Page 41 of Follow Your Bliss

I snorted, but I reached for the drink and popped the top. “That’s even lamer than my dare.”

“Are you complaining?”

“No, no! Not complaining. Here.” I did as he asked, handed it to him, and thirstily eyed his Adam’s apple bob as he drank it. I pulled my goddess cards out again, both to act disinterested and to have something to do with my hands.

“Truth or dare?” I asked him.

“Truth.”

“Did you have a crush on meaftermiddle school?”

He laughed. “Yeah. I did.”

“Really? When?” Because if it was now, I might be in trouble.

“Sorry, Guidry. One question per round.”

“That’s not fair! You asked me two questions.” Maybe it was after prom?

He shrugged. “You didn’t call me on it. Truth or Dare?”

I sighed heavily through my nose, but only to be dramatic. “Fine. Truth.”

He licked his lips. “Was I your first kiss?”

I threw my head back laughing. “I wondered when that would come up!”

“So youdoremember.”

I nodded. “How would I not remember my first kiss? Your end of year party. In your pool house.”

“So I really was?”

“Yeahp.” I tapped my lips with my fingers. “My first kiss.”

“Mine, too.”

His quiet admission cast the whole memory in a different light. My heart had practically stopped when he spun the bottle and it pointed at me. Our friends and classmates had whooped at the idea of him having to kiss weird, awkward Rose. Everybody knew he had a crush on Julia Roy, even Julia Roy, who had a crush on Caleb D.

“You know,” he said softly, “I’ll never forget what you said to me when we met in the middle of the circle. Do you remember?”

“No, but I’m sure it was something unforgivably awkward.”

“You said, ‘I bet you regret inviting me, now.’ And I couldn’t get that out of my head, the whole summer. I couldn’t getyouor our kiss out of my head all summer.”

A heavy dullness sat in my chest. I had been stuck inhishead? I never really believed it was possible for people to think about me when I wasn’t right in front of them. It surprised me, every time, that I wasn’t entirely forgettable.

The silence between us lengthened, only permeated by the hum of the tires on the road and the Beatles’s “She Loves You” on the radio. I flipped through my cards, studying the lines of Hera, Kuan Yin, Lakshmi.

I’d spun fantasies about him for almost a year after that kiss. Him calling my house. Him showing up on my doorstep on his bike. For him to have actually thought about me was incomprehensible.

But it was also really, really cool.

“Is that why you agreed to take me to my prom?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t agree to a truth.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’ve mentally thrown a throw pillow, a roll of toilet paper, and a sofa cushion at your head already. Wait till we get there.”

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