“Are you being serious?” he asked warily. “Or just finding a new way to tease me?”
“I’m serious.”
“I think she’s a nice kid,” he said slowly.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, then no. I want to help her with the college stuff but that’s all. I’m sorry if I gave her any other impression.” We were at my house. He punched in the code and we waited for the gate to swing open. “Do you think I need to do anything about it?”
“Nah, you’re good,” I said, suddenly feeling very cheerful. “It’s nothing you did. She gets a lot of crushes on teachers and people like that. She gets over them.” As we pulled into the driveway, I said, “We’re not that much younger than you, you know. Just a few years.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s not necessarily an age thing. It’s more who she is. I just could never see her that way. It’s not like . . .” He stopped talking as he put the car in park. He turned the engine off, avoiding my eagerly curious gaze.
“Not like what?”
“Nothing.” He opened his car door and got out.
I jumped out my side and came around the car, meeting him by the trunk. I put my hand on his arm to keep him from opening it. “Wait. Not like what?”
“Nothing. Don’t forget the books.”
“You were going to say it’s not like the way it is with me, weren’t you?” My heart was thumping wildly in my chest. Leaping and thumping. I felt sick and excited. And suddenly enlightened.
Maybe I hadn’t been jealous of Heather just because George was my tutor. Maybe I had been jealous of Heather because she said he liked her, and I didn’t want him to like anyone—except me.
George opened his mouth and closed it. His beautiful dark-green, dark-gray eyes—they were beautiful, even if I’d never admitted it to myself before—avoided mine as he said, “Ellie—”
My fingers pressed into his arm. “Just admit it. That’s what you were going to say. You know I’m not going to leave you alone until you do.”
“Man, you’re pushy,” he said.
“I know.”
“And conceited.”
“What else?”
He stared at my hand on his arm and said, “And if someone walks into a room that you’re in, he’s not going to notice Heather. Or anyone else, for that matter.” He passed his free hand over his forehead like it ached, then said in one big rush, “Or what time it is or whether there was something he was supposed to be doing in there or where he is or what his name is.”
A thrill of pleasure shot through me. “Someone?” I said. “Meaning anyone? Or someone specific?”
“We need to go inside.” But he didn’t move.
“Not yet.”
“You think you can order people around,” he said. “You’re overbearing and dictatorial.”
“Are you still listing things that are wrong with me?”
“The last act of a desperate man,” he said. Then, so quietly I could barely hear him: “I thought you were in love with Aaron.”
“Never. Not even for a second.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He shook his head as he carefully slid his arm out from under my grasp. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Your parents trust me. I’m supposed to be tutoring you.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I said. “You’re only a few years older than me. Aaron slept with his stepmother. This is nothing.”
“Yeah, Aaron’s not exactly a role model.”
“You really hate him, don’t you?”
“Not a big fan,” he admitted.
“Because you’ve been jealous of him. Because of me.” I grinned right up into his face—the thought delighted me so much I couldn’t not grin right up into his face.
A very small, reluctant smile played on his lips. “That may have influenced me slightly. But he’s still a selfish jerk.”
“Admit you were jealous of him.” I took his hand and threaded my fingers carefully through his. He let me do what I wanted, watching me silently, his fingers tense and taut in mine. It felt daring and almost wrong to touch him like that—but also thrilling. I wasn’t about to stop. “It’s too late to go back to just being my tutor,” I said. “Now I know you like me. I didn’t before, because you have a strange way of showing it. Always criticizing me—”
“You need to be criticized,” he said. “You’re spoiled. Your family lets you get away with everything. And Heather idolizes you and the world fawns over you and Aaron is even more spoiled than you are, which is saying a lot—”
“You adore me, don’t you?”
“But you’re not hopeless. Someone just needs to shove you in the right direction now and then.”
“Yeah,” I said dreamily. “You should shove me. Except not literally.”
“I’ll say this for you.” He gazed at our entwined hands. “You take criticism better than anyone I know.”
“Only when it comes from you.”
“And why’s that?” he asked in a suddenly unsteady voice.
I moved a step closer. So close I could feel the warmth coming off his body. “Are you trying to get me to say something nice to you? Don’t you think you’re being a little needy?”
“I’ve said nice things to you.”
“One nice thing. In the middle of a lot of mean things. You just called me spoiled.”
“You haven’t answered my question.” He tugged on my hand and I came even closer. Our bodies were almost touching. From this close, he seemed surprisingly tall. But then, I probably seemed surprisingly short.
I tilted my head back. “I forgot what it was,” I said, feeling very distracted by the way his fingers were moving up my arm, pulling me against him.
He put his mouth near my ear and said softly, “Why don’t you mind it when I criticize you?”
The breath of his words on my ear made me shiver. “Because you’re the only person whose opinion matters to me?”
“That’s got to be an exaggeration.”
“Yes,” I said, keeping my face angled up but closing my eyes because all this closeness was making me a little dizzy. “It probably is. But only a slight one.”
His arms went around me and tightened. I gasped a little, not because they were too tight—just because they were there. “What now?” he whispered.
“I don’t know. This is weird.”
“Too weird?” His arms instantly dropped down.
I opened my eyes so I could look at him. So I could look at George—the guy whose approval and instruction had come to mean everything to me without my knowing how or when, and who definitely had more than approval and instruction in his eyes right now. “No,” I said. “I like weird.”
“It’s not too late to stop this.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” I assured him, and I went up on tiptoes so I could put my lips on his and end the uncertainty. I don’t like uncertainty. Or waiting around for other people to do things I’m perfectly capable of doing myself.
I’d never kissed anyone before. I’d never wanted to. A couple of guys had tried to kiss me back in middle school, in the back rooms and corners of parties, but I always pushed them away. And in high school, I had avoided even flirting with anyone. Aaron had landed that one theatrical kiss at the party, but it didn’t count. So pressing my mouth against someone else’s—this was a new experience.
Which meant it was exciting and scary—and also lovely and ridiculous and forbidden and delicious—everything all at once, and also nothing all at once because I had closed my eyes again, which made everything disappear except the warmth of his mouth against mine and the gentle shock when our tongues touched and the feeling of wanting more and more and more and not wanting it ever to end and wanting more and feeling too much and the clutching of our fingers against each other’s arms and backs and shoulders and the wanting more and more and more until my brain felt like it was going to explode with both having and wanting so much.
It was like being overfed and hungry at the same time. I’d never felt anything like it before.