Page 15 of Something Like Sunflowers

More pieces of my heart crumble away, knowing he’d have kissed me back. He’d have taken my hair in his hands and threaded his fingers through like it was some sort of handle he’d placed there himself just for moments like this. But we both know very well how that ends, and I’m sure he’s realizing it too since I’m watching his face the moment he shifts. He goes from heartbroken to heartbreaker in a matter of seconds when he, like I do, puts his fake-self back in place. He gives me a onceover and releases a breathy laugh before he shakes his head like he’s realizing the same things I’ve been thinking. Then he gives me that cocky sideways smirk that apparently over sixty-four thousand women get to admire daily via their social media subscriptions…still too many to stab.

I fiddle with my key fob as he throws a Pine Forest Rodeo Team hoodie over his upper half, which is good because it distracts me from his lower half. It’s a new sweatshirt, crisp and green with bright white lettering, and it makes me smile because it means he bought it recently to support the kids. That’s very…grown up of him.

“Devyn? Good luck with the pageant.” He winks. “I look forward to seeing how you pull it off.”

Chapter 8

Devyn

Thirteen Years Ago

Stop freakin’ out!” I snap at Shana through my teeth. My eyes stalk Shane Porter, the eleventh grader on my brother’s rodeo team who winks at me every day when I pass by his locker. Dustin would kill him if he knew he even looked at me, let alone winked. But it makes my heart beat super-fast when he does it. Besides, what my brother doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

An eleventh grader and a ninth grader, especially one like Shane, who won the Tri-County Rodeo championships two years in a row…it’s unheard of. In his freshman year, he beat a thirty-seven-year-old record, too. I’m not in his league no matter how much he winks.

Shana’s hands are shaking around her Solo cup because she gets nervous anytime we do anything remotely fun or exciting, but I managed to drag her to the party tonight anyway. She has a thing for someone on the Rodeo team, too. Only she won’t tell me who.

“I’m not freaking out, Devyn, I’m just saying that if we aren’t home by eleven-oh-one, my dad is going to call your dad, who’s going to realize we are not, in fact, in your bedroom watching TGIF, and we will be grounded for life when they both find out where we are.” She runs out of air at the end of her lecture and takes a deep breath. “That’s all I’m saying, okay?”

“Okay,” I tell her. Because it’s fine. I have no intention of staying here past eleven, anyhow. I set my cup down on the counter, but then think better of it and throw it away altogether. I’m going to be away from it for long enough that I won’t be able to know if someone’s put something in it when I return. I didn’t want to drink, anyway. Beer is nasty, and I’m here for one thing.

I stand on the hearth and scan the living room, but I don’t see Shane down here. Or any of the other wannabe cowboys, for that matter.

“Shana, upstairs!” I shout over the music. She nods and follows me.

I’ve been around my brothers and his friends long enough to know the hangout spot at Robbie’s house, where the party is right now. Robbie’s parents are loaded, so there’s a fourth-floor renovated attic that is totally soundproof and has a full bar and entertainment system.

Everyone worth knowing at Pine Forest High will be there. And they will be…making out. Or whatever. That’s why I’m here.

I want a first kiss.

And if I’m being honest, the boy I’d rather have it with is never going to happen, so before ninth grade gets all crazy, and before I see Miss Priss Lemon Perkins at the regional Jr. Miss Pageant and she rubs her stupid baseball champ boyfriend in my face again, I will have had my first kiss with the star rodeo champion of Pine Forest High.

Take that, Lemongrass.

I know I shouldn’t care about this stuff, but I’m almost fifteen and haven’t kissed a soul. I’m a minority, honestly, an anomaly. In my friend group, at least. And I’m tired of waiting around for it to happen with someone who’s probably off kissing other girls and will never ever think of me that way in one million years.

If I’m gonna kiss someone, might as well be someone I can use against stupid Lemon Perkins.

As we walk up the second and third flights of stairs, Shana gets uneasy. “Devyn, where are we going? The party is down there. The only people upstairs are going to be doing something shady like drugs or…having s-e-x.”

“Don’t spell sex, Shana.”

She’s always acting like such a baby, and it drives me nuts. The crazy thing is, she’s already had her first kiss.

Again, she won’t tell me who, because she’s mortified it even happened, I guess. Who knows? Her parents never let her watch cable, and I blame that for her unusual level of innocence in times like this.

Still, she should understand why I need to get this done. “I have a plan, so just relax. Your crush might be up there too, for all you know.”

She blushes but keeps her head down while she follows me up the steps.

“I wish you’d tell me who it is. I could see if Dustin could talk to them, and—”

“What are you doing, Devyn?”

“Huh?”

“What are you doing? What’s your plan? You’re just going to, what? March up there and see Shane and kiss him? All to prove to some dumb pageant queen—”

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