The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,129

looked over to see Palmer shaking her head at me. “Alexandra. You are so far gone.”

• • •

I was beginning to understand what Palmer, and even Bri, had been talking about now. My boundaries, the ones I’d once clung to so fiercely, had long since vanished. Now I was the one moving us forward, while Clark would stop, his eyes searching mine in the darkness, asking me if I was okay. If I was sure. And with every new threshold we crossed, it was getting harder to remember just why I’d clung to all those rules in the first place. When I could think about it clearly—always after the fact, my brain no longer gone fuzzy at the sight of Clark and the feel of his hands on me—I would realize that it wasn’t a coincidence it was happening now. It was Clark. I trusted him, and I knew him, and it made me wonder, every time we stopped, just why we weren’t going forward. And as I started to care very little for anything that wasn’t the two of us, alone in the darkness, it fell to Clark to pick up the slack.

“Your curfew’s in thirty minutes,” Clark said, breaking away from kissing me, his voice breathless, as he squinted at his digital watch, the glow from the tiny screen the only light in the room.

“Such a long time,” I said, running my fingers over his arm, which was propped above me.

“Your dad got super mad last time,” he reminded me, even as his head started to dip down toward mine.

“He got over it.”

“We’ll have to find your bra.”

I waved this away. “Details.”

“And my shirt.”

“You shouldn’t ever wear one of those,” I said, running my hand over the ridges of Clark’s abs. “Why cover this up?”

“Fine,” he said, pushing some buttons on his watch; they made a little beep! sound, like he’d just programmed the world’s tiniest microwave. “Ten more minutes. But then I have to drive you home.”

“Sure,” I said, stretching up to kiss him as he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me close, my skin against his. “Sounds like a plan.”

• • •

“I think she’s getting over him, don’t you?” Bri asked me from across the diner booth.

I started to nod, then hesitated when I realized I had no idea who she was talking about. “Um, remind me again?”

“Toby,” Bri said in the extra-slow way my friends had taken to speaking to me these days. “Getting over Wyatt?”

“Oh,” I said, reaching to snag one of the mozzarella sticks we were sharing. I knew I hadn’t been totally paying attention recently, but even I knew this didn’t sound right. “I’m not so sure about that.” Bri nodded and looked down at the paper place mat in front of her, like she was studying one of the ads for the local businesses printed on it. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Bri said, taking a mozzarella stick of her own. “I just was hoping that Toby was moving on. It’s not good for her, especially when he told her he wasn’t interested.”

“I think she just needs time,” I said with a shrug.

“Or,” Bri said, sitting up straighter, “I need to fix her up with someone!”

I winced. Bri liked to think she was a great matchmaker, but she was absolutely terrible at it. After we’d all been burned a few too many times, we’d made her swear that she was done with it. “What about the oath you swore that you would never do that again? Remember, the one you took after the mullet guy?”

Bri waved this away and shook her head, looking determined and now much more cheerful. “These are extreme circumstances,” she said. “Trust me. It’s a great idea.”

• • •

“Hold on,” Clark said, sounding half out of breath as he fumbled with one hand behind him, trying to find his bedroom doorknob.

“Holding,” I said, and I leaned down to kiss him, even though I knew I was making the situation worse. We’d been on the couch when I’d decided that I couldn’t stand it any longer—I was getting a crick in my neck, and the fabric of the cushions was scratching my skin. It just seemed crazy that we were putting ourselves through that when there was a perfectly good, unused bed right down the hall.

We hadn’t stopped kissing as we walked, and even though I knew it was probably slowing us down. Clark was half carrying me, my legs wrapped around his waist, as he finally opened the door