My hand struck out and hit him on the shoulder before I could think. “That’s Jane Austen. You read Jane Austen!”
He nodded. “I went and bought that book you had after I found it at the field.”
“Sense and Sensibility? Why?”
“So I’d have something to talk to you about. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but conversation isn’t one of my strengths.”
“How were you going to work it in?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if we were hanging out, and there was a conversational lull, I could be, like, ‘Man, that Willoughby’s a dick, right?’”
“He’s not, really. He is but he isn’t. Mr. Wickham’s the real douche bag of Jane’s work.”
“Yeah, Wickham. I fucking hate that guy.”
“You read Pride and Prejudice, too?”
“I thought it was like a sequel or something.”
No one had ever read a book for me before, let alone two. Eighth-grade boyfriend Kyle Morris asked me out via text message.
“I don’t know how to talk like they do,” Ezra continued after a moment. “But … I feel about you the way they feel in those books. The way those guys feel about those girls that they don’t always deserve.”
I met his gaze for a second. That was all I could manage, torn between embarrassment and elation. “Some of them are really deserving,” I said. “Some of them are great. And not at all douchey.”
He grinned, crooked bottom teeth and all. “Not at all douchey. That’s awesome. I should put that on my résumé.”
I laughed, a short breath of laughter. And then it was quiet.
And for a moment more there was space between us and I was acutely aware of it, and then suddenly there was significantly less space. Ezra moved, or I moved, I don’t know—it doesn’t matter, because there was Ezra Lynley, eyes turned down as he slipped his hands around my waist. I rested my hands on his shoulders as if we were going to dance a middle school dance, but there was no room for the Holy Ghost, or being nervous, or awkward, it just felt right. Intensely right, intensely excellent, and then he looked at me and it was that most golden moment of Jane’s books sprung to life. It was the getting-together part.
The remaining space between us disappeared. Ezra and I kissed.
A vague thought skirted through my mind of so this is what kissing feels like, but then all I could really focus on was Ezra, his mouth, his hair, those arms circling around me and holding tight.
A thousand electric cars could run on how you feel when you know that the person you like likes you back. It feels incredible. Like it shouldn’t be possible. Of all the happy coincidences to ever exist, it’s one of the happiest.
And yet, when Ezra and I kissed, there weren’t fireworks igniting the night sky, or an orchestra swelling, or any of the other hackneyed clichés that feature prominently in tweenhood imaginings of first kisses. We didn’t proceed to ride off on horseback to his sprawling estate and ten thousand pounds a year. We just kissed, and it was … thoroughly awesome … and then I leaned against him and we stood that way for a while, arms around each other. Ezra didn’t count to three hundred this time. His breathing was even and steady, and there was just this pure, unadulterated, highly concentrated happy. Baking chocolate for the soul.
After a while, we kissed again and said good night, and then kissed some more, and then, finally—just another long kiss, three short kisses, and a scattering of little ones—Ezra got into his truck and drove away. I watched his taillights disappear in the distance, and then I retreated back in, my insides feeling like warm honey, my lips red with a fun new feeling.
“You look weird,” Foster said when I finally entered his room again. My parents glanced up, but if they noticed anything amiss, they were kind enough not to say.
“Your face looks weird,” I replied.
“Devon,” my mom said, but she was smiling.
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