss her and I usually say whatever I’m thinking, so . . .
“Right now?” she asks, looking at me like I’m insane. She sets her glass back down on the table.
I nod. “Yep. Right now. I want to kiss you over dinner-talk so I can have the best of both worlds.”
“But I just ate onions,” she says.
“So did I.”
She’s working her jaw back and forth, actually contemplating an answer. “Okay,” she says with a shrug. “Why not?”
As soon as she gives me permission, I glance down at the table between us, wondering what the best way to do this would be. I could go sit with her on her side of the booth, but that might be invading her personal space too much. I reach in front of me and push my glass out of the way, then scoot hers to the left.
“Come here,” I say, placing my hands on top of the table as I lean toward her. She must have thought I was kidding by the way her eyes dart nervously around us, taking in the fact that we’re about to experience our first kiss in public.
“Daniel, this is awkward,” she says. “Do you really want our first kiss to be in the middle of a restaurant?”
I nod. “So what if it’s awkward? We’ll have a do-over later. People put way too much stock in first kisses, anyway.”
She tentatively places her palms facedown on the table, then pushes herself up and slowly leans in toward me. “Okay, then,” she says, following her words up with a sigh. “But it would be so much better if you wait until the end of our date when you walk me to my front door and it’ll be dark and we could be really nervous and you could accidentally touch my boob. That’s how first kisses are supposed to be.”
I laugh at her comment. We still aren’t close enough for me to kiss her yet, but we’re getting there. I lean forward a little more, but her eyes leave mine and focus on the table behind me.
“Daniel, there’s a woman in the booth behind you changing her baby’s diaper on the table. You’re about to kiss me and the last thing I’ll see before your lips touch mine is a woman wiping her infant’s ass.”
“Six. Look at me.” She brings her eyes back to mine and we’re finally close enough that I could reach her mouth. “Ignore the diaper,” I command. “And ignore the two men in the booth to our left who are swigging their beer and watching us like I’m about to bend you over this table.”
Her eyes dart to the left, so I catch her chin in my hand and force her attention back to me. “Ignore it all. I want to kiss you and I want you to want me to kiss you and I don’t really feel like waiting until I walk you to your porch tonight because I’ve never really wanted to kiss someone this much before.”
Her eyes drop to my mouth and I watch as everything around us disappears from her field of vision. Her tongue slips out of her mouth and glides nervously across her lips before it disappears again. I slide my hand from her chin to the nape of her neck and I pull her forward until our lips meet.
And holy shit, do they meet. Our mouths meld together like they used to be in love and they’re just now seeing each other for the first time in years. My stomach feels like it’s in the middle of a damn rave and my brain is trying to remember how to do this. It’s like I suddenly forgot how to kiss, even though it’s only been a day since I broke up with Val. I’m pretty sure I kissed Val yesterday, but for some reason my brain is acting like this is all new and it’s telling me I should be parting my lips or teasing her tongue, but the signals just aren’t making it to my mouth yet. Or my mouth is just ignoring me because it’s been paralyzed by the soft warmth pressed against it.
I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never held a girl’s lips between mine for this long without breathing or moving or taking the kiss as far as I can possibly take it.
I inhale, even though I haven’t taken a breath in almost a minute. I loosen my grip on the back of Six’s head and begin to slowly pull my lips from hers. I open my eyes and hers are still closed. Her lips haven’t moved and she’s taking in shallow, quiet breaths as I remain poised close to her face, watching her.
I don’t know if she expected more of a kiss. I don’t know if she’s ever had a peck last more than a minute before. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I love the look on her face.
“Don’t open your eyes,” I whisper, still staring at her. “Give me ten more seconds to stare, because you look absolutely beautiful right now.”
She tucks her bottom lip in with her teeth to hide her smile, but she doesn’t move. My hand is still on the back of her head and I’m silently counting down from ten when I hear the waitress pause at our table.
“Y’all ready for your ticket?”
I hold up a finger, asking the waitress to give me a second. Well, five seconds to be exact. Six never moves a muscle, even after hearing the waitress speak. I count down silently until my ten seconds are up, then Six slowly opens her eyes and looks up at me.
I back away from her, putting several inches of space between us. I keep my eyes locked with hers. “Yes, please,” I say, giving the waitress her answer. I hear her tear off the ticket and slap it down on the table. Six smiles, then begins laughing. She backs away from me and falls back down in her booth.
I breathe and it feels like the air is all brand new.
I slowly take my seat in the booth again, watching her laugh. She scoots the ticket toward me. “Your treat,” she says.
I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet, then lay cash down on top of the ticket. I stand up and reach out for Six’s hand. She looks at it and smiles, then takes it. When she stands, I wrap my arm around her shoulder and pull her against me.
“Are you going to tell me how awesome that kiss was or are you going to ignore it?”
She shakes her head and laughs at me. “That wasn’t even a real kiss,” she says. “You didn’t even try to put your tongue in my mouth.”
I push open the doors to walk outside, but step aside and let her out first.
“I didn’t have to put my tongue in your mouth,” I say. “My kisses are that intense. I don’t even really have to do anything. The only reason I pulled back was that I was sure we were about to experience a classic, ‘When Harry met Sally’ moment.”
She laughs again.
God, I love that she thinks I’m funny.
I open the passenger door for her and she pauses before climbing inside. She looks up at me. “You realize that classic scene is Sally proving a point about how easy it is for women to fake orgasms, right?”
God, I love that I think she’s funny.
“Do I have to take you home yet?” I ask.
“Depends on what you have in mind next.”
“Nothing really,” I admit. “I just don’t want to take you home yet. We could go to the park next to my house. They have a jungle gym.”
She grins. “Let’s do it,” she says, holding up a tight fist in front of her.
I naturally bring my fist up and bump hers. She hops into the car and I shut her door, dumbfounded over the fact that she just fist bumped me.
The girl just fist bumped me and it was probably the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
I walk to my side of the car and open the door, then take a seat. Before I crank the car I turn to look at her. “Are you really a guy?”
She raises an eyebrow, then pulls the collar of her shirt out and takes a quick glance down at her chest. “Nope. Pretty damn girl,” she says.
“Are you dating someone?”
She shakes her head.
“Are you leaving the country tomorrow?”
“Nope,” she says, her face obviously confused by my line of questions.
“What’s your deal, then?”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone has something and I can’t figure yours out. You know, that one thing about themselves that’s eventually a deal-breaker.” I crank the car and begin to back out. “I want to know what yours is right now. My heart can’t take another second of these tiny little things you do that drive me completely insane.”
Her smile changes. It grows from a genuine smile to a guarded one. “We all have deal-breakers, Daniel. Some of us just hope we can keep them hidden forever.”
She rolls down her window again and the noise makes it impossible to continue the conversation. I’m almost positive the overwhelming scent of perfume is gone, so I’m curious if her need for the noise is why she rolled down the window this time.
“Do you bring all your dates here?” she asks.
I think about her question for a minute before answering. “Pretty much,” I finally say after silently tallying the ends of all my dates. “I did take this chick out once in eleventh grade but I took her home during the middle of the date because she got a stomach virus. I think she’s the only one I never brought here.”
She digs her heels into the dirt and comes to a stop in the swing. I’m standing behind her, so she turns around and looks up at me. “Seriously? You’ve brought all but one girl here?”
I shrug. Then nod. “Yeah. But none of them has ever wanted to literally play before. We usually just make out.”
We’ve been here half an hour and already she’s made me watch her on the monkey bars, push her on the merry-go-round and now I’ve been pushing her while she swings for the last ten minutes. I’m not complaining, though. It’s nice. Really nice.
“Have you ever had sex out here?” she asks.
I’m not sure how to take her bluntness. I’ve never really met anyone who asks the same straightforward questions I would, so I’m beginning to feel a little sympathetic to the people I put on the spot like this. I glance around the park until I see the makeshift wooden castle. I point to it. “You see the castle?”
She turns her head to look at the castle. “You had sex in there?”
I drop my arm and slide both my hands into the back pockets of my jeans. “Yep.”
She stands and begins to walk in that direction.
“What are you doing?” I ask her. I’m not sure why she’s heading toward the castle, but I’m almost positive it’s not because she’s weird and wants to have sex in the same spot I had sex with Val two weeks ago.
Does she?
God I hope not.
“I want to see where you had sex,” she says, matter-of-fact. “Come show me.”
This girl confuses the hell out of me. What’s strange is how much I freaking love it. I begin jogging until I catch up with her. We walk until we reach the castle. She looks at me expectantly, so I point to the doorway. “Right in there,” I say.
She walks to the doorway and peeks inside. She looks around for a minute, then pulls back out. “Looks really uncomfortable,” she says.
“It was.”
She laughs. “If I tell you something will you promise not to judge me?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s human nature to judge.”
She inhales a breath, then releases it. “I’ve had sex with six different people.”
“At once?” I say.
She shoves my arm. “Stop. I’m trying to be honest with you here. I’m only eighteen and I lost my virginity when I was sixteen. Plus, I haven’t had sex in about a year, so if you add it up, that’s six people in just a little over fifteen months. That’s like a whole new person every two and a half months. Only sluts do that.”
“Why have you not had sex in over a year?”
She rolls her eyes and begins to walk past me. I follow her. When she reaches the swings, she takes her seat again. I sit in the swing beside her and twist my body until I’m facing her, but she faces forward.
“Why have you not had sex in over a year?” I say again. “You didn’t like any of the boys you met in Italy?”
I can’t see her face, but her body language reveals that this could be that one thing. The thing that changes it all for me.
“There was this one boy in Italy,” she says softly. “But I don’t want to talk about him. And yes, he’s why I haven’t had sex in over a year.” She looks back at me. “Look, I know my reputation precedes me and I don’t know if that’s why you brought me here or what you expect to happen at the end of this date, but I’m not that girl anymore.”
I lift my legs until my swing spins forward again. “The only thing I was hoping for at the end of this date was a kiss on your front porch,” I say. “And maybe an accidental boob grab.”
She doesn’t laugh. I suddenly hate that I brought her here.
“Six, I didn’t bring you here expecting anything. Yes, I’ve brought girls here in the past but that’s only because I live across the street and I come here a lot. And yes, maybe I brought all those other girls here to have a little privacy while we made out, but that’s only because I more than likely just wanted them to shut up and kiss me because they were getting on my everlasting nerves. But I only brought you here because I wasn’t ready to take you home yet. I don’t even really want to make out with you because I like talking to you too much.”
I close my eyes, wishing I hadn’t just said all that. I know girls like guys who play the uninterested a*shole part. I’m usually pretty good at playing that part, but not with Six. Maybe because I usually am an uninterested a*shole, but with her I’m as interested and curious and hopeful as I can possibly be.
“Which house is yours?” she asks.
I point across the street. “That one,” I say, pointing to the one with the living room light on.
“Really?” she asks, sounding genuinely interested. “Is your family home?”
I nod. “Yeah, but you aren’t meeting them. They’re evil liars and I already told them I was never bringing you home to meet them.”
I can feel her turn and look at me. “You told them you were never bringing me to meet them? So you already mentioned me?”
I meet her gaze. “Yes. I might have mentioned you.”
She smiles. “Which one is your bedroom?”
“First window on the left side of the house. Chunk’s bedroom is the window on the right. The one with the light on.”
She stands up again. “Is your window unlocked? I want to see what your bedroom looks like.”
Jesus, she’s nosey.
“I don’t want you to see my bedroom. I’m unprepared. It’s messy.”
She begins walking toward the street. “I’m going anyway.”
I lean my head back and groan, then stand up and follow her toward the house.
“You’re a piece of work,” I say as we reach my window. She presses her palms against the glass and pushes up. The window doesn’t budge, so I push her aside and open it for her. “I’ve never snuck into my own bedroom before,” I admit. “I’ve snuck out before, but never in.”
She begins to lift herself up over the ledge, so I grab her by the waist and assist her. She throws her leg over the edge of it and slips inside. I climb in behind her, then walk to the dresser and turn on my lamp. I make a scan of the room to ensure there isn’t anything I don’t want her to see. I kick a pair of underwear under the bed.
“I saw those,” she whispers. She walks to my bed and presses her palms into the mattress, then straightens back up. She scans the room slowly, taking in everything about me. It feels weird, like I’m being exposed.
“I like your room,” she says.
“It’s a room.”
She disagrees with a shake of her head. “No, it’s more than that. This is where you live. This is where you sleep. This is where you feel the most privacy in your whole entire life. This is more than just a room.”
“It doesn’t feel very private right now,” I say, watching as she skims her hand across every surface of my room. She turns and looks at me, then faces me full-on.
“What’s the one thing in this room that tells the biggest secret about you?”
I laugh under my breath. “I’m not telling you that.”
She tilts her head. “So I’m right. You have secrets.”
“I never said I didn’t.”
“Give me one,” she asks. “Just one.”
I’ll give them all to her if she keeps looking at me like this. She’s so damn adorable. I walk slowly toward her and she swallows a gulp of air. I stop when I’m several inches from her, then I nod my head down toward my mattress. “I’ve never kissed a girl on this bed,” I whisper.
She looks down at my mattress, then back up to me. “I hope you really don’t expect me to believe you’ve never made out with a girl in your room before.”
I laugh. “I didn’t say that. I stated I had never kissed a girl on this particular bed. I was being honest, because it’s a brand-new mattress. I just got it last week.”
I can see the change in her eyes. The heavy rise and fall of her chest. She likes that I’m so close to her and she likes that I’m insinuating I want to kiss her on my bed.
Her eyes fall to the bed. “Are you saying you want to kiss me on your bed?”
I lean in closer until my lips are right next to her ear. “Are you saying you would let me?”
She sucks in a soft rush of air and I love that we’re both feeling this. I want to kiss her on my bed so damn bad. I want it more than I even wanted the damn bed. Hell, I don’t even care if it’s on the bed. I just want to kiss her. I don’t care where it is. I’ll kiss her anywhere she’ll allow me to kiss her.
I close the small gap between our bodies by resting my hands on her hips and pulling her to me. Her hands fly up to my forearms and she gasps. I dig my fingers into her hips and rest my cheek against hers. My mouth is still grazing her ear as I close my eyes, enjoying the feel of this.
I love the way she smells. I love the way she feels. And even though I haven’t really given her an honest to God kiss yet, I already love the way she kisses.
“Daniel,” she whispers. My name crashes against my shoulder when it rushes out of her mouth. “Will you take me home now?”
I wince at her words, immediately wondering what I just did wrong. I remain still for several long seconds, waiting until the feel of her against me no longer has me completely paralyzed.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she says, immediately easing the doubt building inside me. “I just think I should go home.”
Her voice is soft and sweet and I suddenly hate every single guy in her past who has ever failed to get to know this side of her.
I don’t release her immediately. I turn my head slightly until my forehead is touching the side of her head. “Did you love him?” I ask, allowing my brilliant brain to completely ruin this moment between us.
“Who?”
“The guy in Italy,” I clarify. “The one who hurt you. Did you love him?”
Her forehead meets my shoulder and the way she fails to respond to that question reveals her answer, but it also fills me with so many more questions. I want to ask her if she still loves him. If she’s still with him. If they still talk.
I don’t say anything, though, because I have a feeling she wouldn’t be here with me right now if any of that were the case. I bring my hand up to the back of her head and I press my lips into her hair. “Let’s get you home,” I whisper.
“Thanks for buying me dinner,” she says when we reach her front door.
“You didn’t really give me a choice. You left your house without a penny and then you shoved the bill in my face.”
She laughs as she unlocks her front door, but doesn’t open it yet. She turns back around and lifts her eyes, looking at me through lashes so long and thick, I have to refrain from reaching out and touching them.
Kissing her at dinner was definitely spontaneous, but I was sure it would make this moment a breeze.
It hasn’t.
If anything, I feel even more pressure to kiss her because it’s already happened once tonight. And the fact that it’s already happened and I know how damn good it feels makes me want it even more, but now I’m scared I’ve built it up too much.
I begin to lean in toward her when her lips part.
“Are you gonna use tongue this time?” she whispers.
I squeeze my eyes shut and take a step back, completely thrown off by her comment. I rub my palms down my face and groan.
“Dammit, Six. I was already feeling inadequate. Now you’ve just put expectations on it.”
She’s smiling when I look at her again. “Oh, there are definitely expectations,” she says teasingly. “I expect this to be the most mind-blowing thing I’ve ever experienced, so you better deliver.”
I sigh, wondering if the moment can possibly be recovered. I doubt it. “I’m not kissing you now.”
She nods her head. “Yes you are.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “No. I’m not. You just gave me performance anxiety.”
She takes a step toward me and slides her hands between my folded arms, pushing against them until they unlock. “Daniel Wesley, you owe me a do-over since you made me kiss you in a crowded restaurant next to a dirty diaper.”
“It wasn’t crowded,” I interject.
She glares at me. “Put your hands on my face and push me against this wall and slip me some tongue! Now!”
Before she can laugh at herself, my hands are casing her face and her back is pressed against the wall of her house and my lips are on hers. It happens so fast, it catches her off guard and she gasps, which causes her lips to part farther than she probably meant for them to. As soon as I caress the tip of her tongue with mine, she’s clenching my shirt in two tight fists, pulling me closer. I tilt my head and take the kiss deeper, wanting to give her all the feels she can possibly get from a kiss and I want her to have them all at once.
My mouth isn’t having a problem remembering what to do this time. What it’s having a problem with is remembering how to slow down. Her hands are now in my hair and if she moans into my damn mouth one more time I’m afraid I might carry her to the backseat of my car and try to cheapen this date.
I can’t do that. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. I like this girl too much already and I’ll be damned if this isn’t our first date and she already has me thinking about the next one. I brace my hands on the wall behind her head and I force myself to push off of her.
We’re both panting. Gasping for breath. I’m breathing heavier than any kiss has ever made me breathe before. Her eyes are closed and I absolutely love how she doesn’t immediately open them when I’m finished kissing her. I like that she seems to want to savor the way I make her feel, just like I want to savor her.
“Daniel,” she whispers.
I groan and drop my forehead to hers, touching her cheek with my hand. “You make me love my name so damn much.”
She opens her eyes and I pull back, looking down on her, still stroking her cheek. She’s looking at me the same way I’m looking at her. Like we can’t believe our luck.
“You better not turn out to be an a*shole,” she says quietly.
“And you better be done with that guy in Italy,” I reply.
She nods. “I am,” she says, although her eyes seem to tell a different story. I try not to read into it because whatever it is, it doesn’t matter now. She’s here with me. And she’s happy about that. I can tell.
“You better not take back the girl who broke your heart last night,” she adds.
I shake my head. “Never. Not after this. Not after you.”
She seems relieved by my answer.
“This is scary,” she whispers. “I’ve never had a boyfriend before. I don’t know how this works. Do people become exclusive this fast? Are we supposed to pretend we’re not that interested for a few more dates?”
Oh, dear God.
I’ve never been turned on by a girl laying claim to me before. I usually run in the other direction. She’s obliterating every single thing I thought I knew about myself with every new sentence that passes those lips.
“I have no interest in faking disinterest,” I say. “If you want to call yourself my girlfriend half as much as I wish you would, then it would save me a whole lot of begging. Because I was literally about to drop to my knees and beg you.”
She squints her eyes playfully. “No begging. It screams desperation.”
“You make me desperate,” I say, pressing my lips to hers again. I choose to keep this kiss simple, even though I want to grab her face again and hold her against the wall. I pull away from her and we stare at each other. We stare at each other for so long I begin to worry that she’s put some kind of spell on me, because I’ve never wanted to just stare at a girl like I want to stare at her. Just looking at her causes my heart to burn and my chest to constrict and I’m sort of freaking out that I barely know her at all and we’ve just made ourselves exclusive.
“Are you a witch?” I ask.
Her laugh returns and I suddenly don’t care if she’s a witch. If this is some kind of spell she’s put on me, I hope it never breaks.
“I have no idea who you even are and now you’re my damn girlfriend. What the hell have you done to me?”
She holds her palms up defensively. “Hey, don’t blame me. I’ve gone eighteen years swearing off boyfriends and then you show up out of the blue with your vulgar mouth and terribly awkward first kisses and now look at me. I’m a hypocrite.”
“I don’t even know your phone number,” I say.
“I don’t even know your birthday,” she says.
“You’re the worst girlfriend I’ve ever had.”
She laughs and I kiss her again. I notice I have to kiss her every time she laughs and she laughs a lot. Which means I have to kiss her a lot. God, I hope she doesn’t laugh in front of Sky or Holder because it’s going to be so damn hard not to kiss her.
“You better not tell Sky about us,” I say. “I don’t want Holder to know yet.”
“What about school? I enroll tomorrow. You don’t think it’ll be obvious when we interact?”
“We’ll pretend we hate each other. It could be fun.”
She tilts her face up and finds my mouth again, giving me a light peck. “But how do you plan on keeping your hands off me?”
I slide my other hand to her waist. “I won’t keep my hands off you. I’ll just touch you when they aren’t looking.”
“This is gonna be so much fun,” she whispers.
I smile and pull her against me again. “Damn right it is.” I dip my head and kiss her one last time. I release her, then reach behind her and turn the doorknob, pushing open her front door. “See you tomorrow.”
She backs up two steps until she’s in her doorway. “See you tomorrow.”
She begins to turn and head into her house, but I grab her wrist and pull her back out. I wrap an arm around her lower back and lean in until my lips touch hers. “I forgot to accidentally touch your boob.”
I catch her laugh with my mouth and graze her breast with the palm of my hand, then I immediately pull away from her. “Oops. Sorry.”
She’s covering her laugh with her hand as she backs into her house. She closes the door and I immediately fall to my knees, then onto my back. I stare straight up at the roof of her porch, wondering what in the hell just happened to my heart.
The door slowly reopens and she looks down at me, sprawled across her front porch like an idiot.
“I just needed a minute to recover,” I say, smiling up at her. I’m not even excusing the fact that I’m shamelessly affected by her. She winks, then begins to close the door.
“Six, wait,” I say, pushing myself up. She opens the door again and I reach up and grab the doorframe, then lean in toward her. “I know I just broke up with someone last night, but I need you to know you aren’t a rebound. You know that, right?”
She nods. “I know,” she says confidently. “Neither are you.”
With that, she steps back into her house and closes her door.
Christ.
Motherf*cking angel.