“You’re being weird.” I tugged on the straps of my backpack.
“We don’t have to do everything together.” His eyes were elsewhere again. On the picture that hung next to the stairs—a portrait of him with Julia when she was just a baby, taken in the hospital before his mother was discharged. “I’ll meet you at school later and we can ride home together, okay?”
“Do you have a note?” I pressed on, not wanting to let him get out of this so easily.
Was this my punishment for not telling him about everything I’d done with Chris? Making up secrets of his own and throwing them in my face? It wasn’t fair. Hadn’t I been punished enough when Chris disappeared without saying goodbye?
“Theo.” He sighed and leaned against the doorframe, dug his toe into the carpet. “You’re gonna be late.”
“Fine.” I turned but I didn’t walk down the stairs. Not before I looked over my shoulder to say, “But I’m not covering for you.”
“I didn’t ask you to, did I?”
Those were his last words to me.
Hosea clears his throat from across the car. “That must’ve been tough, him being gone all this time.”
“Yeah,” I say, with a small nod for emphasis. “It was.”
I look at Hosea and wonder what it would feel like to kiss him. To touch him. To really be with someone like him. He pays attention when I talk. That was one of the things I hated about Chris. He never seemed to take anything I said all that seriously, but Hosea listens. If Ellie weren’t in the way, we could be together—really together. No abandoned parks, no quickies against the sink of a gas-station bathroom when I wasn’t even sure how to do it in the back of a car. We could hold hands between classes and go on dates and he would be my actual boyfriend.
I steal a look at his hands, strong but almost elegant, and I can’t imagine he would ever be anything but gentle.
“Did the drive help?” Hosea dips his head a bit as he looks at me. “Even a little?”
“Yeah.” I thread and unthread my fingers in my lap. Smile at him for being so nice to me. “It did. Thanks.”
“Good.” His hand rests on top of the gearshift, inches from my knee. “You know, Marisa would be pretty pissed if I’d just left you in that diner.”
I hold my leg still as can be. Waiting. Wanting. “Why would she care?”
“You’re her star dancer. I couldn’t leave you all bummed out like that.” He smiles a little, then says, “You’re special.”
“I’m not that special,” I say, and it doesn’t come out as carefree as I wanted, but that’s okay because it’s true. Special girls are worthy of a proper breakup, don’t have to wonder if their boyfriend was using them to get to their best friend.
“Right,” Hosea says softly. “I know shit about ballet but when you’re out there, you look pretty damn special to me.”
I’m afraid to look at him, for fear of what I’ll see. His voice was serious but maybe he’s kidding. Maybe this is the kind of thing he says to girls all the time; maybe it’s no big deal that he said it to me. But I force myself to turn my head, to meet his gaze, and whatever this is, it’s not just in my head. He feels it, too. It’s real, reflected in his gentle eyes. They search my face again, just like earlier at the diner. But there’s an understanding this time. A look that will quicken my pulse every time I replay it in my head.
I don’t know who leans in first, but moments later we are close enough for our foreheads to touch, close enough for me to breathe him in. I slide my hand up the nape of his neck at the same time he slips his arm around my waist and pulls me closer. We’re so in sync, it’s like our own private pas de deux, like we learned the choreography years ago, are only now putting it to practice.
Hosea’s kisses are whispers, just the slightest touch that keeps me wanting more. He pulls back, looks at me, smiles. My palm is still cupped around the back of his neck as he leans in to kiss me again. Deeply this time so there is no doubt as his lips meet mine; this is real.
I run my hands through his soft, soft hair and he keeps his around my waist, tickles a trail up the small of my back with his fingers. For a while, we are the only two people in the world. A burst of light in this small, dark car, on this deserted road. A tangle of heat and breath and touch and taste and I want to stay like this forever. Being with him is safe and wonderful and—
“Theo.”
It’s not fair the way he says it as he pulls away from me, like he’s the only person who is allowed to say my name. It makes me want to keep kissing him for hours, ignore the fact that we have school tomorrow and my parents expect me home any minute now. It makes me forget about Donovan and whether anyone will find out that Chris Fenner and I used to kiss like this.
Only . . . this feels real in a way that things never did with Chris.
“Sorry.” Hosea brings his hand up to my face, where he runs his thumb along the curve of my bottom lip. “We should probably—”
“I know.” Of course I should have expected him to pull away. Of course we can’t keep going. I kissed him and he doesn’t belong to me and I liked it. I’m not special, but I am That Girl.
He looks at my mouth, brushes his fingers against my lips one last time before he pulls away completely. He reaches into the console for his pack of cloves. I sit back in my seat, buckle my seat belt, and pull my phone from my bag so I’ll have something to do.
Hosea pinches a clove between his lips and pulls out onto the street again, en route to Casablanca’s. Neither of us says another word and we don’t look at each other for the rest of the ride, but longing melts through me in a thousand waves.
Hot and slow and bittersweet to the core.
CHAPTER TWELVE
ONCE, SARA-KATE AND I PLAYED FUCK/MARRY/KILL: TEACHERS Edition and I ended up marrying Mr. Jacobsen.
Kill was easy enough—Mr. Gellar is the biggest waste of space in the school and not just because he teaches chemistry. The Fuck part was a no-brainer because we had a really hot student teacher in English that year. His name was—no joke—Grant Fineman. But Jacobsen was the only real option for Marry, so it flew out of my mouth too easily and Sara-Kate teased me for weeks.
So maybe his hair is thinning. And his belly isn’t getting any smaller, but I can tell Jacobsen used to be cute back in the day. Or “kind of a fox, in a retro way,” according to Sara-Kate. Whatever. He has a nice smile. And he’s a good teacher. He doesn’t have to think up gimmicks or games to interest us in the justice system. He simply talks like he’s telling us a really good story.
He finds me in the atrium the Thursday before Halloween. I’m standing with Sara-Kate and Phil before homeroom and nobody blinks an eye when Jacobsen pops his head into our circle and asks if he can talk to me for a minute. It’s never anything bad with him. I don’t think I’ve ever heard him raise his voice, not even last week when he kicked Leo Watson out of class for texting.
We walk over to an empty part of the hallway, a little sliver of space between the custodian’s closet and a water fountain I’ve never seen anyone use. They paint the walls every summer, but someone has already scuffed the latest coat of beige with the heel of their shoe.
“I’ve been meaning to ask how you’re doing, Theo. Everything all right?” Jacobsen looks relaxed in a polo and khakis with a brown belt that matches his shoes. His tone is easy, like he makes a special point to check in with me every couple of weeks or so.
“Everything’s great, Mr. Jacobsen.” I push my shoulders back and stand tall, make direct eye contact to assure him this is true.