as having any seatlike properties, and decide there’s no way I can bluff my way through this. “How do I do that, exactly?”
Luis slips into coaching mode without missing a beat. “Face away from me and step over the front wheel, with one leg on either side,” he instructs. It’s a little awkward, but I do it. “Put your hands behind you and grab hold of the handlebars. Brace yourself, like this.” His hands, warm and rough, close briefly over mine. “Now push down to lift yourself up and—yeah!” He laughs, startled, when I rise in one fluid motion to perch on the handlebars. Even I’m not sure how I did that. “You got it. Pro skills.”
It’s not the most comfortable thing I’ve ever done, and it feels more than a little precarious. Especially when Luis starts pedaling. “Oh my God, we’re going to die,” I gasp involuntarily, squeezing my eyes shut. But then Luis’s chin is on my shoulder as a cool breeze hits my face and honestly, there are much worse ways to go.
He’s a fast and assured cyclist, navigating a nonstop route to the bike path behind Bayview Center. The path is wide and almost empty, but every once in a while a speck appears ahead of us and then, before I know it, Luis has passed whoever it is. When he finally slows and says “Hang on tight, we’re about to stop,” I see a wrought-iron gate and a wooden sign beside it that reads BAYVIEW ARBORETUM.
My descent is a lot less graceful, but Luis doesn’t seem to notice as he chains the bike to a post. “This okay?” he asks, pulling a water bottle from the bike’s holder and drinking half of it in a few gulps. “I thought we could walk around for a while.”
“It’s perfect. I don’t come here often enough.”
We start down a smooth gravel path lined with cherry blossom trees that are just starting to bloom. “I love it here,” Luis says, shading his eyes against the afternoon sun. “It’s so peaceful. I come here whenever I need to think.”
I sneak a glance at him, all bronzed skin and broad shoulders and that quick, easy smile. I never imagined that Luis was the sort of person who would go somewhere because he wanted a quiet place to think. “What do you think about?”
“Oh, you know,” Luis says seriously. “Deep, profound things about humanity and the state of the universe. I have those kind of thoughts all the time.” I tilt my head at him, eyebrows raised in a go on gesture, and he meets my eyes with a grin. “I’m not having any right now, though. Give me a minute.”
I smile back. It’s impossible not to. “How about when you’re not pondering existential crises? What sort of ordinary things do you worry about?”
“Staying on top of everything,” he says instantly. “Like, I have a full load of classes this semester plus extra practicum because I’m trying to graduate early. I work twenty to thirty hours a week at Contigo, depending on how much my parents need me. And I still play baseball every once in a while. Just pickup games with guys from school, nothing like the schedule I was on when I played at Bayview with Cooper, but we’re trying to get a league together. Oh, and I help out with my brothers’ Little League team sometimes. It’s all good, but it’s a lot. Sometimes I forget where I’m supposed to be, you know?”
I don’t know. When Luis was at Bayview, I thought all he did was play sports and go to parties. “I had no idea how much you have going on,” I say.
He glances toward me as we approach a rose garden. It’s early in the season and most buds are just starting to open, but a few show-offs are in full bloom. “Is that a polite way of saying you thought I was a dumb jock?”
“Of course not!” I stare at the roses so I don’t have to meet his eyes, because I totally did. I always thought Luis was a nice enough guy by Bayview athlete standards—especially when he stood by Cooper when the rest of Cooper’s friends turned on him their senior year—but not much else.
Except gorgeous, obviously. He’s always been that. Now he’s tossing out all these hidden depths and making himself even more appealing, which is frankly a little unfair. It’s not like my crush needs more encouragement. “I just