Rand? Wow. It felt like an eternity had passed since then. I picked up a stick and began picking the bark off it. "We had a difference of opinion."
"I'd like to hear about it."
He didn't demand. He didn't judge. He simply asked nicely, and that was one of things I liked about him. He respected me, and he showed it. I angled my head so I could look at him, but he was staring across the lake. His face was lit by the moon, so his skin was a bluish, grayish, glowing color. "Why do you want to know?"
"Because."
Because he liked me and wanted to know whether Rand was out of the picture? I could only hope. On the chance my wish might come true, it was worth it to tell Tad what had happened. "He wanted to kiss me, and I didn't want to."
His neck tensed, but he still didn't look at me. "Why not?"
"Um ..." I chewed my lower lip while I tried to figure out how to explain something I wasn't sure I even understood.
"I thought you liked him." Tad still didn't look at me.
"I did. Or I thought I did." I'd been wrong.
"What changed?" He stole a sideways glance at me, then focused on the horizon again.
I rubbed my chin. "I'm not sure. I guess... well... I'm tired of people ditching me."
"What makes you think he would have ditched you?"
I rolled my eyes. "Give me a break. I'm the queen of short relationships. I look for that kind of guy, and Rand is the perfect specimen. No attention span, which is exactly what I wanted."
Tad finally gave up the pretense of not listening and turned to look at me. "So, if he's perfect, why'd you dunk him? Playing hard to get?"
"No." I pursed my lips. "I'm just sick of being ditched. I don't want to play that game anymore." There. I'd said it. I'd put the truth out there. And you know what? It wasn't so hard, and it didn't feel so scary.
We were quiet for a moment, letting my confession linger in the night.
"Who ditched you?" Tad finally asked.
I hugged my knees to my chest. "My dad."
He made a noise of sympathy. "What happened? Divorce?"
"Well, yeah, but that's not the problem. He took off for California, and I haven't spent very much time with him in six years. I was supposed to go out and stay with him for the summer and get to know the woman he's going to marry, but then he called the night before I was supposed to leave and disinvited me." I bit my lip. Jerk.
Tad sighed. "That sucks."
I couldn't help but laugh at his emphatic tone. "I know." Then I sobered. "Most people think it's cool that I have no parental supervision. My friends tell me all the time how lucky I am that my mom is never home and no one cares if I stay out all night."
"It has its advantages," Tad said. "But it sucks to be ditched by your parents." He paused, then gently elbowed me. "You want parental supervision? Then come hang at my house." He grinned. "My family loves you."
Warmth settled in my belly. "Really?" I mean, that made me feel great that his family loved me, because they were amazing… but what about him? How did he feel about me?
"Yep. You heard them. My mom already has you on her list of potential superstars that she has to mold into greatness.”
Greatness? There was the possibility of greatness in my future? I remembered how excited Tad's mom had been about my voice, and how awesome that had felt. "Maybe I will come over to your place."
He nodded… and then I wasn't sure what to say next. It was just him, just me, sitting side by side on a towel in our bathing suits. Moonlight on the lake, a warm breeze, wet hair. It was completely romantic, and I suddenly wanted him to kiss me. Not some older guy. Not some college kid. I wanted Tad, so much it actually kind of hurt. So... what now?
Tad cleared his throat. "Ready to head up to camp?"
Oh… disappointment surged through me. I'd been thinking about kissing him, and he'd been thinking that it was time to go back? "Sure." I tried not to sound bummed.
Tad hopped down and took my hand to help me jump off, but then he let go once I was on the ground. He walked me to my tent, then sort of stood there for a minute. "So, um, tomorrow we head back."
Yeah… to the farm. "Back to real life."
He nodded. "Back to carrots and tomatoes."
My stomach turned to sludge at the thought. What if he returned to the old Tad? "Tad?"
He was watching me closely. "What?"
"Are you going to be mean again on Monday?"
He lifted a brow. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, you were pretty impatient with me when we were at work. Nothing like how you've been up here." Gah. How pathetic did I sound? I was a major loser. As if whether Tad was nice or not could affect me. But it did. I wanted him to keep being like this.
His hand went toward my arm, but he dropped it before he actually touched me. "I thought you were different from how you really are. I misjudged you."
I relaxed a little bit. That wasn't exactly an apology, but it was close. "You did?"
He nodded. "We'll be cool."
Cool? What did that mean? Why didn't he just grab me and kiss me and tell me he was so glad I wasn't interested in Rand because he couldn't live without me?
He touched my shoulder. "See you in the morning.
"In the morning." Yeah, that was so romantic.
Then he turned away and walked off to his tent. Gave me a little wave, then disappeared through the flaps.
Never had I wanted a boy to kiss me more, and never had I felt more at a loss for how to let him know. Or maybe he did know, and he didn't care. Or maybe he did know and the thought repulsed him. Was there any chance that he did want to kiss me and didn't have the courage?
For the first time in my life, I needed my friends' advice on boys. Badly.
AUTHOR BIO
Four-time RITA® Award nominee and Golden Heart® Award winner Stephanie Rowe is a nationally bestselling author with more than twenty published books with major New York publishers such as Grand Central, HarperCollins, Harlequin, Dorchester and Sourcebooks.
She has received coveted starred reviews from Booklist and high praise from Publisher's Weekly, calling out her "...snappy patter, goofy good humor and enormous imagination... [a] genre-twister that will make readers...rabid for more." Stephanie's work has been nominated as YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers.
Stephanie lives in Boston where she plays tennis, works out, and is happily working on her next book. Visit Stephanie on the web at www.stephanierowe.com.
DEDICATION
For all the girls who know how great it feels to sweat.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thank you to Deidre Knight, Jia Gayles, Melissa Jeglinski and all the folks at the Knight Agency for all their hard work on this series. You all are amazing! And special thank you to Sharon Stogner and Jan Leyh for their amazing work to help get these books in shape.
Smart Boys & Fast Girls (A Girlfriend's Guide to Boys) Page 15