The Starter Boyfriend (13 page)

Better I stick to my own agenda. “Hey, I don’t suppose you have your dad’s car tonight?”

“Better than that. Granny’s 1974 Ford Country Squire. Fake wood paneling, AM/FM radio dial, and imitation leather seats that fold down for my board. All a guy needs.”

I nodded. “Technology is
so
overrated.”

“Why? You need a ride?”

“Uh-huh.”

Leaning forward to rest an elbow on a knee, he turned to me with what was either a street light reflection or a gleam in his eye. “Don’t tell me you and Joe Quarterback broke up? That you finally realized he wasn’t all that?”

“Let’s just say I think I gave him back to Jacy.”

“Think?”

“I’ll find out tomorrow.”

He shook his head as if trying to find room for what I was saying.

“It’s not like I care,” I reminded him.

“Where does that leave you, dance-wise?”

“Could be I won’t go.”

He studied my face for a long moment, his gaze lingering longest on my mouth. Then, as if he got the answer he sought, he squished his face, all puppy dog cute. “Will you live, Courtney?”

“Somehow, Adam, I think I will.”

He gave my arm a long pat, which felt incredibly nice, not to mention reassuring. Overthinker (and overfeeler) that I was, I couldn’t leave it there. I held tight to the memory of his touch, and imagined grabbing that hand back. Not so much for more hand-on-arm action, but to lace our fingers together—

Wait. What? Puh-lease. This was Adam. Who had shown major progress by simply acknowledging me as a friend. Not to mention that I had a romantic commitment at present to someone else. Well, some
thing
else. Why split hairs?

“You know,” he said, breaking into my musing, “if only I could get out of my dance date with Saffron...”

My lashes went up to the sky, thinking he was going to continue with, “
Then you and I could go together.
” That would be supposing he wanted to go to the stupid formal
and
that he liked me in a way that he didn’t. I just stared at his face, and waited for what I was sure was a disappointing finish.

And he did not disappoint. Well, in disappointing me. For his sentence simply died, like bonfire sparks into the beach air.

Suddenly Adam himself was in the air, leaping from the table into a complicated aerial spin that probably involved ninety degrees if not one-eighty. All I knew for sure was that he landed it with knees bent, one palm on concrete, the other out front for balance, but I suspected that in his head, he was all wave and board. In his private place, his happy place—a place where girls and friends like me did not exist.

And while the move was totally awesome, to keep things light, I broke into a series of claps in an imaginary circle.

“God, Courtney,” he said, looking over and laughing. “A
round
of applause. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that. Like Cub Scouts.”

I felt oddly pleased. Immature or not, I’d gotten a rise out of him. I smiled and scooted off the table, then fell into step beside him, listening to the distant roar of a breaking wave.

For the first time, I didn’t feel the need to fill the air with chatter, to say something just to keep the vibe from getting awkward. Maybe, finally, and for real, we were friends.

* * *

Adam’s grandmother’s station wagon was as old as the hills, and definitely a keeper. Plenty of “way back” room for his surfboard to lie like a coffin in a hearse, an amusingly springy front bench seat, and a strong rumbling engine. Reaching over to kick on the heater, I was betting it worked like a dream.

I let out a contented sigh as he pulled into traffic, thinking how nicely the night had turned around. Which was when I saw him gesturing toward the open seat between us, where a third seat belt lay buckled.

“Good thing you didn’t move in there,” he told me.

Fighting my automatic tendency to take that as a put-down, I merely said, “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. In the olden days, that was where parents put the baby. Here and now, it’s reserved for a baby of another kind.”

I tensed, feeling slapped. Yeah, girlfriend. Sometimes I hated being right. “Okay.”

“You get it?”

“Of course I get it. I’m not stupid.”

“I never said you were.” His brow rose. “Should we try it?”

“Try what?”

“It.”

It
?

O.M.G., what was going on here? One minute he was telling me to keep to my side of the car, the next he was asking if I wanted to...

I hadn’t
done it
with anyone yet (and in my current “relationship,” my virgin status would not be changing). That aside, why in the world was Adam—who just told me
not
to invade his body space—suggesting we have sex on the front seat of his grandmother’s car?

Enough was enough. The kid gloves were coming off. “Adam Hartnett, are you out of your mind?”

“I thought you liked adventure.” He cocked his head at a wary angle. “And I always stop before anybody gets hurt.”

“Gets hurt?”

“Well, sure there was that one time—”

I folded my arms over my chest so hard that my fingers bit into my upper arms. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Luckily no one was in the car with me that day,” he continued anyway, making a sudden right into school’s student lot.

“No one?”

“When the board actually crested over the back of the seat. If someone had been sitting there—wow—they totally would have gotten a concussion or something.”

I felt my brow sink down to my eyes. “Your board? Are you talking about your surfboard?”

“Yeah. See how it’s sitting right in the middle of the car? If I get up to twenty five, thirty miles an hour on a city street, and then brake hard for a red light or something?” His grin widened. “Bam-o! Here comes Baby!”

“Oh. My. God.” I covered my face with my hands and burst into laughter.

“What?”

I shook my head.

“
What
?”

No way I was answering that or going there. Besides, I was too busy laughing. At my own rampant stupidity.

When he pulled into the space beside my Beetle, snapped his seat belt open and turned to me, I knew I was in a race against time. I had to get my hands out of my face and some reasonable explanation out of my mouth before he figured out I’d thought he’d wanted my bod. Which of course had taken root in my brain because I wanted his.

“You think the surfboard thing,” he said, in a tone that was halting, but seemed to fill the close confines of the front of the car, “totally blows?”

I peeked through my splayed fingers, realizing he thought I was laughing at him. And I couldn’t have that. “No, no,” I said, and dropped my giggles and my hands. “I just took the ‘it’ thing as something else.”

He squinted, and then I could almost see the light snap on in his eyes. “Oh,” he said, his reaction spilling into a grin. A big, boyish one, providing another sudden transport back to middle school days. “Yeah, okay.”

He lowered his head, while I got super-busy unlatching my seat belt.
Awk
ward!

“Well,” he continued, “that was probably because of the way I was acting tonight.”

My gaze fled back to him speedball fast.

“Look, Courtney, I’ve tried to be chill about Randy. I know the guy from way-back. I’ve heard some of the jokes he tells, crap he says about girls behind their backs. And tonight, seeing you together, I got a little crazy, thinking he wasn’t going to, you know, respect you. I know it’s none of my business what you do. And that you don’t need me or anyone watching out for you. I get that.”

He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bounced. “But I feel sort of connected to you. I mean, it seems you’ve been in my life forever, and I’ll never forget how great you were that night I vented to you about my parents’ divorce. I just knew I’d never forgive myself if, you know, something happened and I wasn’t around to help.”

My hand moved to my chest, pressing open-fingered, which I hoped was relaying the gratitude I was struggling to vocalize. I just didn’t have words for this, to respond to someone stepping up out of the blue for me. Who was putting me front and center of his life.

I wasn’t a girl who people watched out for. The opposite. I’d been taking care of others for as long as I could remember. That was my comfort level, my baseline. I expected this of
myself
now, I guess because others always did.

I couldn’t even count on my friends to have my back these days—not even Flea, who seemed to be under the constant influence of more than just alcohol, but Saffron Willis, too.

To have Adam, of all people, want to go to bat for me was just...awesome.

“Are you mad?” he asked, his gaze ricocheting all over my face.

“No!” I forced out. “Adam, that is, like, the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” I swallowed against something hard in my throat. “I mean, I totally had that situation covered with Randy, but you didn’t know that. And you worried.” My voice softened. “And you waited.”

I inched toward him for a hug. A friend hug. One that he’d more than earned. “Thank you.”

He must have leaned in, too, because our bodies smacked together quickly—so fast I hadn’t even fully raised my arms. Since my hug was happening at a clumsy mid-shoulder range, the obvious balance was a kiss on the cheek. Which I fleetingly imagined to be all puckered and chaste, but somehow, too, lost its scope and direction.

Maybe it was because he tilted his head to look down into my eyes in that way I perceived special. Maybe it was the nearness of him—the husky sound of his breath, the touch of his skin, his masculine, sea-salty scent—making me lose
my
head.

That thank-you kiss shot on past his cheek, landing bulls-eye on his mouth. On warm lips that seemed frozen in surprise.

I could feel his chest rising and falling with his breath, and suddenly, in my head, was his voice, replaying what he’d said earlier: “
I feel sort of connected to you
.”

Driving home that maybe I hadn’t been on a one-way-street all these years, with these stirrings and feelings and yearnings. Maybe what he needed was a take-charge girl (who for once was choosing not to keep under the radar) to get things started.

I inhaled and jacked my arms up to his neck, leaned my head, parted my lips, and gave him my best shot.

Giving myself one of life’s perfect moments.

He let out a sound that I told myself was one of joy, then his hands moved to cup the back of my neck, just below the hairline. As if holding me—and the kiss—in place.

If my mouth hadn’t been so busy giving my all to his, I think it would have burst into a smile. I’d never been kissed like this before, never known this feeling of being this incredibly lost and yet so found.

I mean, this was Adam...

We shifted angles, went back at each other, then shifted again. Simply coming up for air, I thought.

Until he jerked entirely away from me.

“Courtney,” he said, his first clear word in what seemed like minutes. “I—I can’t do this.”

My breath backing up in my lungs, I tried to steel myself.
What
? I had to keep it together. And then, it struck me. Of course. Saffron. Her dad’s endorsement. He needed to stay free.

He needed to hear what I’d learned about her tonight, about her being a first rate BS-er. No saying her promises about her dad’s support were above-board, either. Of course, Saffron would hate my guts over all this, and probably try to make my life miserable for taking up with him.

But Flea would stick by me. (Wouldn’t she?) I’d deal with it. Somehow.

He was worth it.
We
were worth it.

“It’s because of her, right?” I forced out. “Saffron.”

His jaw clamped. “No.”

Feeling a numbness take over me, I could barely process that. “Randy, then?” I managed, reaching. “You couldn’t possibly think—”

He killed that idea with a shake of his head, while running a slow hand down his face.

And since clearly, I was the only one on the planet who would bring my make-believe boyfriend into play, that left only one thing.

“It’s me, then,” I said and tensed so fiercely that I could barely see through my squinting eyes.

When nothing but the sound of his breathing floated back to me, I widened my eyes and forced a look his way. To see him grimacing and shrugging in a noncommittal way. And definitely nodding.

Chapter 16

My hand dropped to the contours of the passenger door in a desperate search for the handle, while my brain tapped out a steady beat of “Omigod, Omigod.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Courtney,” Adam spoke in a rambling rush. “You’re totally cute. Hot, even.”

I cringed, remembering him saying something similar about Saffron—right before saying he’d delivered the I-don’t-have-time-for-a-relationship line to her. I shot up my palm like a stop sign, which thank God he understood, and shut up. If I’d had to listen to a clichéd it’s-not-you-it’s-me line (which of course, really meant “it’s totally you”), I might lose my mind.

So what
if he stayed to make sure things with Randy didn’t get out-of-hand? Friends did that. (Probably.) And I was a big girl. I could deal with this. (Definitely.)

“No problem,” I managed, finally locating the handle and somehow jerking the door open. “That was totally stupid of me.” I stood, turned and bent down to meet his eyes. “Forget this happened, okay? And have fun with Saffron tomorrow night.”

Slamming the door behind me, I was pretty sure I’d heard him say “I won’t...” but told myself I didn’t care what came next. Whether he wouldn’t have fun or wouldn’t even go to the

dance. Not my concern. My not problem. Not my life. Anymore.

I was, after all, pretty adept and even experienced, at picking up the pieces after catastrophes. I knew how to work it. You go on autopilot and focus on what needs to be accomplished, throwing yourself head-first into making that happen. No big picture, no yesterday, no today.