“I’m pretty sure it’s lip gloss,” she says over her shoulder, leaning further in a way that pulls her dress up. I want to slide her off the hood and prove it isn’t true. She stretches, going up on the toes of her noninjured foot and revealing just a hint of white. I groan.
“Are you okay?” Brighton straightens, and her dress falls back to midthigh. I look away from her legs before I develop any more antigraffiti proof. But she’s not helping the situation when she reaches out and takes my hand in hers, studying my knuckles. They’re red but not split. “You’re going to have a bruise. I’m sorry.”
She covers the injury with the cool palm of her other hand. The gesture is so comforting, I want to close my eyes and forget everything but her touch. But her voice contains all the pity I don’t want to see on her face. Pity for the loser with undersized man-parts.
So, instead, I yank my hand back and say, “Oh, I forgot you were the one who slammed my hand into the door and wrote on my windshield. Wait. You weren’t? Then why the hell do you keep apologizing for things that aren’t your fault?”
She flinches.
I glare at the car, where Carly’s handiwork has been turned into a smudge that covers half the windshield. “You made it worse.” I know I’m being an ass, but I can’t take back the words or look at her hurt eyes. Or calm down. I. Can’t. Calm. Down.
“I’m sorry,” I manage, but it sounds like a growl.
“Saying ‘I’m sorry’ afterward doesn’t give you permission to act like a jerk.” There’s pain in her voice and also anger.
“I know.”
“You’re not mad at me.”
“I know.”
“Good. Now give me your keys and let’s see if the windshield wipers are more effective than I was.”
She trades a stack of napkins for my keys, and I feel like a scolded child as she starts my car. Blue fluid squirts onto the glass, dissolving and wiping away the pieces of napkin but only beading on and further smearing the glossy graffiti.
“Let me try again with the napkins,” I say as she says, “Maybe more fluid?” I’m leaning over the windshield when she hits the wiper stick. The spray catches me full in the face and I jump back to prevent my hands from getting caught in the blades. I use one of the napkins to blot windshield fluid from my cheeks.
I glare at her around the napkin, and she’s covering her mouth with both hands. Laughing. Or trying not to. But her eyes are shining with amusement and her cheeks are pink with the effort.
It cracks something in me. I want to pull her hands away from her face and see that smile. I grin at her. “You did that on purpose—but I guess I deserved it.”
She’s openly giggling now, adding spaces between words to catch her breath. “I swear. I didn’t. Promise.”
“I’m keeping my eye on you,” I say. “Napkins aren’t going to cut it. Check the backseat. Is there anything back there?” I look away as she scampers over the console and probably flashes some serious thigh. The idea makes my blood pound. I shift and try to think of anything but the fact that she’s in my backseat.
She picks up my glove and a Frisbee. “Looks like you’re out of luck.”
“Figures.” Marcos had begged to help me wash my car last weekend. He’d manned the hose, Carly had been in charge of music and snacks, and Ana had shoved all the junk and clothing in the backseat into plastic grocery bags. Those bags are still sitting in the garage in Cross Pointe, pissing Paul off.
I swallow down the memory. The fact that I won’t have to worry about Marcos dropping his sponge in the dirt, then using it—gravel and all—to wash my car doors. And that I won’t get to play “expert” for Ana’s boy questions: So, if a guy gets this funny look on his face every time you catch him looking at you, what does that mean? There’s got to be a way I can keep them in my life, even if Carly and I are broken up.
“Um, you could take off your shirt?”
Her voice cuts right through the knot in my stomach. “What?”
I love that she’s blushing and studying her absurd green nails when she clarifies. “You’ve got a shirt on under your polo. What if you used that?”
“Brighton I-don’t-know-your-middle-name Waterford, are you asking me to strip?” It’s so good to laugh that I do for longer than I should. And when she stops blushing and joins in, I have to plant my feet to keep myself from going to her.
And I fail at it. I’m opening the back door before my brain’s caught on to what my fingers are doing. “I’m scandalized,” I tease, offering her a hand and helping her out. Then, while she’s still standing that close, I pull off both shirts. When I feel her eyes on me, I’m grateful I haven’t stopped working out just because I quit baseball.
“Here, hold this,” I say, handing her my polo. Then, with a little bit of swagger, I take the two steps to reach the windshield and attack the lip gloss. I hope she’s admiring me the way I admired her. I flex a bit as I lean farther.
“Jonah?”
It might be wishful thinking, but I think she sounds a little breathless. I grin. “Yes?”
“Your phone’s about to fall out of your pocket.”