agreed to this date so quickly. I don’t even really remember him asking, and I’m not sure where we’re going. But I said yes, and Shay won’t clue me in on the destination I flaked on hearing. She says it’s better I don’t know, so I can “feel how kismet this all is.”
I told her she wasn’t using the word quite right, to which she relied … yeah—“kismet!” The only clue she let me have was that I needed to be comfortable, which doesn’t narrow things down much. I settled on my dad’s old Ball State fraternity shirt and my favorite cropped jeans with a pair of Vans, my shoe choice admittedly influenced by the ones Hudson wore the day before.
The visual of Caleb’s Mustang rounding the corner and heading down my street is perfect irony. As it slows to a crawl right at the end of my driveway, I remind myself that it’s not Caleb in the driver’s seat. I’ve watched this car peel out of our high school lot with Abby in the passenger side so many times, and I’ve sat on the steps of my porch and imagined it pulling up to my house just as it is now.
Hudson steps from the driver’s side and jogs around the front of the car to open my door for me before I can reach the handle. It’s sweet. I blush a little when he kicks the toe of his white Vans into the rubber edge of mine.
“Excellent taste in colleges and footwear. We have a lot in common,” he says.
“Kismet,” I blurt out, all wide eyes the moment my face is out of his view. I cannot believe I said that!
Hudson gets in while I buckle, and I let myself glance at him as he fastens his belt and shifts to drive. His faded light-blue jeans and white hoodie make him look as if he stepped straight out of the Abercrombie catalogue. He’s wearing a Cardinals hat today, the wavy ends of his hair poking out of the back of his navy-blue cap. He isn’t chewing gum, but I smell the wintergreen evidence he left behind. Gum was in that mouth recently.
I wonder if he’s hoping to make out.
I look down at my tethered hands and pressed-together knees at that thought. I guess it wouldn’t really be our first kiss sense I sort of got that out of the way already, but the thought seems so forward now.
My ears boom with my pulse as we idle up to the first of what could be many stoplights. I wish I knew where we were going. I search for clues in my immediate area, glancing to the console to my left and the cracks of the seat on both sides. I slide my feet around slowly, pretending to stretch, but I’m really feeling around for something. Kites, maybe? Though the trees are perfectly still outside. A billboard for a new community being built on the outskirts of town sparks an idea.
“You know where you’re going? I mean…sense you’re new around here and all?” I force a calm smile on my lips, but underneath it all, I’m begging for him to slip. A few seconds pass of Hudson staring into the intersection ahead, his eyes hazed as if he’s thinking about it, but when the right side of his mouth begins to lift, I know I’m screwed.
“You don’t know where we’re going, do you?” He’s spot on. I lie.
“No! I mean, of course I know. Psh.” This is the most obvious way to lie…ever. My mastery of deceit is basically the equivalent of a five-year-old’s. The one thing I do know for sure is that if I look him in the eyes right now, I’ll crack and give myself up completely. Why my head turns, I have no idea.
Damn it!
“I knew it! You weren’t even listening when I asked, were you?” He slaps the steering wheel a few times as his laugh grows louder. “It’s kinda flattering, actually.”
“Not really.” My head turtles into my shoulders. I would really like temporary narcolepsy right now so I could just nap in a blink.
“Oh, it is! I mean, you agreed to come hang out with me and you had no idea about the cool thing we’re about to do! That means you agreed because…”
Don’t. Say. It.
“Kismet!”
Shit!
I roll my eyes, but the strength of my blush pushes my cheeks up into round apple-like balls. I shift in my seat and scour the car for more distractions,