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I jumped at Rachel’s question, dropping the curtain. My expression had to scream of guilt, but her attention had already been drawn to the mirror and Maisie’s was on the pillow she clutched in her lap. ThankGod. “Guy outside running,” I said, voice shrill to my own ears. “Shirtless. He was…ugly.”
MaybeIneeded a glass of water.
Maisie beckoned me over to her, patting the bed. “Here, let me draw your pawprint.”
Right, my pawprint. I’d finished drawing a Brentwood Bobcat’s essential on Rachel’s cheek a few moments ago, preparing for the football game tonight. It was an away game, which meant we had to deck out in as much pep as possible when we invaded enemy territory. The school sections were always a bit less crowded, but those who did show up were required to ooze school spirit. Pawprints were something Rachel and I did for every game—go Bobcats!
“Should you practice first?” I asked Maisie as I sat down on my bed, watching her squint behind her black glasses. “Not that I don’t think you’ll do a great job. It’s just that, out of your family, you’re not the most…artistic.” The opposite, in fact.
“You were the one who drew a pawprint with only three toes,” she replied, catching the face paint marker when Rachel tossed it at her. “I’ve got this.”
“I wasn’t done yet,” I grumbled.
Maisie propped her hand on the side of my head to hold me steady. I watched the concentration settle over her face, the look she normally got when she was trying to decipher her impossible math problems. They weren’t impossible for her—she was a whiz at that kind of stuff.
It was nice to know the Most Likely To list didn’t get to her.Marry a math book. Even when mentioning it tonight, she’d brushed it off easily. Then again,wasthat an insult for her?
“How has everything been lately?” Maisie asked as she worked. “Is everything…okay?”
I smiled a little at her tiptoeing. “Are you talking about my dad leaving?”
Maisie readjusted her hold on the pen. Before she began tracing the print, she looked me in the eye. “You haven’t really said anything about it recently.”
“I mean, there’s not too much to say,” I said, once more trying to keep my voice cheerful. The last thing I wanted to do was to weigh the conversation down, weigh the mood down. “It sucks, but it is what it is. I’m hoping to visit him soon.”
Rachel turned around from the vanity to look at us. “We should do something after school next week. Maybe get lunch. We haven’t done that in forever.”
“I’ll be tutoring until five,” Maisie said with a little shake of her head. “But I could do something after.”
“Wait,allof your tutoring sessions last until five?” I scrunched my nose. She tapped my cheek so I’d stop frowning, giving her a smooth canvas. “Why so late? Mrs. Diego should really start paying you minimum wage.”
“One of the students is on the football team. He has to wait until after practice ends, which is usually around fourish. And before you ask, no,” she rushed to add. “I can’t tell you who it is.”
Ah, right. Tutor-tutee confidentiality. “You should get paid for staying at school so late.”
“I don’t mind.” Her voice went soft as she focused on my cheek, the cool felt tip of the marker gliding across my skin. “There. I think I did okay for my first try. Go look in the mirror.”
I obeyed, rolling off my bed to step up beside Rachel. She’d finished finalizing her makeup—a glittery blue eye look with a strip of yellow underneath her lower lash line—and with the headband she’d borrowed from my closet, she was perfectly peppy. I smiled at my pawprint, which took up a small section of space on my left cheekbone. “It’s so cute,” I said, poking at the still-drying face paint. “It’s perfect.”
I plopped down on to my bed, bouncing Maisie in the process, and stared up at my ceiling. Even though the window was closed, I could hear the lawnmower from across the street, and even though I wasn’t looking anymore, I could see Reed in my mind’s eye. The sun glinting off his skin, his forearms…
The hormones my first kiss awakened were going to drive me insane.
“Oh my gosh,” Rachel said suddenly. “Maisie, have we told you about Josh?”
Maisie glanced between us tentatively. “Josh?”
“He’s the guy Rachel thinks I should kiss,” I told her, already shifting uncomfortably at the subject. Couldn’t we go back to talking about pawprints? “Kissable Josh is her target.”
“KissableJosh?” Rachel squealed. “Is that what you’ve been calling him in your head?”
It didn’t occur to me until Rachel repeated it that I repeated Reed’s nickname for him.Kissable Josh. “No, I swear.”
“Uh-huh.”
Maisie reached out and started playing with the ends of my hair, angling the pink-dyed tips into a heart on the duvet cover. “What do you think about him? Can you see Josh being your first kiss?”
I closed my eyes deliberately in case they were more expressive than I realized. I couldn’t tell them I’d already had my first kiss—the number of questions would be never ending—but then again, if I did kiss Josh, and if whatever these feelings I had for Reed were transferred to him, I could pretend hewasmy first kiss. No one would have to know. And besides, if I stuck with Josh, Rachel wouldn’t bring another unsuspecting student to me.
