“Yeah.”
We maneuver by a few empty beer cans and an abandoned green-and-yellow beach towel, and Seth takes my hand in his. The lights of East Rockport twinkle at us from the other side of the bay. If you can ignore the fishy smell in the air, it’s almost romantic.
“So you think your mom will ever leave?” Seth asks. “After you do?”
I shrug. “Who knows? I think at this point she’s probably pretty settled. Honestly, things with John seem pretty serious.” I pause, and Seth waits for me while I think. “I know I complain about him because he voted Republican, but the truth is, she really seems to like him and he does actually seem okay. I guess it is good for my mom to do something that makes her happy.”
“I’m sure my parents will head back to Austin after this crazy small-town Texas experiment is over,” he says. “They always follow their whims.”
I’m seized by a horrible feeling. “But not right away, right? I mean, you don’t think they’ll get tired of East Rockport anytime soon?” I try to make my voice sound casual.
But Seth grins. “Why, would you miss me or something?”
“Shut up,” I say. “And yes.”
“I think their East Rockport performance art piece will probably last until I finish high school at least. So I’m not going anywhere.”
Now it’s my turn to grin. We walk to the picnic tables and sit down next to each other. Seth squeezes my hand. I lean my head on his shoulder.
“I liked meeting your parents,” I say.
“Well, I’m glad they didn’t totally overwhelm you,” Seth says. “They’re just weird. God, this one time my mother actually…” He stops, like his brain just caught up with his mouth. “Forget it.”
“Now you have to tell me.”
“It’s embarrassing.”
“What?” I insist, elbowing him a little.
Seth looks out at the bay as he answers. “My mom literally bought me a box of condoms for my sixteenth birthday after I started going out with Samantha,” he says. “She wrapped them in fancy wrapping paper and put a bow on them and everything.”
Seth owning condoms. Seth having sex with Samantha. Seth wanting to have sex with me. Seth and me having sex. Condoms, sex, Seth, sex, sex, and sex. That’s essentially what runs through my mind in the seconds after Seth speaks.
“Did you have to unwrap the present in front of her?”
“Yes!” Seth says, shouting and laughing at the same time. “She put the box on my dinner plate. My dad took a picture. I can only hope to God it’s not online somewhere.”
“You are not serious.”
“I am serious.”
“Holy shit.”
“Exactly. My mom told me it’s what the Dutch do and she thought it was, I don’t know, progressive or something.”
“Wow,” I say, but my heart is hammering. I muster up the courage to ask. “So you and Samantha…?”
Seth shakes his head no, just slightly.
“We never did. I don’t know … I mean, I was … interested, I’m not going to lie. But she wasn’t sure. So it just, like, never happened.”
I tuck some hair behind my ear, suddenly feeling bold.
“So you’ve never, like, done it?”
“No,” he says. His voice drops to almost a whisper. “You?”
“No!” I say, incredulous. “I told you I’ve never even gone out with anyone before.”
“Okay, okay,” he says, squeezing my hand again and laughing a little. “I was just wondering.”
I rub my thumb over one of Seth’s knuckles. I breathe in the minty, yummy smell of him.
“I think if you like someone a lot, like, a lot, and you really care about them, and you’ve been together for a while, it’s okay, though,” I whisper, my body humming. It’s what I’ve always believed to be true. Even before I met Seth.
“Yeah,” Seth says. “Me, too.” Bubbles are exploding under my skin and my cheeks are warm and I’m a little dizzy. I lean into Seth and we kiss and somehow it’s like a new kind of kissing. Kissing full of even more possibility, which is both scary and exciting.
Eventually I have to be getting home, so after one final kiss we pry ourselves apart and head back to his car. As Seth drives toward my house he says, “Valentine’s Day is coming up.”
“Okay,” I tell him, shooting him a look, “but I’m not having sex with you next week.”
Seth bursts out laughing. “I know! I was just pointing it out. Like that this thing, this societally approved day of romance, is occurring next week.”
“Yeah, Wednesday. Please don’t buy me a stuffed teddy bear from the Walgreens.”
“What?” Seth says, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, have we just met? Hi, I’m Seth.”
“The couples at East Rockport get really into Valentine’s Day in this super-cheesy way,” I say. “Lots of teddy bears that say I Wuv U on the tummies. Lots of cheap chocolate and grocery-store roses.”
“I could never do that to a Moxie girl,” Seth says, pulling into my neighborhood.
“Ugh, don’t say that, it makes me depressed.” I frown at my reflection in the passenger window.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to,” Seth offers.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I just wish things were different.” The heady, awesome day that the girls tagged the school with Moxie stickers seems like a million years ago. Since Principal Wilson’s threats at assembly and Lucy getting into trouble, things have gone back to East Rockport’s version of normal. Mitchell and his friends still ask girls to make them a sandwich. There was a brief but vicious streak of dress code checks at the end of January. We haven’t even tried to have another bake sale for the girls’ soccer team because doing it under a different name just isn’t as exciting.
“It’s cool you tried, but it’s hard to believe anything will ever permanently change that school,” Seth says, his headlights illuminating my street. “At least you know you have one more year and then you’re out of there.”
I frown, a little irritated. “Maybe, but it’s not like there aren’t going to be girls left behind after I leave. I didn’t do Moxie for me. I did it for girls.” I shake my head a little. “Forget it, that sounds like I have some huge crazy ego or something.”
“No, I get it,” Seth says, pulling into my driveway. I look up and see the lights are on. My mom’s home.
“I don’t know if you could really get it,” I say, sighing. “Not until someone plays the bump ’n’ grab game with you.”
“You can always play the bump ’n’ grab game with me, if that helps,” Seth says, and the tiny part of me that wishes he wouldn’t make a joke of it disappears as soon as we press our lips together.
“See you later,” he says with a grin, and I melt for the millionth time that night.
When I get inside, my mom is curled up on the couch, watching television.
“How was dinner?” she asks.
“Okay. Seth’s parents are these artists from Austin and they’re a little … I guess you could say intense.”
“Oh man, I know the artist-from-Austin type,” my mom says.
“I’m gonna get some ice cream,” I tell her. “You want some?”