Page 76 of The Second Kiss
“I’ll get you one of Matt’s shirts.” I head up to Matt’s room and then remember the sweatshirt he loaned me when he was fixing my car. I’ve kept it for a couple of months, maybe it’s time to give it back.
He’s standing in the foyer holding his wet shirt when I come down the stairs. It's hard not to stare at his chest. “Wow. You’d think with all of those muscles you would do better at something as easy as stationary biking.”
“Yeah.” He touches my nose. “You’d think that with a pretty face like that you wouldn’t be quite so sadistic.”
I hand him the sweatshirt. “Thought you might want this back.”
He looks at it for a second, like he’s trying to remember why I had it. “Oh. Looks like you got the raspberry stains out of it.”
“Yeah.” I duck my head at the memory. “Sorry about that.”
We sit on the couch. I hesitate and then ask. “How’s your family?”
“Gage is doing better with school, but basically up to his old tricks. Mom told me he took three girls out on Valentine’s Day. Of course they all found out about it, and of course they all forgave him anyway. That kid can get away with anything. I’m not sure what his secret is.”
I laugh. “I can’t figure that one out either. At least he found the time to have you deliver flowers.”
Jacob gets serious. “Don’t tell Jasmine the thing about the three dates, okay?”
“Don’t worry, Jasmine does plenty of things I’m sure she doesn’t want Gage to know about.” I pick at the couch cushions, avoiding his eyes. “How’s Nate?”
“Good. I guess. He’s not into talking to me these days, but Mom said he made the Dean’s List again.”
“That’s good,” I say. A wave of guilt washes over me. I'm the reason Nate and Jacob aren't talking. I wish I could fix it, but if Nate isn't talking to his brother, then he's definitely not talking to me.
Silence settles over the room. I’ve run out of things to talk about. There are other questions I want to ask, questions I should ask, like how he feels about his looming deployment, but right now I’m the one who’s afraid. “You want to watch a movie or something?”
Jacob looks over our DVD collection. “Hey, what’s this?” he picks up a case.
I look at what he has in his hand. “That’s not a movie, it’s a game.” It’s one of those overly violent fantasy war games that my brothers love. “Tyler got it for Christmas.”
“I know,” Jacob says. “This is a great game. You want to play?”
“I actually suck at video games.” I could never see the point of learning to play a video game until now.
“Oh, that’s just because you never play them,” Jacob coaxes. “Give it a try.”
“Whatever. At least it will give you a chance to beat me at something.”
“You playedvideo games?” Jasmine looks at me dumbfounded. I texted her to tell her Jacob was over, so she would understandwhy I blew her off. At lunch she cornered me in the cafeteria, begging for details, but I can tell she’s disappointed with my report. “You want him to notice you as a girl—correction—as a woman, and you played video games with him? That’s not even something you do with your little sister, more like something you do with a little brother, or with one of the guys.”
“We had fun,” I protest.
She takes a sip of her soda and taps her emerald green fingernails on the can. “Whose idea was the game, yours or his?”
“Mine,” I think for a minute. “Maybe his. We kind of ran out of things to talk about.”
Jasmine sighs and puts her drink down. “When you run out of things to talk about, there are other things you can do with your lips.”
“Yeah. That one already got me in enough trouble. Besides, what was I supposed to do, throw myself at him?”
“She would have,” Taryn looks up from her book.
Jasmine gives Taryn a dark look, “Well I sure as hell wouldn’t have sat around and played video games all night.” She looks at me critically. “And I don’t even want to know what you were wearing.”
I look down at my standard outfit, comfortable jeans and a t-shirt, my hair pulled back in a ponytail, similar to what I was wearing when Jacob came over.
Jasmine shakes her head at me. “You need to work on that. The one good thing about Brad—you dressed better when you were together.”
