“I think he’s into you,” Zamantha concluded. “He sounded jealous when we were talking about you kissing Klaw!”
“Whoooaaa!” The twins held their hands up and blinked at me. “You kissed Klaw.TheKlaw?”
“Only with a teeny bit of tongue,” Zamantha quickly added, and laughed.
The twins looked at each other and then back at me. “We’d take teeny tongue.”
“That’s what I said.” Lila echoed their sentiments and soon we were all laughing.
“We need to go to another party now,” Zamantha said. “You want to come?”
I looked around and then back to them. “I kind of like the beach.”
Zamantha and Lila took their phones out. “Cool, exchange numbers then?”
They looked up at me and I pulled my phone out and we swapped numbers. They gave me a hug goodbye and made me promise to tell them if anything happened with Noah and me. I slipped my phone back into my bag. It felt heavier, filled with another two numbers. I turned back to the twins, who now looked like they were in deep discussion.
“What?”
“Well, we think there’s only one thing to do now,” one said.
“What?” I said again.
“Go and find out from Noah. You wait here!” They both started walking off.
“Wait! No! You can’t.” I flushed with embarrassment. I couldn’t watch this. This was crazy. What were they going to do, walk up there and ask Noah if he was into me? And how was that going to work? Last time I was at school, if the boy liked you, he chased you on the playground or threw a ball at your head.
Do you like me?
Do you like melikeme?
But I was sure things had changed since then, I just wasn’t sure what they’d changed to. I covered my eyes and looked away. I had no idea how any of this worked and I couldn’t bear to watch. This was all just so. . . .
I couldn’t stop the smile that swept across my face. Yes, this was wildly embarrassing but this was also something I’d never done before. I’d only ever dreamed of doing this kind of stuff from my hospital bed. Going to parties, being cool, talking to guys, flirting, hanging with my girlfriends. All of those were things I’d never done, and now, I was doing them. Regardless of how this turned out, what truly mortifying consequences this had, I was finally doing it.
“Sooooo.” The twins slid up to me again, after what felt like hours chatting to Noah.
“What did he say?” I could hardly contain my excitement and I knew that I sounded about twelve years younger than I really was.
“Sooo, like the vibe I get from him is that he is totally interested in you,” one said.
“Did he say that?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Well, we asked him if he was single and then told him that our mom was looking to date and showed him her photo.”
“Huh?”
One took her cell phone out, pressed a few buttons on the screen and then showed me.
“Wait . . . that’s your mom?!” The most gorgeous woman filled the screen.
“Yes,” they both said at the same time. “She’s a model.” Also at the same time.
“But when we showed Noah the picture, he didn’t seem interested. At all. And then we asked if he was seeing someone, and he said no, but he’s not really looking right now either. And then I asked if he wasn’t looking because he had already met someone he was into, or whether he wasn’t interested because he wasn’t dating.”
