Happy Again
Page 8
“Has anyone ever suggested that you might have some control issues?” he says with a smile, stepping back again. He takes the paper gently from her hand and smooths it out again. “Looks like this rules out number eight, too.”
“The fall formal,” she says with a nod. “Our first dance.”
“Right,” he says. “No chance of getting into the gym, either. Too bad I’m not allowed to be romantic, or else I’d make you dance with me right here.”
“That’s okay,” she says. “I’ve already seen your moves.”
“Not all of them. But don’t worry. The night is still young. I’m saving my best stuff for later.”
“I can’t wait,” she tells him, realizing just how much she means it.
Whatever happens later, they still have the rest of tonight.
And maybe that will be enough.
She links her arm with his, leaning into him as they start to walk back to the car. A breeze picks up, and for the first time Clare notices there’s a bite to it: an early hint of autumn. Normally, she loves this time of year, and for weeks now, whenever she’s told someone about Dartmouth, they’ve brought up the fall foliage in New Hampshire: the brilliant reds and yellows and oranges spread out over the campus and beyond. Clare has no doubt she’ll find it enchanting once she gets there. But right now, she doesn’t want to think about the coming of a new season. She just wants to live in this one for as long as she possibly can.
They’re nearly to the car when she stops short.
“Shoot,” she says, glancing back over her shoulder. “I meant to get a souvenir.”
“So this is a scavenger hunt.”
“I just thought it might be nice. You know, to have something from each place we stop tonight.”
Aidan tilts his head at her. “You sure this wasn’t just an elaborate plan to steal all those precious gemstones from the Earth Science classroom?”
“I think precious might be overstating it,” she says. “But no.”
“Okay, then,” he says, stooping to grab an ordinary-looking rock from the ground at his feet. It’s slate gray and rounded at the edges, and he rubs at it with the end of his plaid shirt before handing it over with a solemn look.
“Here,” he says, and Clare feels the weight of it in her palm. She runs her thumb over the smooth surface, thinking back to that first day she’d seen him in class, the way his face had lit up when he turned over the rock to find all those purple crystals, like it was a fortune cookie or an Easter egg, the best kind of surprise.
“By my authority,” Aidan is saying now, “as a B-plus student in Mr. Coady’s junior year Earth Science class, I’m pleased to inform you that this little gem is now officially considered precious.”
And here’s the amazing thing: Now it was.
Contents
Cover
Title page
Welcome
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Epilogue
Also by Jennifer E. Smith
Don’t stop reading now!
A sneak peek of Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Jennifer E. Smith Inc.
Excerpt from Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between copyright © 2015 by Jennifer E. Smith Inc.
Cover photograph © Stacey Bramhall / Getty Images
Cover design by Maggie Edkins
Cover © 2015 Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: April 2015
ISBN 978-0-316-30565-5
E3