Read Online We Are the Goldens by Dana Reinhardt - Free Book Online

Porter. It’s too much.”
    “Don’t worry. I wasn’t going to show it to anybody but you.”
    Sam Fitzpayne noticed that I’d missed play practice.
    Till that point I hadn’t even been sure Sam knew my first name.
    “Hey, Nell,” he said when I walked into Friday’s rehearsal. “Where you been?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Sorry. Some stuff came up.”
    He stepped closer. “Everything okay with you?”
    I could have died right then and there. The way he looked at me, I almost wished I’d had some grave illness or tragedy, anything to draw him nearer, to bring out more of that … what was it? Sam-ness? It was empathy, I guess, and if empathy means feeling what it’s like to be in someone else’s shoes, then I wondered if Sam could feel how fast my heart was beating.
    “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just been a crappy week.”
    “Come here,” he said, and he led me over to an aisle seat in the auditorium. He sat in the seat behind me. This I didn’t understand until I felt his hands on my shoulders. He started to squeeze.
    He leaned forward and whispered in my ear, “How does that feel?”
    How did he think it felt? As Shakespeare might put it: so hallowed and so gracious … and so totally awesome .
    “Nice.” I closed my eyes. He dug his thumbs into the space between my shoulder blades and then marched them up the back of my neck to the base of my scalp.
    “Hamlet! Ophelia!” Ms. Eisenstein bellowed. “Front and center.”
    “Gotta go.” He jumped up and ran to the stage. Felix slid into the seat next to me.
    “Holy shiteth!” he mumbled. “Thou hast been fondled most foully by his cunning mitts.”
    “Shut up,” I said. “You’re kinda ruining the moment.”
    I sat still, trying to make my skin remember Sam’s fingers.
    “I’d give you a high five or something,” Felix whispered, “but that might look a bit obvious.”
    “Ya think?”
    “Nell. Take it from a guy. We don’t touch girls like that unless we want to touch them in other places too.”
    I swatted him on the leg. “Don’t be gross.”
    “Desire isn’t gross, my friend, it’s beautiful.”
    “What greeting card did you get that from?”
    He laughed and gave me a congratulatory punch on the arm. We sat and watched Ms. Eisenstein directing Sam and Isabella. I thought about Sam touching me in other places. It thrilled and terrified me.
    You know that I haven’t had a ton of experience with fooling around or sex. I’m okay with that, I really am, because I feel like it’s been my choice. I know you’ve had more experience, and boyfriends, and I probably could have hadmore experience too if I’d wanted, but I’d chosen to, you know, keep it pretty clean for the most part. Maybe if I hadn’t had Felix around I’d have had a boyfriend in middle school. Other girls did, but from what I could tell it just meant they texted all the time and wrote each other declarations of love on Facebook and sometimes fooled around and then whispered about it later like they were embarrassed. I was pretty sure I got more out of my friendship with Felix than they got out of those boys they’d roped into their romantic plotlines.
    Since there’s no point in not being totally honest with you, I have to tell you something. Remember when I went to that party last summer with Hannah, that girl from camp? I see her sometimes, mostly in the summer, and I’m happy to hang out with her, but when long stretches of time go by when I don’t see her, it’s fine in a way it would never be with Felix. Anyway, I went to spend the night at Hannah’s and we went to a party with her older sister, who is nothing like you. She’s mean and she barely tolerates Hannah, although she did let us tag along with her, which I guess was pretty cool.
    I met a guy there who was in town visiting his cousin. He’d tagged along to the party too. Anyway, before I knew it, we were out on an upstairs porch, in side-by-side reclining chairs, totally making out. His name