April squealed and wriggled away from my hands. “Number four,” she loudly whispered, “the fact that Talbot is a freaking Urbat demon hunter is, like, blowing my mind!” Her voice rose on the last word so it was almost a shout. I pounced on her again, practically knocking her flat on the bus bench, and tried to cover her mouth. She giggled and pushed me off her. “Okay, okay. I’ll try to be quiet. But this is, like, too awesome. You have to let me be all girly about your secret rendezvous with Talbot for a moment.”
“I know,” I whispered. “But if Principal Conway or Gabriel … Pastor Saint Moon, I mean, find out that I went out with Talbot alone, don’t you think they’ll have a problem with that? I don’t want them to find out I was working with him one-on-one—let alone what we were doing.”
April waggled her eyebrows at me.
“It’s not like that …,” I said. “Besides, I don’t want Chris to get into trouble for ditching out.”
“You’re a terrible liar. I can see those splotch marks on your neck.”
I rubbed my neck. “I’m just hot.”
“I’ll bet you are.”
“April, seriously. It’s not like that. Talbot’s just a new friend. You know how I feel about Daniel.” I meant what I said, but my neck still felt all hot and itchy. I pulled a water bottle out of my backpack and took a sip.
“Yeah, but how is Daniel going to feel about this? Any boy is going to have a problem with his girlfriend being all one-on-one with a hot guy—especially if you’re getting all hot and sweaty. Don’t you think Daniel will be jealous that he’s not the one doing it with you?”
I choked and almost spat water at her.
“I meant doing it as in Daniel wanting to kick bad-guy butt with you … not … you know … not you two ‘getting it on.’ ” She made a weird gesture with her hands that I assumed had something to do with “getting it on.” “Unless, you and Daniel are. You know … Um, you’re not, right? Because I heard—”
I coughed and cleared my throat. “No, Daniel and I aren’t ‘getting it on.’ No matter what anyone says.”
Thanks to my superhearing and all those lovely rumors Lynn Bishop spread last school year, I knew there were plenty of people who thought Daniel and I were “getting it on.” But we most definitely weren’t. Not that we didn’t think about it or want to—just the sight of Daniel most days made my heart race and my legs ache with anticipation.
It was just that, to me, sex was a big deal.
I mean, it was a running joke at HTA that if my dad substitute taught one of the religion classes, it was no doubt going to be a lesson on chastity. And let me tell you, having to sit through your dad’s lecturing all of your friends about abstinence—not the funfest you’d think it would be. But even though Dad’s spiels always made me want to bang my head on my desk, I couldn’t help believing the things he was telling us about waiting for marriage. It just seemed to go with the whole package, you know? That if I believed in Jesus, and believed in all those parables he taught, and believed in forgiving people, then what the Bible had to say about sex being sacred and special had to be right, too.
And as much as I wanted it—and I knew Daniel was the one I wanted it with—I also wanted to wait. Even if it was one of the hardest choices I’ve ever had to make.
I’d worried my decision would be a problem for Daniel. We’d lived very different lives during the three years he’d been gone, and he’d, um, gotten it on, so to speak, more than once. But one of the things I loved about Daniel was that he’d completely understood.
“You’re different from those other girls,” Daniel once told me. “We’re different. I love you. And I want things to be right with us.”
But now with all the lying and fighting and secrets that were suddenly happening between Daniel and me—it almost felt like nothing was quite right with us anymore.
“So are you going to tell him?” April asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.
“Tell who what?”
“Are you going to tell Daniel about Talbot and you?”
“I told you, there is no Talbot and me.”
“But there could be,” she crooned.