“I kind of like it too.”
“I’d like to do it more,” I admit.
She pulls back to look at me, her teeth pressing against that full lower lip. “I might be inclined to let you.”
“The fuck are we doing here then?” I tease. “Let’s go home.”
Abby does something then that takes my breath away, her lipscurling into a wide, bright smile that is so unlike anything she’s ever given me that I’m momentarily at a loss for words.
“Yeah,” she says. “Let’s go home.”
Home.
Suddenly, I’ve never wanted to be anywhere more.
Seventeen
Abby
I’m nervous, which is unlikeme.
Jack and I were pretty quiet on the ride home, although his hand did sneakily slide into mine at some point along the drive. And what’s even more surprising is I allowed it to happen.Again. I evenlikedit.
With the rest of the evening ahead of us—where I have no class, and he doesn’t have a game until tomorrow—my mind is racing with possibilities about what might happen when we get home. I can still feel his soft kiss from back there at the little playground, and every so often, I catch myself touching my lips, hoping he doesn’t see when I yank my fingers away after realizing what I’m doing.
I follow after him as we make our way up to the apartment, my body thrumming with anticipation and simultaneously racked with nerves. It’s just been so long since I’vedoneanything like this—part of me wonders if I even remember how to. My last boyfriend—if you can even call him that, since he was more of atwice-a-week hookup situation—went into the “relationship” knowing we had to be discreet, even if the reasons I gave him were different from the actual truth. Hiding who you are because of your dad’s past mistakes makes for a very difficult dating life, that’s for sure.
But I don’t have to hide now.
I can go inside that apartment and do whatever I like with Jack, and save for the stipulation we both made about keeping things quiet from our siblings, I don’t have to worry about what anyone might say, what they might do. I can just beme.
The only problem is…I may have forgotten how to do that.
I still don’t know if I’m ready to take things all the way—if only for the fact that the idea of being so close to someone still kind of scares the hell out of me—but more of what we’ve already done? More touching, more kissing…it seems my body is more than down for more ofthosethings, at the very least.
“Is it weird that I’m nervous?”
I startle a little, roused from my thoughts as I take in Jack with his hands on the keys that are pressed into the lock at the door.
“What?”
He chuckles under his breath, but it sounds strained. “I’m terrified I’m going to screw things up somehow.”
“With me?”
“No, with Ms. Sanderson down the hall,” he huffs. “Yes.With you.”
I can’t help it; a laugh burbles out of me. I hadn’t thought in all my inner musings thatJackmight be feeling the same way.
“Glad you think it’s funny,” he mutters.
“No, I don’t,” I assure him. “It’s just that I was pretty much thinking the same thing just now.”
“You were thinking I’d screw things up with you?”
“More the other way around, actually.”
His brow furrows. “How in the hell could you screw things up with me?”