“You mean the kiss?”
I nod.
“Are you taking it back?”
I look at her, the regret in my words causing my voice to sound urgent. “No, no Teeny. Not at all.”
“Then why are you saying sorry?”
“Because I don’t want you to think I took advantage of you,” I tell her.
“I’m not a child, Everett,” she says coolly, followed by a bitter scoff. She opens the car door and stalks out, slamming it shut behind her. She starts stomping off without a second glance, leaving behind a residual hurt from the resentment in her voice.
“Teeny!” I jog after her, glad that I can always seem to reach her faster than she can get away from me. “Teeny, wait.”
“What, Everett?”
“Look, that came out wrong. I—I just felt that maybe…”
“Everett,” she says, looking over her shoulder when we hear a few people leave the party. She shoves me toward a long row of bushes where we’re hidden behind its tall shadows. “I’m not some kid you lured away from this party. I asked you to leave. I told you to go to the beach. If anyone’s taking advantage of anyone, it’s me of you.”
I huff a laugh and scratch the back of my head.
“What’s so funny?”
I laugh again. “Nothing.”
“You’re laughing.”
I take a step closer to her, my gaze set on her eyes. The only light veiling over her is coming from the sparse streetlights. The dancing silhouettes that fill her face along with the anger making her pout makes me want to kiss her again. But this time with no post-make-out apology. “I’m not,” I assure her.
Her head jerks back like I’ve insulted her. “I don’t know if you know the definition of laughter, but I think you need to get yourself a diction?—”
I grab her face in my hands and kiss her again, cutting off her words. She doesn’t fight me. Instead, her hands reach for my waist, wrapping her arms around the small of my back. My hands curl into her neck, and Jesus, I could get lost in her lips. Like they were made specifically for me to kiss, the grooves carved and buffed so they fit perfectly against mine.
“You are not taking advantage of me,” I whisper against her skin. “Not by a mile.”
She grins, followed by a reluctant frown on her lips. “You totally did laugh,” she pouts, shoving her hands into me.
I stumble a step back. “I wasn’t laughingatyou. I was just laughing—” I’m interrupted by the sound of my phone ringing in my pocket. I take it out and see Josh’s name flash on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Hey! Where’d you go?!”
“I, uh—I’m just outside. You ready to go?”
“I need to find Teeny first,” he says, yelling over the noise in the background. “She needs to get home soon, or my parents are going to kill me.”
“I actually just saw her,” I say, looking at Teeny. She has her arms crossed over her stomach and her eyes round.
What?she mouths with a soft whisper.
Josh,I mouth back at her.
“I’ll get her and come find you.”
“Yeah, I’m in the kitchen.”
