Shame the Devil (Portland Devils #3) - Rosalind James Page 0,52

couch watching TV with her grandpa that night, all the windows open in the heat of a North Idaho July, barely able to hold still. She’d watched the time tick past eight, past nine, and imagined Danny waiting for her. He’d think she didn’t like him enough, and that wasn’t it at all. She didn’t even have his phone number to call him and explain. The next day at the lake, he ignored her, and she thought, Of course he’s hurt and mad, and felt miserable. Every time she looked over, he was talking to his friends, or flirting with somebody else, and she wondered, in the kind of despair you could only feel at that age, Why does my mom have to ruin everything? It was just ice cream, and now I’ve missed my chance! And he really liked me!

The next Saturday, though, he ran up to her again, looking so athletic, he made her heart pound. He sat down beside her on the sand and asked, “How come you didn’t meet me last week? Were you just teasing me? What, I’m not in college, so I’m nothing? Is that it? I thought you were different from other girls. More mature.”

She answered, stumbling over the words with the need to explain, “Of course not! I’d never think that. My mom wouldn’t let me go, because she … I don’t even know. Because she doesn’t know you, I guess. Maybe you could come by and meet her, so you could tell her where we were going and she’d see it was OK.”

He laughed as if she’d said something hilarious. Or, more likely, hopelessly immature. “Are you kidding? Your mom’s not going to like me. She’s going to say I’m bad news because I’m not in college, even though I’ve got a job and a car and I’m doing great. She probably wants you to go out with some skinny kid from the debate team. You aren’t prejudiced like that, are you? Or do you think I’m bad news too?”

“No. Of course not. Besides, it was just ice cream.”

“Exactly. How come parents never get that? I tell you what. You just say you’re going to your girlfriend’s. You can go over there afterwards. That way, it’s not even a lie. You’re just not telling her every little thing.” He smiled, and that smile made her warm all over. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

Danny’d had a car. She’d never known anybody with their own car. He still lived with his parents, but he’d told her, “I’ll have enough saved next month to move out. The job’s just temporary, too. My buddy’s going to get me into the electrician’s union, and his boss is going to give me a job. In a few months, I’ll be earning big bucks once I’m getting all that overtime, and pretty soon, I’m going to start my own company and not have to take orders from anybody. This is all just for now.”

Well, that had turned out to be true. Once he’d been arrested.

The whole thing had lasted barely a month, first to last. Meetings in the park had turned into rides in his car, driving too fast with all the windows open and her bare feet up on his dashboard, feeling glamorous and pretty and grown-up, and then, one night, parking off a dirt road. Kissing had become touching, the windows open to the warm night air, the crickets chirping their summertime song, Danny’s hot breath in her ear.

And then the night when he said, “Come on,” took her hand, and pulled her into the back seat, and he wasn’t just touching her under her clothes anymore.

She didn’t like the end part as much as the touching and kissing, but he sure did, and he was experienced, so it must just be that she didn’t know how to do it right yet. And when he told her, “That was so great. You’re so beautiful, baby,” her heart swelled with gratitude and pleasure, and she thought, So this is how love feels.

She didn’t tell anybody except Nicole. She had to tell Nicole, in case her mom checked in. Nicole thought it was romantic, that she was daring, and so did Jennifer. She felt, for once, more knowledgeable and older than the other kids, worldly wise in a way they couldn’t be.

“People act like virginity is some big deal,” she told Nicole after the first time, “but I don’t feel any different, except that maybe I understand what