Oy tai. I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. The gossip will spread faster than our internet connection. What will my classmates say? Even worse, what will my parents think?
Good Thai girls don’t engage in PDA. Well, good girls don’t kiss in the first place, not while they’re in high school. But if they’re going to, then they should at least find a place a hell of a lot more private than the school’s courtyard.
“Hey.” Mat reaches over and taps me on the nose. “Don’t worry.”
I deliberately relax my shoulders. “Why do you think I’m worried?”
“Because I know you. And I know that when you’re stressed, you get a crease…right…there.” He draws a line down my forehead.
I fight back a shiver. Get it together, Winnie. It’s just a single stroke.
But I’ve never been touched so much by any guy before, let alone Mat. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to his casual caresses. I don’t think I want to.
He has a way of making me forget about my parents. Forget what they might say. Forget if they’ll approve.
“Ramon’s a stand-up guy.” Mat holds out his phone, showing me the screen. “I just texted him to keep his mouth shut.” His throat gurgles with a laugh. “Said I would tell everyone that he still sleeps with a stuffed bear named Lightning Storm if he indulged his need to gossip. He won’t be telling anybody anything.”
Oh. My insides get kinda melty. Because Mat’s not stressed about his reputation. His name has probably been linked with four different girls this year alone. He asked Ramon to keep our entanglement quiet for me. Because he knew the talk would bother me.
“Thank you,” I say.
He scans the knotted wood in between us. “Maybe you could tell me again without this foot of space between us?”
I flush. “I can’t, Mat. I’m just not comfortable with PDA. I may have lost my head for a few seconds—”
“Minutes,” he interrupts, checking the time on his phone. “Definitely minutes, and very nearly an hour, since first period is almost over.”
The corners of my mouth curve. “Okay, minutes. But that doesn’t change my point. My parents can be ridiculous, but I’m very much their daughter. As much as I liked the last minutes, we can’t touch each other again. At least not in public.”
The girl who engages in PDA doesn’t fit my parents’ image of me. My image of myself. And if I want to maintain that, I need to be a lot more careful from now on.
He searches my face. “But you did like it?” he asks, young, vulnerable.
I can’t believe it. The cockiest guy in the senior class is suddenly unsure.
Both my heart and my lips ache. I wish I could slide over, negate this space between us, and show him just how much I liked it. But I can hardly break my rule sixty seconds after I set it. Plus, I was lucky today. Next time, someone less innocuous than Ramon might see us. And if that happens…well, I don’t even want to think about the consequences.
Instead, I kiss my fingers and press them on the table, an inch from where his hand is lying. “Yes. I liked it very much.”
He stares at my fingers, as if they might be able to untangle the thoughts in his head. “Okay. I can live with that. But on two conditions.” He lifts his eyes, and they are as deep, as black, as I’ve ever seen then.
“First, I do get to kiss you again when we’re in private.”
I nod, my mouth dry. I shouldn’t say yes. But how can I resist? “I’m counting on it.”
“Second, Taran doesn’t get to kiss you, either,” he says darkly.
Really? After our last minutes, he’s still jealous? But since he is—and maybe, probably, definitely because he’s such a good kisser—I can reassure him.
“Taran who?” I ask sweetly.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The rest of the week passes in a whirlwind of equal parts flirtation and frustration. Although we haven’t talked about our status, Mat certainly acts like my boyfriend.
He waits by my locker every morning. He sits with Kavya and me at lunch, in the open courtyard, where his gaze drifts, ridiculously often, to a certain spot on the bench. And he calls every night, so often that I haven’t had time for my weekly conversation with my sisters. Mat and I have four years to catch up on, after all. Four years of jokes and observations and confidences. His voice is the last one