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Sam was still looking at my hair, his gaze traveling to the ends before he, too, seemed to realize that he was basically also now staring at my breasts. He focused instead on some point at thecrown of my head, clearing his throat. “It’s pretty,” he said. “You have very pretty hair.”
Under my shirt, my nipples were tight and almost painful against the thin fabric of my bra. I’d never been more grateful for the thick screen-printed image of Jim Carrey’s Riddler, because it hopefully did a good job of hiding this reaction.
“Thanks,” I said, because what else could I say? I reached behind me to gather it up, starting to wind it back into its bun, when I heard a couple of loud bangs coming from somewhere outside the garage. I shared a look with Sam, where he seemed as confused as I was, until the sound came again. Knocking. Someone was knocking on the front door.
“Judgment Ridge,” Sam whispered.
I smacked his arm. “Don’t say that.”
“You’re the one who brought it into my life,” Sam said. “Now I’ll never be able to answer the door the same way again.”
All joking aside, I did feel some trepidation as we both went together to the front door. My shoulders were somewhere around my ears as I hung behind Sam, trying to see around him as he opened the door to...
“Conner?”
ELEVEN
TEN MINUTES LATERI was in Conner’s car, trying to kick the fast-food wrappers on his floorboard away from my feet as we sped off to some destination he hadn’t yet revealed. He’d only said he “needed help” with something, which could mean anything from a legitimate emergency to trying to steal another Mountain Dew cutout from a gas station.
“You didn’t have to come to his house,” I grumbled. “I would’ve been home in five minutes.”
“See it from my perspective,” Conner said. “I tried texting you, you didn’t answer. I even tried calling you, you didn’t answer.”
“That’s because I—”
Conner shook his head, apparently not interested in hearing again that I’d left my cell phone back at the house.
“Then I come over, and the door isunlocked,” he said. “Didn’tyou tell me that allDatelineepisodes start with the door beingunlocked?”
“No,” I said. “Technically I told you that allDatelineepisodes start with a family on the brink of achieving the American Dream. Anyway, I only ran over for a few minutes—”
It was onlysupposedto be a few minutes, anyway. I’d ended up spending half an hour at Sam’s house, and who knew how long I would’ve stayed.
“I’m not mad,” Conner said, grinning at me. “You’re not under curfew or anything. In fact, it was good to see you let your hair down a little.”
Ugh. I knew Conner would make a big deal of that the minute we’d opened the door, my hair still in disarray around my shoulders, the elastic hair-tie forgotten in my hand.
This was what made little brothers so annoying. If I told Conner that actually,Iwas mad, because he didn’t need to insert himself into my personal life, he’d make some comment about how he didn’t even know Ihada personal life. If I told him I was frustrated he’d interrupted, he’d waggle his eyebrows, like he’d interrupted something particularly juicy, when in fact...
Well, I didn’t know what that moment between me and Sam had been. Or what it could’ve been. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to even dance around it without getting flustered and weird, and then it would be a case ofPhoebe doth protest too much, and then he’d only tease me more. The best bet was just to let it go, and change the subject.
“So where are we going?” I asked. “I have a lot of writing to get done tonight.”
“Maybe you should’ve been working on that instead of hanging out with neighbor boy,” Conner said. We passed an old oil change place that looked familiar, then a sandwich shop that I was surprised was still around, a small law firm that always put encouraging messages for local sports teams on their marquee. I recognized this drive. Suddenly, I knew exactly where we were going.
“Tell me you’re not bringing me to Skate Space,” I said, sitting up so abruptly I crunched down on some empty soda cans on the floorboard.
But we’d already pulled into the parking lot of the garish hot pink warehouse building. “Here we are!” Conner announced. “The possible future site of my marriage proposal.”
I had so many questions, but didn’t get a chance to ask any of them until after we’d finished paying and were waiting at the back counter to pick up our rental skates.
“Whyhere?” I asked, looking around. The decor was space themed, naturally, which meant lots of black light and glowing paint. One mural—of a giant mouse in a space suit flying through the galaxy—was particularly disturbing given that I was pretty sure this place actually had real mice. The carpet was this multicolored geometric pattern that was clearly designed to hide dirt but instead managed to just look dirty all the time. The whole place smelled like feet.
“This was where Shani and I had our first date,” he said, having to shout to be heard above the Halsey song they were pumping through the speakers at truly brain-scrambling decibels.
“What were you, twelve?”
“Seventeen, and it was Rollerblade night! You know I kick ass on Rollerblades!”
