was hoping you’d be my girl next year.” His girl? So old-fashioned. And yet…like something Jay-Z might say to Beyoncé. It was the invitation I’d been waiting for for three years. Was he asking me out? He was, right? Being Jay Logan’s girlfriend would be like winning a prize. I’d be untouchable. Golden. Chosen for a better life. It would be like getting into Princeton, early admission, with a full ride for specialness. I smiled.
“Is that a yes?” Jay asked, and stepped closer to me.
He was standing so close, glimmering like some kind of American hero in his faded Whale’s Tale beer T-shirt. We would be the couple of the year. I drank in the possibility. There had been times when I’d imagined this moment at lacrosse practice, and it always made me run faster.
“I’ve thought about that night at Nora’s,” he said. “I really wanted to kiss you.”
“Me too,” I said. It was true. I’d obsessed about that moment at the beginning of the summer. But not recently. Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t fantasized about kissing him, or played the Jay playlist for weeks. It struck me that I didn’t want to go any further with him than this. Right here. This was enough. This was the fantasy. Maybe this whole time, the possibility of Jay was all I’d wanted. But before I could tease this thought apart from all the others that were going through my mind, he placed a gentle hand on my back, leaned in, and pressed his lips to mine. Jay Logan was actually kissing me!
I pressed back. I did. I kissed him back because I had to know if it was the idea of Jay or Jay himself that I liked so much. I tingled with a feeling that I was doing something wrong, which was confusing because tingling is tingling.
“Nice move, Logan,” said Fitzy. “Way to break your buddy’s heart.” We pulled apart. There were Fitzy and Oliver, hands full of hot dogs. The church bells chimed eight o’clock.
“I’m having a party on Friday,” Fitzy said. “Eighty-two Cliff Road. Bring your sister.”
“I don’t have a sister,” I said.
“Damn,” he said.
“I have to go,” I said.
I spotted Zack as soon as I pushed open the bright red door of Gigi’s. He was sitting at a table by a window with a bouquet of wildflowers and a bottle of champagne, looking at his watch. He was wearing a button-down shirt and his Nantucket Reds.
“Hi,” I said. He looked at me and stood up. He was only six feet away, but I couldn’t get to him fast enough. Any confusion I’d experienced on the walk over vanished like a drop of water in direct sunlight. He put his arms around me and I kissed him. And when I did: phosphorescence.
“I’m in love with you, Zack Clayton,” I said.
“I’m in love with you, too,” he said, and kissed me again. “I’m in love with my secret lover.”
Thirty-seven
IT HAPPENED IN MY LITTLE ROOM with the slanted ceiling right before the sun came up and all the champagne was gone. It wasn’t what I thought it would be at all. It wasn’t as easy as they make it look in the movies. It took kind of a while to get everything all lined up and protected and ready to go. The actual sex part was pretty short, and I was relieved it was short. I know I’m supposed to want it to last, but I didn’t. I’ve heard that’s kind of normal for a first time. I kept my eyes open, when I always thought I’d be the type to keep them shut. Oh, and the kissing was still my favorite part, which isn’t what I thought, that the first thing you do with a boy could be the best. And I did feel different afterward; I felt all shaky and energized. Maybe that’s because it’s good exercise. I think that’s what they say, anyway. And my face was really hot, and that made me feel pretty. I didn’t think I would feel pretty. Or if I did, I thought it would be in a flowing-white-nightgown kind of way, not a cheeks-full-of-embers way.
I wanted to call someone. And not because I wanted to spill every little detail, but because I wanted it to be known that something had happened to me. I wanted to stay awake, even as Zack seemed to be drifting off. I touched his muscular back. He was the most beautiful thing I