Page 2 of One Little Kiss
He shifts on the bed beside me, and I don’t realize what he’s doing until his hoodie lands on me in a pile, partially covering my bare thighs and the tight bodice of my dress. “What’s this for?”
“You look cold.”
I realize belatedly that Iamcold. I sit up and slide the hoodie on. “Thanks.”
I’ve only just laid back down beside Elijah, who’s got his knees up now and is frowning as he tinkers with something on his phone. No doubt some new app he’s trying out.
The boy acts like a fool, but he’s way smarter than he lets on.
The door opens again and a smiling blonde enters. That smile fades fast when she spots me. It’s clear, at a glance, that she’s perplexed. I can practically hear the questions in her mind.
Is she competition?
Should I be jealous?
The answer is a resoundingnoas any girl in our school could, and probably would, tell her the moment she rejoined the party.
Which is why I don’t bother. Let the gossips fill her in. I don’t have the energy to fake nice right now, so I turn my attention back to the screen.
“Eli, are you coming back down?” Her voice is high and just a little whiny in the doorway.
“Be there in a sec.” He gives her an absent smile, not even looking up from his phone.
I know that’s how he is when he’s engrossed in a technical problem, but I still feel a little sorry for the girl when she backs out with one last wary look.
The door snaps shut behind her and I let my head inch to the side. It falls against his shoulder with a thud.
After a while, he breaks the companionable silence. “What are you all dressed up for?”
Ugh. I don’t even want to talk about it. “My parents set me up with one of the interns at my dad’s firm.”
“What?” I don’t have to see his face to know his expression. He’s giving me the ‘your parents are crazy’ look I know all too well. “Aren’t they supposed to wait until you’re in college, or…I don’t know, over eighteen?”
“I’ll be eighteen in six months.”
Not the point, and we both know it.
“He’s still in undergrad, just doing a part-time internship…or something.” I shrug. “He’s basically our age.”
“Must’ve been a great date,” he murmurs.
“So good.” I answer in the same flat, sarcastic tone.
“Getting married?”
“Probably.”
“Cool, cool.”
Truth is, my date bailed early. For work. Because apparently interns can get called into the office on a Friday night. He offered to drop me at home, but I couldn’t deal with my parents.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re notbadparents. I love them and they love me. Unlike Elijah’s mom and dad, mine actually care what I do with my time. Maybe too much so. I mean, seriously, who sets their daughter up on dates these days?
They’retooinvolved if you ask me.
But today after school we had one of those talks. The kind that still rankles hours later, and the reason I told my preppy, brown-nosing date to drop me off here rather than at home.
My grades aren’t amazing, but they’re not awful. I’m a solid B student. Okay, maybe B-minus. Fine, maybe I’m more of a C kinda girl. Not for lack of trying, I’ve just never been good at tests. But today in the midst of a talk about my grades and my college prospects—or the lack thereof— my dad made a joke about how it was a good thing I had my mom’s looks.
