Kissing the Shy Guy - Stephanie Street Page 0,21

now I had nobody.

I closed my eyes and saw Adam’s concerned face behind my lids. It had been shocking enough to see Laura at the funeral. I’d been stunned to see Adam walking out from the shadows. Were they related somehow? I should have asked him. Wouldn’t that be the icing on the cake if they were?

I shuddered, determined not to worry about it.

Adam had been sweet, attentive, and funny. Funny, I was familiar with, sweet and thoughtful, not so much. I liked it. I liked him. Josh could be called a lot of things—sweet wasn’t one of them. It was refreshing being around Adam that way, stimulating too. I couldn’t deny the way my heart raced every time I caught even a glimpse of him. When he’d held my hand earlier, I thought it might beat from my chest.

I also hadn’t been able to forget how he’d sung the lyrics to Tonight with a smooth tenor voice. Between that and my general fixation on the guy, I’d had a thought, a crazy, outrageous thought. But one I still couldn’t get out of my head.

Should I mention it to my friends?

“Who could you even ask?” Bella sat up and propped her chin in her hand, thinking. “What are the possibilities?”

“I don’t even know,” I groaned. “He has to be a senior and be able to sing and dance. That really narrows it down.”

“I don’t know,” Lydia said, turning on her chair to face us. “What about the guys in choir?” Her eyes lit with mischief. “What about Jarom?”

“Oh. My. Gosh. You did not just say that!” I threw a pillow at her face.

Laughing, she batted it down before it could hit her, careful of her freshly painted nails. “Why? What’s wrong with Jarom? We know he can sing. I bet he can dance, too.”

“You think so?” Bella didn’t sound so sure. “He’s like ten feet tall.”

They were teasing me. They both knew how much I despised Jarom Jones. Still, even then, I’d thought about it. But only for a split second, because thinking of Jarom made me think of Adam. And between the two? Adam would win every single time, no matter the contest.

“What about Adam?” I blurted before I could stop myself.

My two best friends stared at me with twin expressions of perplexity. Lydia recovered first. “Adam? Adam, who?”

I waved my hand impatiently. “Adam Smith. From school.”

Bella drew back her chin. “Adam Smith? You mean that guitar player? From Jarom’s band?”

Lydia’s eyes widened before narrowing speculatively. “What makes you think he’d do it? I didn’t know you knew him?”

I glanced down. “I don’t. At least not very well. But I’ve run into him a couple of times lately.”

Bella sat forward. “When? How? I’ve always thought he was cute.”

Lydia’s nose wrinkled. “Cute? Teddy bears are cute. Adam Smith is hot.”

I blinked in surprise. “You think Adam’s hot? He doesn’t seem your type.” Lydia always went for hipsters, even though she couldn’t possibly be classified as one herself. I wholeheartedly believed that someday I’d see Lydia on the front of a gossip magazine in the grocery store checkout line on the arm of a hunky celebrity.

Lydia stared down her now unwrinkled nose at me. “Why wouldn’t I? Dark hair, blue eyes—he has amazing bone structure.”

“He also wears a lot of black,” Bella added.

Lydia shrugged. “He pulls it off.”

I’d give her that. For the last week, I’d been surreptitiously spying on Adam whenever I could, which wasn’t often. We didn’t have any of the same classes, but he did spend a lot of time in the music wing. He always looked soooo good in that don’t-even-have-to-try kind of way guys had.

Bella turned to me. “But what makes you think he’d help you or that he even can? I know he plays guitar and he must sing a little…but still.”

Lydia and Bella listened with rapt attention as I explained about Adam finding me in the choir room after Josh left and then seeing him again tonight at the funeral.

“Six sisters!” Bella exclaimed, horrified.

Lydia shook her head. “No wonder he’s so quiet.”

“And guess what they loved to watch growing up?” I asked.

“What?” they replied in unison.

“Musicals.” I told them he’d sung the first line of Tonight in his smooth, sexy voice and thought they’d swoon on the spot.

“He didn’t,” Belle protested, eyes wide.

“He did.”

“Can you just see it? Adam in a white t-shirt with his hair slicked back and a leather jacket slung over his shoulder?” Lydia’s cheeks flushed, and she fanned them with