“Hmm,” he said, putting his hand back on my leg. “I’m not sure I can trust someone who doesn’t like bacon.”
“So you’re anti-Semitic?” Jo said. I wanted to kick her. That obviously wasn’t what Aiden had meant and her family wasn’t kosher. But Jo had never met a confrontation she didn’t like. “I’m Jewish, by the way. And a full vegetarian, just in case Betts didn’t warn you. Highly untrustworthy.”
“I didn’t know Asians could be Jewish,” Aiden said.
I cringed but Jo looked at him evenly. “My dad’s family is Jewish. My mom’s family is Thai. Ta-da: Asian Jew.”
“Cool,” Aiden said, and they dropped it.
The seconds ticked by. Aiden finished his burger. Jo watched me add salt to the fries. I avoided her eyes but felt them boring into me. For some reason, she was determined not to make this easy.
I wasn’t prepared for that. When I had pictured introducing them, I never imagined it might be awkward. I had no precedent for how to respond. Jo and Ty hadn’t exactly been BFFs but they always managed to keep up a steady stream of banter and seemed to at least find each other somewhat entertaining. I knew Aiden wasn’t as open with most people as he was with me, but usually Jo could talk to anyone. It sucked that she was barely trying.
My brain flailed for a way to prompt them into conversation and bonding. It came up blank. I felt like he was oil and she was water and someone had stolen my whisk: It was futile to even try mixing them together. I would only end up making a bigger mess.
“More coffee?” the waitress asked, coming by with the pot.
“Nah, just the check.” Aiden took out his wallet and removed two tens and a five. When the waitress set down our bill, he put the money on top and said, “I got it.”
Jo scooped up a spoonful of milkshake. We’d barely made a dent in it. “Thanks?”
“You’re welcome.” He turned to me. “You ready?”
I put down the fry I was holding. “Um, yeah.” I wrapped my scarf around my neck and looked at Jo as Aiden stood. “Is this okay? Do you want me to stay until Eric gets here? I thought Aiden could give me a ride home.” This clearly wasn’t fun for anyone, but that didn’t make it cool for me to leave her.
Jo held my gaze for a few hard seconds, then sighed. “Sure. Do your thing.”
I hesitated, but Jo pulled the milkshake toward her and waved me away. “Don’t worry. I’m not crying. This is just diner grease on my face.”
I grinned my appreciation and scooted out of the booth. “Tasty. I’ll text you later.” I slid on my coat and walked toward Aiden, who was waiting for me at the door.
Twelve
AS SOON AS WE STEPPED OUT INTO THE PARKING LOT, Aiden’s lips were on mine, his hands pulling my already-pressed-to-his hips in closer, closer. He sucked my lower lip, biting it gently, and teased my tongue with his. I exhaled and pushed him away. “Let’s go someplace more private,” I said.
I laughed as he charged off down the street, yanking me along behind him. We broke into a run, still holding hands and laughing, until we were forced to slow down to catch our breath. He scooped me into another kiss. “You’re incredible,” he said, and we kissed and panted and smiled goofily into each other’s faces. “Come on.” We speed-walked back to Ralph. “How long do we have before you need to be home?”
I checked my phone. “An hour and a half.”
Aiden groaned. “Tomorrow I want you all to myself. The whole afternoon. Can you give me that?”
I nodded with my lips already back on his. My mom usually came home early on Tuesdays, but I would find a way to make it work—tell her I needed to stay late for a project or something. I’d figure it out when my head wasn’t spinning from lust. It was hard to focus on anything besides the feel of Aiden’s body pressing into mine, the taste of his mouth, the desire to be someplace where we could shed these winter layers and mash our bodies even closer.
Aiden pulled back just far enough to look into my eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Yes.”
Soon my arms were around his chest, the wind roaring in our ears, as we accelerated toward the promise of more.
We parked in front of a narrow two-story house with green shutters and a small front porch. Aiden led me to a door on the side of the garage and turned his key in the lock. “Home sweet home,” he said, holding it open. I walked up the staircase, heart thrumming with curiosity. I knew Aiden lived in Southside in a studio above his family’s garage, where he paid low rent in exchange for helping his dad out with the kids and the yard work, but I hadn’t been able to fully picture what his place might be like. “It’s open,” Aiden said when I reached the door at the top, so I turned the knob and let us in.
The first thing I noticed about Aiden’s apartment was how tidy it was. I hadn’t been in a lot of teenage boys’ abodes, but none of the ones I’d seen had looked anything like this. Tyson’s room had been a mess of clothes, sneakers, electronics, empty Doritos bags, debate team fliers and notes and briefs, schoolwork, and miscellany, all tangled in a nest of maleness, imbued with the scent of his cologne. Every once in a while, Ty’s mom would bring in fresh laundry and cart out the old, throwing away the more obvious trash while she was in there, but as far as I could tell, Ty himself had never so much as pitched a pop can toward a recycling bin. In retrospect, it was just one of the many less-than-ideal things about him I had somehow overlooked while we were together. Eric’s room and my brother Kyle’s weren’t anywhere near as messy as that, but Aiden still made them both seem like slobs.
The room was sparsely furnished: a mattress spread with a dark blue comforter, a lamp and a squat tower of books on the floor beside it. A desk in one corner with a closed laptop, three pens in a glass jar. Two bowls, one spoon, and a mug drying in the dish rack on the counter in the kitchenette, between the empty sink and the gleaming coffeemaker. A red towel folded over a rack on the bathroom door. A low dresser with a line of paperbacks across the top. Off-white walls with nothing on them.
Aiden tucked his leather jacket onto a hook by the door and nestled up behind me, reaching around to unzip my coat. As he pulled it off my shoulders, he kissed the patch of skin between my scarf and my ear. It was tempting to lean back into him or spin around to put my lips on his, but now that I was in Aiden’s home—this place where he slept and ate and read and thought and did who knows what else—I was too curious. All I wanted was to take in every detail.
I shook my arms free from the coat sleeves and stepped toward the fridge, which had a couple of takeout menus—pizza and Greek—a kid’s drawing of a pink-and-purple motorcycle under a rainbow, and two school photos stuck to the front with square magnets. “Is this your brother and sister?” I asked.
“Alex and Kendra. He’s in fifth grade and she’s in third. That’s Kendra’s portrait of Ralph.”
“Pretty good.” I peered closer at the girl’s gleeful, gap-toothed smile and the boy’s serious eyes. “He’s like a mini you.”
“Yeah, people say that. Kendra looks more like our dad.”
He didn’t mention how their mother factored into that family equation, so I didn’t ask. “Some people think my brother and I look alike, but I don’t see it,” I said. “My face shape is round and his is long. But we don’t really look like our parents, either.”
“Well, if your brother looks like you, he must be beautiful.”
I turned to hide my blush. No one had ever called me beautiful before—no one besides my grandmother, anyway. Tyson had once grunted that a skirt I was wearing looked hot, and sometimes someone said my hair looked nice or they liked my shoes, but hearing a boy like Aiden use a word like that, referring to me—even in a sentence that was weirdly about Kyle—made me realize how deeply I wanted him to believe it. “Thanks,” I managed. I glanced at the mini library on top of the dresser. Into Thin Air. Slaughterhouse-Five. Selected Poems of Rumi. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. “You have a lot of books. I wasn’t expecting that.”
&nbs
p; “Just because I’m a dropout doesn’t mean I’m illiterate,” he said.
I whirled around. “I didn’t mean—”
“Relax. I’m kidding.” His hand swept the room. “Go ahead. It’s clear you’re dying to poke around. I’m afraid the books are about all there is to look at.”
“Well, you know what they say: ‘Look at a man’s bookshelf, see a window into his soul.’”
“Yeah? Who says that?”
“I dunno. Taylor Swift?” I crouched to examine the stack near his bed. I loved being here, loved that he was letting me snoop around. “So then what does it mean that your books aren’t on shelves?”
“I guess I have no soul. I’m like the Tin Man,” he said.
“The Tin Man has no heart. I don’t think they get into souls in The Wizard of Oz.”
“Oh. Then I guess it means I haven’t gotten around to building a shelf.”
On the Road. Juliet, Naked. The Catcher in the Rye. Infinite Jest. For Whom the Bell Tolls. I touched the spine of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. That was one of Eric’s favorite books but he had warned me not to read it because the dog in it dies. “Jo would ask why you don’t have any books by women.”
“Maybe Jo should pull the stick out of her butt.”
I winced but I knew I’d deserved that. It was insensitive to have even mentioned it, especially after the way things had gone at the diner. And it was true that Jo was judgmental. I was so used to it I hardly ever noticed, but I definitely had noticed today. No wonder Aiden was on edge. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“No, you caught me,” he said. “I may seem like a nice guy but I’m actually a sexist pig. I’m glad I brought you here so you could see the real me.”
I stood up, fast. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what it sounded like.”
I put my hand on his arm. He stiffened but didn’t pull away. “I’m sorry. I just . . . it was a stupid thing to say. Please don’t be mad. I’m really sorry.” I moved closer, right into the waves of his anger. I didn’t want us to be fighting. I wanted us to be kissing. “Forgive me?”
Aiden looked straight at me and gave my chest a tap. I held still. He moved his hand to my chin and held it for a long moment, before pulling my face roughly toward his. Our lips smashed together and his tongue pushed into my mouth as I kissed back with equal parts apology and desire.
He pulled back suddenly. “I don’t care what your friends think. They have nothing to do with you and me. All that matters is us.”
I nodded, breathless, and he kissed me again. This time I was the one to pull away. “Aiden,” I said, willing myself not to chicken out. I needed him to know this. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
“Good,” he said, “because I’ve already fallen deep.”
Thirteen
WHEN DAD DROPPED ME OFF AT SCHOOL THE NEXT morning, the Wildebeest was already parked in the senior lot and Jo was rummaging through my locker. I came up behind her, antennae on alert. “I keep the porn in my Latin folder. Top shelf,” I said.
Jo turned. “I need lip balm. Desperately.” I took some Burt’s from my bag and held it out to her, searching for signs of residual irritation. Her radio silence last night post-diner had been unusual but not unheard of, and to be fair I hadn’t texted her either, though maybe I should have. She yanked off the cap, smeared on several coats, and sighed. “Thank you. Amazing. God, I am so sick of winter.” She stepped aside so I could shove my belongings into the locker. I relaxed. We were fine, as we should be.
“It’s almost spring. You’ll make it.” I pulled out Their Eyes Were Watching God and my notebook for Modern American Lit.
“Thanks, Pollyanna.” Jo leaned against the locker bank, then jumped, startling me. “Guess what? I got my road-test date.”
“Awesome. When?”
“Six weeks. April twentieth. What if I pass?”
“Then you’ll be licensed to drive,” I said. “What do you mean, what if you pass?” I tucked my scarf out of the way before shutting the locker door, careful not to jostle the dial. If I never spun it, it never locked, a trick I had learned from Kyle freshman year. For the first two years of high school, his locker had been right across from mine. I’d felt monitored at times, having my brother so close by, but there were moments now when I missed glancing over there and seeing him. It stank how thoroughly he’d abandoned me to only-childdom. He wasn’t even coming home for spring break.
Jo twirled in a dreamy circle as we set off down the hall. “It feels like the end of an era, you know? Three more months of high school, one last summer of the Way Things Were, and then boom. No more riding around in the Wildebeest with the radio blasting and all of us singing along like a cheesy movie montage of carefree teenage happiness. Soon we’ll be at college, with separate soundtracks and separate lives. All I’ve wanted for four years was for high school to end, but I’m not ready. I don’t want everything about us to change. It’s already changing.”
“Um, okay,” I said, “but failing your test won’t stop time. You can’t extend our adolescence by refusing to get a license. You’ll just become a grown-up who still can’t drive without adult supervision.” I was glad to hear her sounding wistful and overdramatic about the future, though. Usually when she talked about Life After High School it was a series of exciting plans that she barely seemed to notice wouldn’t include me. Although at least after college, once her bakery got famous and her cookbooks were bestsellers and she’d landed her own show on the Food Network, I’d get to see her every week on TV.
“Who needs to drive? That’s what ride-share apps are for.” But I knew her parents and Eric had already given her that lecture. “You’ll do great,” I assured her. “Remember: gas on the right, brake on the left. And if you back into a pole, just say it’s the pole’s fault. They can’t fail you for that.” Jo had taken driver’s ed back when Eric did, three years ago, but she never showed the slightest interest in driving, to the point where she hadn’t even shown up for her first road test. Like some part of her had decided that since Eric had a license, she didn’t need or want one of her own. But now things were really changing. Even they would be moving apart. “You may want to bring bribes, though, just in case things go wrong.”
I expected an elbow to the ribs, but Jo’s attention was already elsewhere. I looked in the direction she was staring and saw what had distracted her: Sydney.
“They’re not anything serious,” Jo said as Sydney rose up on tiptoe to meet Benji’s kiss. He ran his hands down her body and I felt a deep, sudden pang of missing Aiden. Seven more hours before I would get to see him and already I was jumpy with anticipation.
“You think?” I said carefully as we walked past the PDA. They looked plenty serious to me, but clearly that was not what Jo wanted to hear.
“I know. She told me last night.”
“Wait, what?” I grabbed Jo’s arm and she broke into a grin.
“Yeah. We were texting a little. She said it’s fun for now but she could never seriously date someone who thinks dolphins are reptiles and spells ‘stupid’ with two Os.”
“Since when do you have her number?”
Jo was practically skipping. “Since yesterday. She was drawing these incredible narwhals in math and we started talking about them and I was like, ‘Give me your number,’ and she did.”
“Wow.” I was impressed but not surprised. Jo had always been the kind of girl who makes things happen. She had guts.
“I was going to tell you at the diner but then Aiden was there.”
Just the sound of his name made my heart beam. “So what did you think?”
She shrugged and my happy glow dimmed. “Hard to say. I barely got to meet him.”
“Oh, come on.”
Jo shifted her books to her other arm. “He’s definitely your type.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know. It hadn’t sounded like a compliment.
&nbs
p; “You have a thing for assholes.”
I stopped walking.
“Beeeeeee. Don’t be mad. You know it’s a little bit true.”
I stared at the laughing foxes on her shirt. “Aiden is nothing like Tyson.”
“Sure,” she said. “No, you’re right, I’m sorry. I’m sure he’s great. He was just—I’d expected him to be a little more interested in meeting your best friend, that’s all, and I guess I took it personally. But he clearly adores you. As he should.”
I stood still, trying to process all that, as the flow of students streamed around us. The shirt-foxes blurred all together into one, then separated back into fox fox fox fox fox. The bell rang.
“Just . . . hos before bros, you know?” Jo said. I didn’t smile.
“Why can’t you be happy for me?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. She was jealous. Even when I’d been with Ty, Jo had always come first. She wasn’t used to sharing me. Well, she would have to adjust.
“I am happy for you, Betts. And where you go, I go. But you guys ditched me, like, ten fries in. Look, let’s do it again sometime when he’s got more than eight seconds to spend wolfing down his burger and waxing holy about bacon and then rushing you out the door. Okay?”
The second bell rang. We really had to get to class. And I couldn’t take those stupid foxes one second longer. “Okay,” I said, letting her off the hook. Jo looked relieved.
Aiden’s words from yesterday pulsed through my veins. All that matters is us.
Fourteen
BY LUNCHTIME THINGS WITH JO RETURNED TO NORMAL, at least on the surface. I had decided to let it go—or to not continue it, anyway. If Jo needed some time to adjust to Aiden, then fine. My being in love by definition excluded her, and I got why she might be slow to accept that. She would warm up to him eventually, and he to her, and in the meantime, we both would pretend this incident hadn’t happened. Neither of us wanted to be fighting, so we wouldn’t. Simple.
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