doing, but I really hate not talking to you.”
“Wow, okay.”
“Or we can make small talk.”
“No, stop,” he says, holding up a hand. “Don’t do that. Don’t put the wall back up—please. Just … give me a second. I’m trying to sort it all out. Why would you think it didn’t mean something to me?”
I lower my camera and look at him. “Did it?”
“You first.”
“I already went first.”
One corner of his mouth lifts. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and glances across the street at the half-timbered historical houses that face the harbor. “Okay. Maybe it did. Yes. It did … unless we’re talking about different kinds of ‘something’ that it meant, in which case I’d like to change my answer.”
A swell of emotion catches me off guard, and I’m surprised to feel my eyes welling up. Oh no—Temper Tears. Those stupid, out-of-control, I-want-to-punch-something tears.
“Josie! Hey, I was just joking.”
“These are tears of frustration,” I say, swiping at my eyes and getting myself under control. Ugh. I turn my head away and pray my mother doesn’t see this.
“Are you mad at me?” he asks in a softer voice.
“I’m not—” My voice breaks. I clear my throat and blow out a hard breath. There. Better. “I’m not mad. I’m confused,” I explain. “You kissed me, and then you left me hanging in the breeze, and I didn’t know what was happening. I didn’t know if you’d changed your mind, or if you’d hated it, or felt guilty or if it was terrible—how am I supposed to know? I’ve never kissed anyone before … not really. Not like that.”
“What? Come on.” His face is contorting into strange expressions. He makes a sound that’s almost a laugh, but not quite. Then he blinks at me. “You’re serious.”
I hesitate and glance across the street at our apartment windows. Mom’s silhouette is gone, but then reappears. She’s still checking on us. Lucky sees it too and swears colorfully under his breath.
“This is ridiculous. Listen to me,” he says in a calm voice. “You’re taking photos—that’s all. Now we’re going around back to finish the job. Okay? Come on.”
I follow him through the alley, his heavy boots crunching the occasional piece of loose gravel, until the harbor comes into sight, and we turn the corner into the back of the boatyard.
“Do you want a picture of the bays open or closed?” I ask, trying in vain to put the invisible wall back up now that we’re alone, because I’m suddenly very scared of what we’re going to say to each other.
“That was just to get away from Winona. Forget the damn pictures,” he says in exasperation, standing in front of me on the stained concrete as gulls squawk in the distance. “Just talk to me, okay? Were you serious?”
“About what?”
“What you just said.”
Oh. That. I lean back against a short brick wall that sticks out between the mechanic bays and the alley, tapping my camera against the leg of my jeans. “Why do you want to know? Because it’s weird that I’m seventeen and you’re the first person I’ve made out with?”
He pushes hair out of his eyes and says, “It’s not weird.”
“Then why? Because it was bad.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I was bad.”
“No.” Dark eyes meet mine. “Definitely no. All the noes in the world baked into a giant cake and covered in no frosting.”
I smile and scrunch up my face. “Okay.”
“It was amazing,” he says.
I exhale. “Okay, good, because I thought so too. I mean, I have nothing to compare it to, but I’ve had some really tempting offers—like, Big Dave on a daily basis.”
“Don’t make me serve time for murder, because I would chop him up into pieces.”
“That sounds super protective.”
“Too protective?”
“No.” I shake my head. Then I whisper, “What are we doing, Lucky? If it was so good, then why didn’t you text me? Is it because we’ve made a terrible mistake?”
“Because—” He scrubs the back of his neck furiously. Turns around, paces a couple of steps, and then returns. “Because of Los Angeles. You aren’t staying here in Beauty, Josie. I’ve known that since I saw you looking at flight schedules in the Nook when you first came back into town. I can’t go through it again. I can’t … I can’t lose you all over again.”
“I don’t want to lose you, either.”
“And what we’re doing now? Josie … this is adding a whole other level to things. It’s going to hurt.”
“I know that,” I say, my voice getting smaller.
“But …