Read Online 17 First Kisses by Rachael Allen - Free Book Online Page B

on the sideline, putting a finger to the side of his nose and blowing a snot rocket onto the ground. “And these people. Well, maybe not everyone. I love my friends. But a lot of people in this town suck.”
    â€œI have noticed that some of the people here are . . . different. I’m excited to be done with high school too, though.”
    â€œDo you know what you’re going to do next year?” I ask. I word the question carefully, because in my family the question isn’t “Are you going to college?” it’s “Which college are you going to?”—but not everyone is like that.
    A dark cloud passes over his face. “I know what my parents want me to do.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œMy dad’s been in the military his whole life. He started out as a grunt and worked his way up. With my grades, he’s always, ‘You have to go to the Academy. Do you know how many advantages you have that I didn’t have? Do you know how far ahead that would have put me?’ But I don’t want to go.”
    â€œWhat do you want to do?”
    â€œThat’s the thing. I don’t know,” he says. “Which makes it really hard to argue.”
    I nod sympathetically.
    â€œI know I don’t want to be just like him. I guess I want to goto a school with a lot of different options so I can figure it out.”
    â€œI know how that goes,” I say.
    He looks relieved. “Really?”
    â€œYeah. I want to do something big to help people medically, like find an early biomarker for cancer or design a prosthetic retina or something. Which means majoring in biomedical engineering. Which means going to Georgia Tech.”
    â€œThose all sound like great things. Why would your parents care?”
    â€œBecause everyone in my family goes to the University of Georgia. As in the archnemesis of Georgia Tech. If you’re not from here, it’s hard to explain how big a deal it is.”
    â€œNo, I get it,” he says.
    â€œI still haven’t told my family I’m applying.” I think about how little my parents seem to notice these days. “Maybe they wouldn’t care as much as I think. Things with my family are complicated. My parents—well, my mom—” I’m interrupted by a roar from the stands.
    Whoa. I can’t believe how close I just came to spilling my family secrets to him. I never talk about my family anymore. When I used to, people would always give me these looks that clearly meant
Don’t you know you’re supposed to pretend that never happened to you?
so I learned not to.
    But he doesn’t notice, and we keep up the conversation easily, moving on to much happier subjects. Megan spots us talking mid–toe touch and nearly suffers a cheer-related injury as a result. For the rest of the half, she alternates between shooting Luke sexylooks and me suspicious ones. The result is she looks like one of those women who has been over-Botoxed.
    I shake my head at her and shrug my shoulders, trying to get her to understand that I didn’t plan for him to come over here. I’m completely innocent in all this. But then a buzzer signals the end of the half, and Luke asks if I want to go to the concession stand. I check the sideline.
    Megan is watching.
    But he’s looking at me with question marks in his eyes, and it seems so silly to say no, so I find myself nodding my head and following him up the stairs. Megan’s mouth falls open.
    I’m dead.
    I mean, I am seriously going to catch hell for this later. I sneak a sideways glance at Luke’s dimples. It’s worth it.
    The line for the concession stand is long because it’s half-time. “What was it like living in Germany?” I ask while we wait.
    His eyes light up. “One of the best experiences of my life. I got to see all these things I’d read about in books. And I learned how to speak German.” He brushes