it’s earnest again, like when she first opened up at the bar. “I really appreciate your help with this whole dating thing,” she says, and the kiss has vanished into the night. The trick is over, and the magician and the show creator have left the stage. We’re just Harper and Nick now, buddies with a secret project.
“Of course. I’m happy to do it. And, like I told you, Jason is really into you,” I say, since it’s so much easier for me to make sense of the other dude right now than to sort out the tangled mess in my head.
She shrugs and quirks up the corner of her lips. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely. You should go for it with him,” I say, mustering false enthusiasm as I try to return to being her dating tutor, even though I might be a candidate for a split personality study since we just kissed, and now I’m telling her to go all-out for another guy. Maybe I caught some new strain of her babble-around-someone-I’m-into virus with that kiss.
“You think so?” she asks, with an inquisitive tilt of her head.
“Definitely. He might be the man of your dreams.” Yup. A full-blown case of it.
She shoots me a skeptical look, then shrugs. “Would you meet me after I go out with him, so I can tell you everything while it’s fresh in my mind?” she asks, placing her palms together. I’m about to say no, when she adds, “After all, I did 1919 White Sox for you.”
“Then you made me look like a rock star in front of my fans just now,” I say, still on autopilot. But even though I’m reluctant, I did sign up to help her, so this is, evidently, the drill. “Let me know where and when.”
“I’ll text you,” she says, then heads up the steps, and I watch as she unlocks the door to her building, turns around, and waves to me through the glass.
Then she’s gone, taking with her the best and strangest first kiss I’ve ever had.
I return to my home on Seventy-Third, a fourth-floor apartment with exposed brick walls and a huge window sporting a view of the park. As the door shuts behind me with a faint click, I ask myself if it even counts as a first kiss if you don’t know if it was real or just a dare?
I don’t think it lasted more than fifteen seconds, but those fifteen seconds echo inside me, and I can still feel the imprint of her lips on mine. I can still smell her sweet scent when I breathe in. I can still hear her soft gasp in my ears.
I wish I knew if she was in her apartment, lingering on those fifteen seconds, too.
But I can’t know, and I won’t know.
I do the one thing that’s been a constant my whole life. The one thing that never frustrates me, and that always centers me. I toe off my shoes, flop down on my cushy gray couch by the big bay window, and grab my notebook. I have another episode to work on, and even though I don’t do all the writing and animating anymore, the ideas and the storylines are mine.
But as I put the pencil to paper, I find I’m not in the mood to problem-solve for a cartoon hero. Instead, I just draw. Freestyle. Whatever comes to mind.
The trouble is when I finish, it’s a caricature of a certain redhead in Daisy Dukes and high heels, working under the hood of a car. I give the drawing the evil eye, and toss it on the coffee table. Me and my fucking imagination, getting away from me once again.
A text arrives from her a minute later, and I wish I didn’t feel a spark of possibility when I see her name.
The spark is doused coldly as I read the message.
Coffee with Jason Saturday afternoon. Meet afterward?
It’s official. It was a kiss on a dare, and it absolutely doesn't count. In fact, it’s as if it never happened, so I file it away in the not-gonna-happen-again drawer, then I tell her yes. After that, I finally write back to Spencer, making plans to see him this weekend. Perfect. That’ll knock his sister right out of my solar system.
8
“ W hat if a Great Dane mated with a chipmunk?”
I roll my eyes at the question my brother poses the
“Of course. I’m happy to do it. And, like I told you, Jason is really into you,” I say, since it’s so much easier for me to make sense of the other dude right now than to sort out the tangled mess in my head.
She shrugs and quirks up the corner of her lips. “Yeah?”
“Absolutely. You should go for it with him,” I say, mustering false enthusiasm as I try to return to being her dating tutor, even though I might be a candidate for a split personality study since we just kissed, and now I’m telling her to go all-out for another guy. Maybe I caught some new strain of her babble-around-someone-I’m-into virus with that kiss.
“You think so?” she asks, with an inquisitive tilt of her head.
“Definitely. He might be the man of your dreams.” Yup. A full-blown case of it.
She shoots me a skeptical look, then shrugs. “Would you meet me after I go out with him, so I can tell you everything while it’s fresh in my mind?” she asks, placing her palms together. I’m about to say no, when she adds, “After all, I did 1919 White Sox for you.”
“Then you made me look like a rock star in front of my fans just now,” I say, still on autopilot. But even though I’m reluctant, I did sign up to help her, so this is, evidently, the drill. “Let me know where and when.”
“I’ll text you,” she says, then heads up the steps, and I watch as she unlocks the door to her building, turns around, and waves to me through the glass.
Then she’s gone, taking with her the best and strangest first kiss I’ve ever had.
I return to my home on Seventy-Third, a fourth-floor apartment with exposed brick walls and a huge window sporting a view of the park. As the door shuts behind me with a faint click, I ask myself if it even counts as a first kiss if you don’t know if it was real or just a dare?
I don’t think it lasted more than fifteen seconds, but those fifteen seconds echo inside me, and I can still feel the imprint of her lips on mine. I can still smell her sweet scent when I breathe in. I can still hear her soft gasp in my ears.
I wish I knew if she was in her apartment, lingering on those fifteen seconds, too.
But I can’t know, and I won’t know.
I do the one thing that’s been a constant my whole life. The one thing that never frustrates me, and that always centers me. I toe off my shoes, flop down on my cushy gray couch by the big bay window, and grab my notebook. I have another episode to work on, and even though I don’t do all the writing and animating anymore, the ideas and the storylines are mine.
But as I put the pencil to paper, I find I’m not in the mood to problem-solve for a cartoon hero. Instead, I just draw. Freestyle. Whatever comes to mind.
The trouble is when I finish, it’s a caricature of a certain redhead in Daisy Dukes and high heels, working under the hood of a car. I give the drawing the evil eye, and toss it on the coffee table. Me and my fucking imagination, getting away from me once again.
A text arrives from her a minute later, and I wish I didn’t feel a spark of possibility when I see her name.
The spark is doused coldly as I read the message.
Coffee with Jason Saturday afternoon. Meet afterward?
It’s official. It was a kiss on a dare, and it absolutely doesn't count. In fact, it’s as if it never happened, so I file it away in the not-gonna-happen-again drawer, then I tell her yes. After that, I finally write back to Spencer, making plans to see him this weekend. Perfect. That’ll knock his sister right out of my solar system.
8
“ W hat if a Great Dane mated with a chipmunk?”
I roll my eyes at the question my brother poses the
Similar Books
