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“So do you.”Her blush burned her cheeks.“I mean…you look very handsome.”
“Oh.”He pretended to look disappointed.“Too bad, because I really was going for pretty.”
They both laughed as they drove down the gravel lane, and the nervousness between them vanished.Being with Adam felt easy, like she could be herself.But at the same time, when she was near him, the air felt like it was charged with something.It was both comfortable and exciting at the same time.
“I bet you like chocolate,” Adam guessed as they walked toward Sandy’s Scoops, the ice cream stand that set up for business on the edge of the beach every season.
“Chocolate?”She stared at him.“Do I look like a girl who likes chocolate?”
“Don’t all girls like chocolate?”Adam laughed.“At least, most girls like chocolate.It’s a well-known fact.”
She pretended to be offended and put her hands on her hips.“Well.There’s something you should know about me, Adam.”
He paused as they reached the end of the road that led to the beach.“And what’s that?”
She stopped and looked him in the eye, with a sassy smile.“I am notmostgirls.”She winked before hopping down from the asphalt and onto the sandy beach.
Behind her, she heard him chuckle.“No, Maureen.You most certainly are not most girls.”
She ended up ordering a strawberry waffle cone and Adam got a scoop of chocolate.Like most summer nights, the beach was still full of people.Some still swimming, because the sun didn’t set until past nine so early in the summer, but most camped out on blankets, enjoying the late evening heat before packing up for the day.
Naturally, they started to walk away from the crowds, farther down the beach, where the sand got rougher and old logs from the mill on the other side of the lake had washed up over the years.
Maureen climbed up on a big log and swung her feet while Adam leaned on one hip next to her.
“So is it just ice cream?Or do you not like chocolate at all?”
She laughed, amused at his interest in her dislike of something so popular.“I love hot chocolate,” she said.“But when it comes to ice cream, there are just better options, you know?”
“And you always go for the better option?”
She dropped her chin and looked up at him through her eyelashes.“I’m here with you, aren’t I?”
She should have been shocked by her boldness, but just like everything else with Adam, it felt natural.
“I don’t know if I’m thebetteroption,” he said with a shake of his head.“But I sure am glad that you’re here with me.I had a lot of fun last night.”
“You’re a very good dancer.”
“I had an excellent partner.”
They flirted back and forth until their ice cream was gone and the sun started to sink behind the mountain.
“I should probably take you home.”
She sighed deeply, knowing it was the right thing to do, although it was the last thing she wanted.She might be eighteen, but she was still under her father’s roof and there were expectations.She was agood girl, after all.
“Okay.”She hopped off the log.“But only on one condition.”
Adam tilted his head and humored her.“And what’s that?”He took a step closer to her.
“Will you agree to take me out again?”
“Absolutely.On one condition.”
“You can’t make a condition on a—oh.”The words fell from her lips as Adam took another step and reached out with a hand to cup her cheek.Her stomach flipped, and she hardly dared to breathe.Was he going to kiss her?On their first date?
She’d only been kissed once before.But it didn’t count when her next-door neighbor, whom she’d grown up with, kissed her smack on the lips in the playground in seventh grade at lunchtime.Maureen had given him a sharp knee to the groin and he’d dropped like a sack of flour.They’d both ended up in the principal’s office—which, to this day, she thought was a massive injustice.
