“You didn’t text me back,” he said. “I missed you.”
“I missed you too,” I murmured against his lips. He’d shaved off the stubble and his skin felt thrillingly new.
“Aww, you guys are so cute,” Lexa said. A beat of pride pulsed through my chest.
“How much longer is your shift?” Aiden leaned against the counter. “I can stick around if you want to hang after.”
I shook my head. “I’m here until six but I have to go right home. Family dinner.”
“Skip it.”
If only. “Not a chance.”
He plucked a chocolate coin from the pot o’ gold by the register and flipped it into the air. “Maybe I could steal you out of here a little early.” He tossed the coin again. “Lexa, what do you say, can you handle all these customers on your own?” He gestured around the empty store.
I shot Lexa an apologetic glance, wanting her to know she could say no. It was my turn to close up. But she was already waving me away. “I’ve got it,” she said. “You two have fun. I’ll punch you out so Mr. Sugarman won’t know.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really.”
“You’re the best.” I tugged off my apron and grabbed my coat and bag from the back room before she could change her mind. When I returned a few seconds later, Aiden was eating the chocolate coin. I dropped two quarters on the counter to pay for it.
“I’ve never skipped out on work before,” I said as we slipped out the door. I felt fluttery and giddy with sudden freedom.
He slid his arm around my waist. “I’m glad you can’t resist me.”
I shoved him lightly. “Oh, I can resist.”
“Yeah? You sure about that?” He pulled me in for a full-body kiss.
“Positive,” I said. But I didn’t even try.
Two hours later, I let myself in the front door of my house and crouched to greet Rufus. “How mad are they?” I whispered as I leaned my forehead against his and scratched behind his soft orange ears. Roo looked soulfully into my eyes and gave a hopeful wag, but we both knew the answer was probably “furious.” I shrugged off my coat, unwound my scarf, and went into the dining room to face my fate.
My parents were seated at the table, a bottle of wine and a lidded casserole dish between them. “Hello,” I said.
Mom set down her wineglass and regarded me coolly. “Where have you been? We expected you home forty-five minutes ago.”
I tried to look surprised. “You didn’t get my text?”
Her head jerked slightly. “What text?” I wished I had been smart enough to send one. I should have known I would be late. I should have anticipated I would get lost in the kissing and talking and talking and kissing. I honestly hadn’t realized how swiftly the time had passed.
“The text about staying late. Mr. Sugarman asked me to help out with inventory.”
My mother looked at my father. “No, we did not get your text,” he said. I could tell they didn’t quite believe me.
“Oh. It must not have gone through.” I took out my phone and fumbled around with it. “Look, I can show you, I sent it around four. He asked me to stay late because he’s noticed I’m very responsible and he wants to train me in a few more tasks. He said he thinks I might be junior manager material, if I want to stay on and work full-time through the summer.”
Mom looked skeptical but my father perked right up. “Junior manager? That’s great. Is there a raise involved?”
“I think two dollars an hour. But not until summer.”
Dad nodded sharply. “Ask for three.”
Mom sighed. She sounded tired. Well, maybe she would be less exhausted if she spent less energy telling everyone else what to do all the time. “Put away your phone and wash up for dinner. Your father set the table for you tonight, but I hope you realize more responsibility at work doesn’t mean your obligations at home disappear.”
Of course it didn’t. “Thanks, Dad,” I said, fleeing to the bathroom before my luck ran out. We’re disappointed in you could too easily turn into and you’re grounded, but I seemed to have gotten away with it. I was pretty good at this fibbing thing. Kyle would be proud.
I washed my hands and splashed water on my face, checking my reflection as I patted my cheeks dry. My lips felt swollen from all of Aiden’s kisses but the only sign of our make-out session was the happiness radiating out of me.
I hung up the hand towel and took one last glance at the mirror. I looked like a girl who was falling in love.
Eleven
“SO.” CICILY SNAPPED HER GUM AND GAVE ME A pointed look. “You and Mr. Motorcycle. What is the deal.”
“Hmm?” I said. As if I would tell Cicily anything. I had learned that lesson way back in seventh grade, when she extracted the confession that I’d sucked my thumb until, like, age ten, pinkie-swore never to tell another soul on earth, then revealed it to a roomful of girls the next weekend and expected me to somehow laugh along. She was basically a human snake, but with no apple in it for any of us.
“C’mon, spill.” She leaned against the locker next to mine, boxing me in and completely ignoring OJ, who was standing there waiting to get inside it. “Everyone’s talking about it. I heard Ty is super pissed. He thinks you’re rubbing the rebound in his face.”
“He does?” I blurted, before remembering Cicily’s word should never be taken as truth and Tyson didn’t matter. He certainly hadn’t looked pissed when I had passed him in the hallway earlier. For the first time in weeks, he’d even given a little nod to acknowledge my existence. But I wasn’t scrambling for those scraps of approval anymore. “Whatever. Ty can think what he wants. He’s irrelevant to me.”
“Amen,” Jo said, coming up behind me.
“Mm-hmm.” Cicily clearly was not convinced.
“Excuse me,” OJ ventured, trying to angle toward her locker.
Cicily didn’t budge. “So this new guy. Aiden. Is he in college? He looks older.”
OJ shifted her books and opened her mouth, then closed it again. I wished she would bulldoze through and send Cicily flying. “He’s nineteen,” I said, ignoring the other half of the question. “You know, you’re blocking OJ’s locker.”
“Oh!” Cicily bowed out of the way with a sweep of her arm. “Sooooo sorry, OJ.”
OJ glared like this was somehow my fault. I considered whether to tell her that her shirt was buttoned wrong or if that might cause her to breathe fire.
“Kind of a big change for you, huh?” Cicily pressed. Her nostrils flared like she was sniffing for blood. “I mean, Ty is so clean-cut and preppy, and this guy seems really . . . different.” Not for the first time, I wondered if Cicily had a thing for Ty. Well, she was welcome to him.
“He is,” I said. “He’s completely different. To be honest, Tyson wasn’t my type. He’s great and all, but I was never that into him.” It wasn’t fully true, but I hoped it would get back to him. I definitely hadn’t liked him the way I liked Aiden, and I for sure wasn’t Tyson’s type. Tyson’s type was himself. He hadn’t wanted me, he’d wanted a female fan club, evidently one with multiple members.
Aiden didn’t have Tyson’s debate-tournament trophies, expensive clothes, or Nottingham Terrace pedigree, but none of that stuff mattered. My family wasn’t wealthy or perfect either. When Aiden looked at me, I felt wanted. I felt noticed. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, and the only girl in his world. Remembering the lazy, arrogant way Ty had pursued me, and how I’d lapped up his lukewarm attention, I was embarrassed now for us both.
“Is the interrogation over?” Jo asked. “I want french fries.”
“Me too.” I shut my locker. “See you later, Cee. And hey, OJ, your shirt’s misbuttoned.” I turned my back on OJ’s scowl and followed Jo down the hall, savoring our impending freedom. One more Monday down, fourteen to go before we graduated and escaped this place forever. But first there would be french fries and a milkshake at Bob’s Diner, while we waited for Eric to finish his group project for Spanish
so he could take us home in the Wildebeest.
“Do you think she was born that way?” Jo mused as we walked toward the exit.
“Who, OJ?” I pictured a pissed-off, snarling baby, though more likely she grew into her anger with puberty.
OJ had arrived at Franklin Magnet Middle School already sporting significant breasts, and I remembered more than one classmate thinking her body was somehow their business. That would have raised my defenses too.
“Cicily.”
“Yes, Cicily was definitely born obnoxious.”
But Jo was feeling charitable. “She’s not obnoxious. She’s just nosy and oblivious.”
“And that’s obnoxious.”
Jo pushed open the door and I took a blast of cold air to the face. The distant promise of summer was so much sweeter now that it had Aiden in it. Instead of being the last real summer of Jo and me, this would be the first summer of me with him. “You still haven’t forgiven her for what she said at Kacey Hill’s sleepover,” Jo said.
“I have not,” I confirmed. “And she still hasn’t noticed.”
“You hold a grudge like an elephant.”
“I do not!” I said. Jo laughed. “Okay, I do. But she had no right to share that. I got called Thumbelina for the rest of seventh grade.”
“All two weeks of it.”
“Whatever. She’s still dead to me.”
“And thus, to me,” Jo declared, and even though this was old news, I still felt glad of it.
“Also it was unacceptable and gross how she clearly had a crush on my brother,” I said. “Friends’ brothers should be off-limits.”
“Friends’ brothers are off-limits,” Jo said. She hooked her arm through mine.
As we stepped off the curb to cut through the faculty parking lot, my phone buzzed with a text. I paused and checked the screen. On your left
I looked and there was Aiden, leaning against Ralph at the edge of the senior lot. “Jo!” I said. She was already two cars ahead of me. She turned to see what I was grinning about. “Come on, you can finally meet him.”
Jo patted her hair, pretending to primp. “How do I look?” she joked.
“Gorgeous,” I replied, but my eyes were already on Aiden’s. Even from a hundred feet away, he pulled me in like a magnet trained on my heart. “Hey,” I said as we reached him.
“Hey.” He kissed me. “Surprise.” He nudged my nose with his own.
Jo cleared her throat. I’d almost forgotten she was with me. “Sorry,” I said, pulling away from his lips. “Aiden, this is Jo. Jo, this is Aiden. And Ralph,” I added, touching the bike.
She snorted out a laugh. “Ralph, like the penis?”
Aiden and I stared at her.
“Forever? Judy Blume?” Aiden shook his head and Jo chortled. “It’s basically synonymous with dick,” she said.
I issued a cease-and-desist with my eyes. Making fun of the motorcycle was not good.
She pulled herself together. “Never mind. Pleased to meet you.” She stuck out her hand.
He shook it. “Likewise.”
A beat passed in silence, then Aiden turned to me. “So . . . shall we?” He lifted his helmet. Jo’s eyebrows shot up.
“Oh,” I said, looking at both their expectant faces. “I can’t. I promised Jo—we’re going to get french fries. At the diner down the street.”
Aiden’s expression didn’t change but I felt a wave of disappointment roll off him and crash into me. I’m sorry. I’d rather go with you, I tried to tell him with telepathy. But I couldn’t ditch Jo. Not again.
“Come with us,” Jo offered, before I could think to do the same.
Aiden hesitated and for a second I was certain he would say no, but he shrugged. “Sure. I like french fries.”
“Cool,” Jo said, and the knots inside me unraveled. This was perfect, actually. I felt weirdly grateful to them both.
Aiden locked up his helmet and we set off toward Bob’s. Jo led the way and I fell into step beside her, before realizing the sidewalk wasn’t wide enough for three. I slowed my pace to kind of hover in between them, but Aiden reached out and took my hand. He laced his fingers through mine and pulled me to his side.
Jo glanced back but didn’t comment. It was a short walk, anyway.
We followed her down East North Street, past the flow of student cars escaping the school parking lot. The sidewalk was gritty beneath the soles of my sneakers and Aiden’s lace-up boots. I liked the sound of the crunch our feet made with each step—the rhythm of us.
“God, I would kill for it to be spring.” Jo spun around to walk backward so she could face us. “What do we need to sacrifice, and to which goddess, to make this winter finally end?”
Winters in our corner of western New York were fifty shades of gray, none of them alluring, except when it was pitch-black or snowing. And this year we’d had barely any snow—just cold, dampness, and ice. Jo had already declared it the most depressing winter on record two months before, and we still had a few weeks left before the grays would shift to browns. It was hard to even imagine the green that might follow. But it hadn’t been bothering me so much in the past week. Now that winter contained picnics, lake walks, and Aiden, it seemed nearly as beautiful as autumn.
“We could try sacrificing Stella,” I suggested, and at the look in Jo’s eyes, instantly regretted it. “She’d still have eight more lives,” I added to soften it.
Jo huffed and turned back around, but I knew she’d already forgiven me. Besides, now we were even for her comments about Ralph.
Aiden squeezed my hand. “I don’t like cats either,” he said. I wouldn’t have defined myself that way—I loved all animals, even Stella, my nemesis—but I squeezed back.
When we got to Bob’s Diner it was mostly empty as usual. The two fast-food places down the road got a lot more after-school traffic. At this hour, Bob’s was typically only patronized by old men, Jo, and me, plus sometimes Eric if it wasn’t soccer season. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen another teenager inside.
I watched Aiden take it all in as we followed Jo to our red, saggy booth in the back. “Is this okay?” I asked, suddenly worried he might be annoyed I had dragged him along. I didn’t yet know him well enough to tell if his quietness was normal or sulky.
“Sure,” he said. “I mean, I’d rather have you all to myself, but it’s fine. Smells like they’ve got coffee.”
“They do.” Not that I had ever ordered that.
We slid into the booth and released ourselves from our winter layers. Jo and I did, anyway. Aiden kept on his leather jacket and flagged the waitress. She wiped off our table with a cloth that smelled like fake lemon and bleach, and plopped down three menus. “Anything to drink?”
“Coffee,” Aiden said. “Black.”
“Me too.”
Jo gave me a little smirk, which I ignored. “I’ll have some too. With cream, please,” she said.
“You got it.” The waitress turned away.
Aiden put his hand on my leg and pressed gently. “There’s nothing hotter than a woman who takes her coffee pure.” The warmth of his touch shot through me.
“Oh?” Jo said. The waitress returned with three mugs in one hand and a coffeepot in the other. Jo picked up two sugar packets from the collection on the table, shook them, ripped the tops, and tipped them both into her cup at once. The waitress poured.
“I’ll be right back with that cream, hon.”
Jo smiled. “Thank you.”
Aiden picked up the menu with his free hand. “What’s good here?”
“We always get fries and a milkshake,” I said. “I’m not sure they even serve anything else.”
“The milkshakes are the perfect consistency for fry-dipping,” Jo explained. “Not too thin, not too thick. So you get the best combination of salty plus sweet and hot plus cold.”
“That’s . . . weird,” Aiden said. “I think I’ll try the burger.”
Jo shrugged. “Your loss.”
We placed our
order and I sipped my coffee, watching Jo stir in her cream. It tasted a bit burnt—definitely not as good as the other coffee I’d been drinking lately—but no way was I reaching for the sugar after that comment from Aiden. I reminded myself that I liked it this way, and took another sip.
Under the table, Aiden’s thumb made slow circles on my thigh. I tried to focus on what Jo was saying, but his touch was too distracting. All I could process was his hand caressing my leg and the way my body buzzed from wanting more.
Maybe I should have apologized to Jo in the parking lot and let Aiden whisk me away. By now he could be pressing the whole length of his body against mine, running his hands up my sides as he kissed my neck and jaw and lips, as he had done last night after my shift. I wanted that so badly it was hard to see straight.
In that moment, I knew: I was going to sleep with him.
The waitress dropped our plates in front of us and Aiden lifted his hand from my leg, releasing me from his spell. I wondered how many people he’d had sex with. Probably at least two. I tried not to be jealous of whoever they were. It was good if he was experienced. But I would be responsible and ask him to get tested first, and we would use condoms, of course. If I was ready to have sex, I needed to be ready to have that conversation. And despite never even really considering doing it in those months with Ty—I’d always thought, before this, that I would wait until college, when I was no longer living in my parents’ house, no longer subject to their rules, and that I’d date the guy for at least a semester first—with Aiden I was ready. He was the One.
I dipped a fry in the chocolate milkshake Jo and I were splitting, and popped it into my mouth before the ice cream could drip off. Jo and I locked eyes and smiled as we both chewed and swallowed. It really was the perfect combination.
“How’s the burger?” I asked Aiden. He was already halfway through it.
“Decent,” he said. “Want a bite?”
“No thanks.”
Jo dipped three fries at once. “Betts doesn’t eat red meat,” she said.
Aiden almost choked in surprise. “What? Not even bacon?”
I shook my head. “No bacon.” Bacon had been the first thing to go. Jo and Eric and I had given it up together after watching Babe: Pig in the City when we were eight.
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