The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,15

to make sure nobody would find out. I’d established some of my own—nothing but kissing, and everything we did or talked about stayed between us. I also found that I could be honest with him in a way I never was with my other boyfriends. I knew that whatever I told him, he would keep to himself. Our situation was what I’d once heard Peter describe as “mutually assured destruction.” We knew too much about each other, and we both had too much to lose for either one of us to say anything.

When we both started dating people, these ground rules grew to include that we never did anything when either of us was with someone. Which meant we could go months without seeing each other. But it had become something that I’d gotten pretty reliant on.

I looked down at my phone again and realized that it was now safe for me to join him. I crossed through the living room and headed toward the basement, making sure to lock the door behind me.

Sometimes, making out with Topher was like quenching a thirst, and sometimes it just made me thirstier. Thankfully, tonight it was the first one. After we’d been kissing for a while, the intensity faded and our kisses grew slower and more lingering. I broke away and rested my head on his chest, and he smoothed my hair down absently with one hand.

I looked up from the couch where we were lying. This seemed to be more like a converted garage than a basement, with the couch and TV jockeying for space with workbenches and tools. Someone in Kevin Castillo’s family was clearly really into cars—there were three in the basement/garage and two more covered with tarps, tools stacked neatly next to them. I looked at the one nearest to us—a red vintage Mustang, and felt a sharp pang, the way I always did when I saw one. My mother’s had been yellow, a ’65 convertible that had been her pride and joy. But I hadn’t seen it in years—I assumed that it had gone wherever all her things had gone, either sold or to storage somewhere. All I did know was that when I moved into the new house, there was no trace of my mother in it.

I turned my back on the Mustang and ran my hand over the fabric of the couch. “This was surprisingly comfortable,” I said, and heard Topher give a short laugh.

“Well, it’s no laundry room.” I pushed myself up slightly to look at him, and he smiled as he pulled a lock of my hair forward, winding it around his finger. “I was thinking about that night a few days ago, actually.”

“Were you?”

“Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Just about how lucky we were.” This made me sit up a little straighter, and I looked him in the eye, starting to get nervous, worried that he was suddenly changing the rules on me. “Lucky because we didn’t get caught,” he clarified, and I felt myself relax.

“We really were.” It was three years ago, but I could remember so clearly what it had been like—the thrill of my first real party, then the flashing lights streaking in through the window and my utter panic when I realized that not only was I in trouble, but I might have wrecked my father’s career. I was desperately searching for an exit in the chaos, and then, out of nowhere, was Topher Fitzpatrick, taking my hand in his. I didn’t know him—we went to different schools, and I’d said only about five words to him the year before, at an event at the governor’s mansion. But I saw in his eyes the exact same thing I was feeling—the paralyzing fear that comes with knowing just how high the stakes really are. He leaned closer to me to be heard above the noise of people running, panicking, bottles and glasses breaking as everyone tried to get out, and fast.

“Want to get out of here?” he’d asked. I nodded, and he held my hand tighter as we ran through the house. He stopped in front of a door that I would have run past and pushed it open. It was a laundry room, a tiny space with a folding table, a stacked washer and dryer, and barely enough room to turn around. Topher pulled me inside, and we shut the door behind us and stood in the dark and waited.

We weren’t discovered right away, and after a few minutes