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“Are you alone?” I ask her.
“Yes. And now I’m thinking this is going to bereallygood—if you have to go to the trouble of verifying no one’s going to overhear. What’d you do?”
“Imayhave challenged a guy to a thumb wrestling match last night. And I sang a duet—also with the same random guy. It was classic country, and I did my top-volume, pop-princess routine. The way we used to do when we performed in front of your bedroom mirror. Oh, and I ate cheese off a fork that I wasn’t holding.”
“Eek.” She laughs. “So, you were drunk?”
Fair question.
“Only slightly buzzed, but then I sobered up.”Which makes the next part of my story even weirder.I pause and reach for Queenie for support. She purrs as I run my palm along her back. “I also—I kissed him. Or, he kissed me. Both, I guess.”
“Oh, wow, Gem, that’s great! You kept saying how you’d get back together eventually. I was starting to worry that—”
“No, not Mortimer.” I run my hand over my face, cover my eyes with my palm, then scrunch down farther into the too-hot quilt.Here it comes.
“But… you went to see him yesterday afternoon, right?” Carly asks.
“That was a total disaster. All the stuff I’m telling you about happenedafter. In Pines Peak. I decided I was on vacation, and I just wanted to have fun for a change.”
“Wait… let me get this straight. The visit with Mortimer was a disaster, but thumb wrestling a random dude in a bar was fun?”
“I’m not bragging about the stuff I did. I’m confessing.”
“Okay, so who did you kiss? The guy you thumb wrestled?”
“We never actually wrestled. And, no.”
“Okay, then the guy you did the duet with?”
“Nope. That was the same guy, like I said.” I bite my lip and consider burrowing so far under the bulky quilt that I won’t be able to hear Carly scream when she puts two-and-two together.
But I called her, and I won’t be a coward about this.
I need her advice, and the only way I’ll get it is if I come clean.
I fidget with the edge of the quilt as I wait. A second later I have to hold the phone away as she squeals. “You and my brother?”
“Er… yeah. It’s not that big of a deal. It was just—I—like I said, I wanted to have fun.”
“Nooo! I told you not to do that! What were you thinking?”
“It’s not as bad as it sounds. I have—I think I have reasons. Better reasons than that thing about being on vacation. That’s sort of the truth, but not the whole truth.”
“Donottell me he’s hot. I don’t want to hear it. I’m going to plug my ears, which is dangerous because I’m going forty-five on Charles Ave.”
Parkerishot.
Tall, built, gorgeous face.
But last night was about a lot more than physical attraction.
Which is… confusing.
If it was just physical, that’d be one thing. Maybe the kisses we finally shared would’ve burst the bubble of tension hanging over this cabin like a geodome. But it wasn’t only about chemistry.
I looped my fingertips into the pockets of his jeans and pulled him toward me because he’s thoughtful. He makes me laugh.
He’s intelligent, in a way I never saw in all the grad school lecture halls I’ve sat in.
