Biggest Flirts (Superlatives #1)(7)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“Let me guess.” Will took my hand and stroked my palm with his thumb, sending a shiver down my arm. “It’s such a small town that showing me around would take five minutes, and then what would we do?”

I laughed softly, because his guess was so far off. I pulled my hand away. “No. It just sounds kind of serious.”

His brows went down. “Serious? What do you mean? It’ll be fun.”

“I mean, you’re moving too fast.”

“Too fast!” He looked around the ceiling. “Weren’t you the one who invited me into your bedroom when your parents weren’t home?”

So I was a little, shall we say, open with boys. I didn’t see how that hurt anything. What bothered me was when boys participated equally, and seemed to enjoy it, then complained about it afterward like I was somehow at fault.

“You know what?” he backtracked. “I’m sorry. I got to Florida yesterday. It’s a huge change, and I’m going through some other stuff. Maybe what I said didn’t come out right. I didn’t mean to creep you out and move in on you. We could just have lunch and that’s all. Or just ride around and that’s all. Or . . .” Searching my eyes, he ran out of words.

“No,” I said, “I mean I don’t want a boyfriend. Period.”

Not a muscle moved in his face. I couldn’t read his expression. He stared at me for a long time, as if he’d never heard of such a thing as a girl who didn’t want a boyfriend. He wasn’t taking this well.

Finally he nodded very slowly, then looked toward the ceiling again. “What I said definitely didn’t come out right.” He stood up and walked out of the room, headed for the front door. His eyes must have adjusted fully to the darkness, because not once did he scream out in pain as though he’d veered off the path and hit something sharp.

As I trailed after him, I reviewed the night, searching for the point when it had gone wrong. He wasn’t the type of guy who just wanted a hookup. How had I missed this? I was that type of girl and made a point never to hide it. Why did it surprise him now?

Surely he hadn’t been so attracted to me that he’d known I was wrong for him but pursued me anyway. I was okay looking, nothing special. A lot of guys seemed to like my auburn hair, but that usually got canceled out when they saw that I was almost their height. And while some boys enjoyed a flaky girl, others said I was stupid and couldn’t stand me. At least I wasn’t so flaky that I didn’t know I was flaky.

But I felt like the biggest flake in Florida as Will opened the door, letting the warm, humid night mix with the air-conditioning. As he turned to face me, his earring glinted, and I felt myself flush all over again with the longing I’d felt when I first saw him. I did not want a boyfriend, but it felt wrong to let Will go.

He looked into my eyes, then gazed at my lips. I thought he would kiss me again. And then—just maybe—we could return this night to the place where we should have left it.

No such luck. Without touching me, he stepped off the stoop and onto what was probably the sidewalk under all those magnolia leaves. “Good night, Tia,” he said over his shoulder.

“Are you sure you can get home?” I asked.

“I have GPS.” He took out his phone and wagged it in the air. “If I can remember my own address.” When he reached the street, he walked backward as he called, “Go inside and lock the door so I’ll know you’re okay.”

“It’s my house,” I said defiantly.

“I’ll worry.” He stopped and watched me.

I frowned, but I backed inside and turned the deadbolt. Even Sawyer made me lock the door when he left.

I navigated to my room, lifted a slat in the blind, and watched Will. He turned the corner and disappeared up a dead-end street. I waited.

Sure enough, he came back to the corner, focusing on his phone. Then he gazed up at the sky like a seafarer lost on his Great Lake, looking to the stars for guidance.

He headed down the street toward town.

3

I WOKE TO THE SOUND of my Dad’s truck in the driveway, which meant it was seven a.m. Bright morning light streamed through the window blind. I scowled, remembering what had happened the night before. I didn’t understand Will, but I knew enough that I didn’t want to. He was so hot, and kissed so well, and that earring! He was the type of guy I could get really attached to if I wasn’t careful. And though I might not seem like the most conscientious person most of the time, I was always careful about boys.

Besides, I’d never been one to lament what happened the night before. I had a great day ahead of me.

All summer I’d been looking forward to band camp. I’d spent two and a half months closed up in Bob and Roger’s antiques shop. They’d given me a raise last month. They were talking about promoting me to assistant manager, so I’d have to boss around Marvin of the too-small T-shirts printed with cat designs and Edwina of the constant smoke breaks.

I’d have to quit soon if Bob and Roger went through with their threat of giving me more responsibility. Just in case, I’d taken a second job at night, waiting tables at the Crab Lab. That hadn’t been ideal either. Sawyer’s brother kept coming on to me, which was going to work if he gave me any more beer, and it was getting hard for Sawyer to keep him off me.

Just as something bad was about to happen, I was saved by band. Because there were only four days until school started and two and a half weeks until our first game, we would practice on the football field a lot: eight a.m. to noon, then six to ten p.m., splitting the day to avoid the ridiculous heat of a Florida August. There went half my shift at the shop, and going in to the grill wasn’t even worth it.

I looked forward to seeing my friends, and beating the hell out of my drum. The only reason I dreaded band this year was that I was drum captain, by virtue of the fact that the three guys and one girl ahead of me last year had graduated. I should have been more careful to place lower during tryouts last spring, but thinking ahead was not my forte. Since then, the other snare drummers had refused to challenge me for drum captain, no matter how nicely I begged them.

So I was saddled with the responsibility of rehearsing all the drums and keeping them in line, which was going to require a constant vigilance of which I wasn’t capable. If I didn’t convince someone to take over my position, we would make a bad score at a band contest in the fall, I knew it. I didn’t mind personal failure so much, but I did not want to cause anybody else to crash and burn.